It's been too long...

Ok, so it's been a LONG time since my last post. To be brutally honest I just haven't been into the internet cafe all that much. I'll give you all a brief run down of how i've been spending the last few weeks in NZ.

After my parents left NZ, Russ and I took off on a 4 day 3 night trek over the mountains from Queenstown. We followed the Routeburn trek out toward Milford Sound and followed the Caples trek back. The Routeburn was very beautiful and we had great weather. On the Caples trek we had lots of rain and ended up getting very muddy on the last day. However, we did get to fish a little bit on the Caples river and I hooked into a large brown trout but failed to land him. :-(

After treking around the mountains for several days I took a bus north to Nelson. Nelson is the new home of two of my favorite Kiwi's... Kris and Bruce. However, after an entire day on the bus I landed in Christchurch for the night. Christchurch is an intersting little city. It's very flat and walking or biking anywhere in the city is very easy. It's down town is filled with a great big church and fun little market. The surrounding streets strech out with the typical shopping boutiques and bakery's. It even has a small creek flowing through the center of town. Apparently Christchurch has a 1 to 10, park to building ratio ordinance which keeps it a very friendly looking city.

Next day I got back on the bus and headed off for Nelson. Kris and Bruce and their new baby girl Ayva were all their to greet me with open arms and great big smiles. Nelson was a cute little town nuzzled up against the norther point of the south island. Apparently Bruce and I can't get anything done when we are talking, so I was banned from talking to Bruce while he was supposed to be packing and getting ready to go to Hamner Springs to meet up with the rest of the family. After a few days of loafing around and basically bullshitting... we headed down to Hamner springs to meet everyone else.

Once we arrived in Hamner Springs it was all about Christmas... or as Christmas as it could be without snow, decorated pine trees, ginger bread cookies, or snow men. The sun was out and people were everwhere, going for walks, fishing, playing Tennis, and bathing in the famous Hamner Springs ( very warm and pleasent). After far too much fun, and goofing around with Russ and I headed out for a Christchurch again.

Here I sit, my last night in NZ with nothing better to do then write to all of you people. Speaking of all you people... MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! I miss you all very much and hope you had a wonderful 2006! Hope to hear from you all soon!

That's a BIG FISH!

Ok, here is a pic of me and the biggest fish I've gotten a picture of :-P By and large the biggest brown trout I have ever landed with a fly rod. By the way, he took a small pheasant tail nymph on 4x tippet. That's only 5 lbs test - and he weighed in just over 5 lbs. :-D Not bad fishing if I may say so myself.

Homesick...

Trevor asked me the other day if I was homesick yet... At the time, I wasn't doing bad at all. I was out fishing and skydiving, but today, we went for a drive in the mountains. As I sat on the edge the edge of the creek I was thinking about Amy. (This might get sappy, so all of you that don't like that sort of stuff stop reading now)

Anyways, as I sat on the edge of the mountain stream I was thinking about Amy. The sun was beating down on my back and warming me all the way through. It made me think of the cool summer night, when Amy and I would sit out on her porch and would watch the sun set.

I miss watching baseball games in the summer heat, down at the bucks field, having a cold beer...
I miss coming home to a freshly cooked meal (thanks to bunny) and a big smile from Nick...
I miss watching anime with the guys...
I miss playing games online with Walter and Kevin...
But most of all I miss your arms around my neck Amy, and a goodnight kiss...

- Thinking of you -