Sorry it has been so long since we have done a post! I had no clue that the last one was in June! Whoa. Well to give a quick update of what we have been up to...
The beginning of July, we drove off to Coramandel, NZ for our one year anniversary! I cannot believe we have been married a year now! We spent an extended weekend in a place that completely reminded us of our honeymoon. It was bliss. We went to Cathedral Cove, which has a beautiful beach and amazing rock formations that are unforgettable; dug a hole in hot water beach to sit in at low tide, and did some discovering of the town of Coramandel. We had the best weekend and still cant believe how far our lives have come since that wedding just over a year ago.
At the end of July, we got the great pleasure of spending two weeks with my brother and sister-in-law Justin and Gina. They came and visited us, and we did a lot of site seeing in and around Auckland. We also went to Rotorua for a weekend, with a site trip to Waitomo to the caves to see glow worms. By far the coolest adventure we have had in NZ. If you ever come to NZ, go to Waitomo and do the glow worm caves! I cant remember half the things we did while they were here, but to name some. we went to Piha Beach, Waiheke Island where we did lots of wine tasting, and saw dolphins on the ride over! That was really cool, and Matty's and my first time seeing them. We also explored Auckland city, showed Justin and Gina the church we have found here, went to Hunua Falls, and did some amazing hikes in those park regions, went and saw Harry Potter in gold class (a very cool and expensive experience haha), luged and zorbed in Rotorua, did the Waitomo caves, and probably more haha! We had such an awesome time with them, and we miss them so much already!
Right before Justin and Gina came over, we got the news that Matty's work wants to keep him, and he signed a contract to stay with them until the end of July next year. So here's the big news in this one; we are staying in New Zealand until mid next year! We are excited because we love NZ, and we havent seen enough of it. We also have some really great friends over here that are all extending their contracts as well, and we arent ready to say goodbye to them either. We are getting ready to go through the visa extensions, so its not official yet, but that shouldnt be too hard. Our old contract is up at the end of next month, which is so hard to believe that we have been in NZ almost 11 months now. We arent ready to leave, but we do miss family a lot! We are happy to say that we will be making the 13 hour plane ride home for Christmas for two weeks! We are so excited to see all of our family, and be in Reno for 2 weeks! We cant wait to see you all! Mark your calenders.
I would have done some blogging after Justin and Gina left and when we got this news, but we also ran into some computer problems. Our laptops were not working well with us, but we got a new one once my parents came to visit us, which was for two weeks! They came at the end of August and just left last Thursday. It was really wonderful to see them since it had been 10 months! We had another wonderful two weeks with family, and it went way too fast! I cant believe they are gone already. We did a ton of exploring around Auckland city, saw the city getting spruced up for the Rugby World Cup coming to New Zealand, went to church, went to Piha Beach, did some hiking, went to Devonport, which is a cute little town outside of Auckland, took a ferry to Tiritiri Matangi Island, which is a bird sanctuart. We saw some really great birds there, saw some baby lambs!, hung out with our good friends Mo and Matt Dearing, went to Hawkes Bay in the middle of the North Island, where we did some wine tasting and site seeing of the beautiful country, and my dad even got to be a part of the Auckland Mustang Owners Club, where we got treated like a celebrity. All-in-all, it was a great way to end the time of visiting family, at least for 2011. If anyone wants to come visit us, we are open :) We miss you all already.
It is usually really hard to say goodbye to family, knowing it will be a while again before we see you all again, but this time was meant to be the hardest, because my parents are the last ones coming. But the blow was lessened with the coming of the RWC 2011 to Auckland. My parents left September 8th, and the opening ceremony was September 9th, and only a 10 minute walk from our apartment. I had a lot on my plate, and we had a LOT to look forward to. We have never lived in a city that hosted anything this big, and we hardly even know what rugby is living in the USA, so this was extra cool for us. We got to follow a new sport! The opening ceremony was really cool, albeit extremely packed and crazy! We had a lot of fun, and got to see some really cool fireworks, and the opening match that we watched from a friends place. We also got the great opportunity to go watch a match in person! We saw Australia v Italy, where we became honorary Aussies for a day. All of our friends that we went with are Aussie, so we had to cheer for them :) It was so much fun, especially since it was my first professional sports game ever! Too much fun! Yesterday was also USA's opening match against Ireland, and although we didnt see it in person, we got to cheer them on on the anniversary of 9/11 (in NZ anyway). We olayed a good game, but still lost. Good job USA!
Thats what we have been up to, and I am in the process of uploading pictures for you all to see of the things we have been up to, but you can find me on facebook to see them too. We love and miss you all and Im looking forward to keeping up the blog again!
Carla and Matty
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