Smiles from high places

Greetings to all our chums around the globe! (that's right, i said 'chums'. deal with it.) We would like to introduce you to the 2 newest members of our family; bike 1 and bike 2. We picked up these lookers at a K-Mart special and thought they went well with our van (whom we've affectionately named Po-Bling, after a certain fabulous friend of ours). They are, yes, MATCHING bikes... and we barf non-stop every time we ride them because of that fact. In matching windbreaker outfits. These puppies are a godsend to both of us; Tys gets to ride her sillies out and char gets a bike ride's amount of movement free time to read her little heart out. Sanity bikes, we call them.

Jen's latest adventure idea was to go 'caving'. She now owes me a LOT of museum time, let me tell you. This 'caving' business began with a 30 meter decent into the cave. We touched down into the freezing, rubber boot flooding water that we'd be wading through or floating in for the rest of the 4 hour adventure. Somehow, i have always had the mysterious feeling that in deep caves, much like in the deepest jungle or the highest mountain, there are magical places and wonderous beings just swirling around waiting to be discovered. At the very least, an ice cream stand. NOT SO. In caves there are rocks, and very cold water, and more rocks and colder water. And some eels that are waiting to either bite you or be stepped on. THAT IS ALL. The rock climb up from the cave to middle earth was the best part... but would definately have been easier if our fingers weren't frozens solid!!

A super AMAZING WIKID adventure was yesterday at a huge obsticle course... We walked on a log, a tight rope, and to Jen's horror, a rickety wooden swinging bridge. And these were all about 20 meters above the ground!!! The scariest was one activity where we had to climb up a hydro pole, stand on the round part (which, for those of you who have never tried standing on a hydro pole, it barely fits both feet and sways when you're at the top) and proceed to jump from that little pedistal (20 meters high) to a trapese hanging about 4 feet away. TERRIFING!!!! But we both did it; did them all! (backwards AND forwards for a couple!) I guess that sorta made up for the caving. A little.

The views and the beauty of New Zealand is constantly breath taking. We visited a 2000 year old tree in a forest; it takes more than 8 people standing in a circle with arms stretched out just to reach around it! That tree possibly knew Jesus! Now THAT'S old skool. The people from here are warm and friendly and super helpful if you've got a van with a back door that won't open. They remind me of Manitobans!

As it turns out, although the vagrant unemployed life in a van suits us just fine, we've both started missing our peeps quite a lot. (and our cats too, for that matter.) So werd up to all you people we love... *smooches!*