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I am so excited that we have booked our flights back to New Zealand for winter.  We had planned to continue living between New Zealand and Australia after Ivy was born, but a great year-round job opportunity came up for us and we only managed 6 weeks last year.   This year, although it will still only be 2 months, we will have our usual life back! 

We even have our beautiful little house back, albeit in a different, renovated and extended state!  I’m so happy, I LOVE this house, it is where I got pregnant, found out I was pregnant and loved the first few months of having my little girl in my belly.  It is also where we lived while we planned our wedding and where all of my family came to stay with us for our wedding.  It is the happiest little house.  I can’t wait to be back there, have Ivy there and to spend lots of time together as a family.

I love pulling back the bedroom curtain to see that everything is white.  Snow days are the best.  No work, no school, there is such an excited and happy vibe in the air.

I was thinking today about a particularly amazing time in my life, when Brett and I were starting another of our adventures, completely and utterly care-free and so happy.  It was very early morning, as we’d slept in the ute the night before and woken to a view that would have to be seen to be even remotely comprehended.  We’d headed off, sitting together in the bench seat sharing one earphone each of my iPod, sipping hot coffee from of our freshly made thermos.  The anticipation, love and happiness of that moment will be something I will remember forever. 

I then thought about my life now, so different, but exactly where I would have hoped to be if I had have thought at that moment where I would like to be in 5 (or so!) years time.  I have so much more that I want, but that is part of the journey and excitement of it.  I still share my days with the same amazing person who looks at life in the best of ways, but now he is my family.  I have the most beautiful, clever, friendly and adventurous little girl who is my world.  I love my little 120 year old house, I did the first minute we drove past it.  We have so much to look forward to and I feel so happy and lucky to have my simple and humble, but still very exciting life.

Here is our other home and part of what makes my life so happy.

This was my first sight of Lake Wakatipu, Cecil & Walter Peaks.  I still had my backpack on at this point, straight off the bus, with no idea where I was going to stay or where my journey would lead.  I couldn’t have imagined what lay ahead or how special this place would become to me.

This is the view from our Queenstown “office”.  This is what we look at all day when we teach people to snowboard.  It doesn’t matter how many years you see it for, it still takes your breath away.

We’re very excited to go back.