Arizona Visit

*We had a 13 hour layover in Sydney, Australia-seeing the Opera House in person was super neat!

The above pictures describe my Arizona trip thus far.  The pictures speak for themselves..... I love Arizona.  Aynsley's wedding was so fun and spending time in Winslow has been fantastic too.  Thanksgiving tomorrow and El Rancho a few more times I'll be good to go back to Auckland..  Thank you Arizona

Dates are Fun

Kia Ora-we've been on some cool dates lately.  We've made it a priority to go on a date once a week since getting hitched. Below highlights some of the fun things we've done recently:

For Halloween we went to a friend's party.  Turns out we were the only married people there. Note to self: do not ever go to singles ward parties when you are married-Awkward. Besides that minor note we had fun.  I pulled off a cat by simply making a headband with cat ears and borrowing the lovely cheetah shirt you see below.  Put it together with some black tights and smoky eye make up and a cat it is.  Jason got home from work super late so we had to scramble for a costume idea.  Based on the red, white, and blue striped shorts he was wearing with other American looking attire we put my camera bag around his neck and a passport holder on his chest and called him an American tourist.  Too bad we didn't have a fanny pack to spare...

Sky Tower Restaurant-I surprised Jason with an awesome date night.  I wanted to show him my appreciation with how hard he has been working at school and work, along with a celebration for the end of his semester.  We had reservations on top of the Sky Tower's revolving restaurant. The view was amazing and the menu was super fancy. We could see Rangitoto Island, the Harbour bridge, and the open ocean all from our table.  We also got free access to view the observation decks.  (For the American reader, think Space Needle or Stratosphere but taller and that is the Sky Tower) Picture below shows us waiting to get on elevator up to dinner

After work one day we went on a random date to the Auckland Museum. The museum is HUGE and actually looks like the White House!  There was an awesome orchid exhibit and of course I loved all the New Zealand cultural stuff.  Perhaps our favorite part of the museum was the war history room.  It had tons of New Zealand flags which we made a big deal of since we have an ongoing contest to count the number of flags we see here.  All I can say is Americans love their flags! We used to count 20 flags in one block back home...now if we see 20 kiwi flags per week we're thinking it's alot.  There was a memorial for all the allies in the WWI and II so appropriately we took pics next to our flags. 

here I am Loving the Scent Station in the Orchid exhibit.

poor guy, he always ends up holding my purse somehow....that weird thing behind him is a giant tiki carving

a Proud Kiwi

representing for the USA

Speaking of the USA, we'll be there in just 9 DAYS!!!! We're stoked to be back for Aynsley and Andrew's wedding along with Thanksgiving! Pumpkin Pie, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans Here I Come!