January 12^th

Morning in Queenstown. Mark went for a run and found our activity for the day. We drove about three minutes to the lakefront and followed it into the center of town where there was an art fair going on. Then we followed our noses to an ice cream shop and then to the water’s edge because it was time to, you know, bring out the wooden boats. It was a leisurely day spent doing whatever we felt like doing next and those days are always easy because the focus is mostly on finding things the kids will enjoy. We went for a good hike along the lake outside of town and enjoyed more wooden-boat-floating. Dinner at a fabulous Thai restaurant and then I went to an internet café while Mark and the kids learned to play rugby in the park and fed the seagulls. Touch-rugby sounds like a very fancy game of keep away. But I’m sure there’s more to it than that.

January 13^th

I got to go for a lovely long run to start my birthday off right. The morning was spent distracting myself from thinking about the clock as I was both very excited and very nervous about my sky-diving date in the afternoon. Since I already told you about that, I’ll skip over it to the evening. We had a booking at a sushi restaurant for dinner and along with their having spicy tuna (even though Japan doesn’t DO spicy sushi) we also got to order our own rolls the way we are accustomed to in the US and the food was exquisite. After dinner they brought over a luscious chocolate cake (that Mark said he didn’t order) and sang to me. And they gave me a little birthday gift when we left. It was very special. Mark ate the cake because the kids and I had our hearts set on ice cream which we fetched after dinner. Then we hung out and watched a highly entertaining street performer with about 150 other folks. It was a great birthday even though I didn’t get to see any of my friends. I missed you.