First things first... I am having a baby boy! Wooohooo! I got my visa just in time to fly in last Tuesday and basically go directly from the airport to the medical center where I met up with Amber and got to see the little man on the screen. I thought I might cry when I saw his tiny little heart beating (yes, on occasion I am weepative) but once I saw him, I was so happy... I think I forgot to cry. Well he did put on quite a show for us and left absolutely no doubt that he is indeed a man child. :)

Alrighty, backtracking a little... my stay in NZ ended up being almost 2 months! (that's a long time to be away from the woman you love), but was fortunate enough to have spent that time with the cool people I posted about before. It just so turned out that they decided to take me along on a family reunion ski trip the weekend before my departure. It was so much fun. Here are a few photos of that trip.


I for one had never seen that much snow all at once and among other first time experiences was learning to put snow chains on when we got caught in a blizzard on our way up to the lodge.


We stayed the night at this log cabin and stayed up late playing sleeper and mafia..


We were originally going to go to Mt. Cheeseman but due to the heavy snowfall the day before that particular slope was closed so we ended up going to another slope. I had thought of learning to snow board originally but Amber thought that may be unwise and strongly suggested that I ski instead... heh. This is a picture of the learner's lesson... getting a grip on things. Spent most of the day there but ventured to the intermediate slope you see in the back there. I only lost a ski twice and had no wipe outs thank God... it was a also very windy day and I think that added to the thrill of it all.



I love the way everything becomes so quiet when there is so much snow and I loved the way light reflects off of that much whiteness.



hasta la proxima...