Homebound

Saturday and again we slept in! James wasn't staying in the cabin so we could ditch the ear pluggs :). Our drive home was pretty uneventful with only a brief stop in Pokano at the famous 12 scoop ice cream shop to get our last treat before arriving back in Auckland. The van ride back was super nice because we picked up another car that James was driving back home so we could spread out over three cars instead of just two. It was only about a 4 hour drive back home and boy was it nice to set my suitcase back down on my bed at Julie's. Funny, I'm so tired of living out of a suitcase/backpack and yet even at Julie's I'm still kind of living out of my suitcase. I guess I'm just grateful that I don't have to repack it every day and move it across the country with me.

Julie and Beau weren't home right we when got back but they pulled up pretty soon thereafter. Beau had made welcome home signs for us and he laid them all across my bed. He was so cute giving us big hugs as soon as he saw us and he kept saying "You're back! You're back!"Julie made us a wonderful dinner (we had also missed her cooking!) and we spent the next little while telling her all about our adventures. We also spent most of the afternoon catching up on our laundry... you don't want to know when the last time was that I had washed some of my clothes...

That night Camilla invited us to go to the Chinese Lantern Festival, which sounded really cool but I opted out. I was already pretty tired from everything that we had done plus unpacking plus early church the next day so I stayed home. But Sara went. I think it was a good idea that I stayed behind because they didn't get home until after 11:30 and I had already been asleep for over half hour by that point. Plus sometimes it's just nice to have time to yourself after being with a group of people virtually 24/7 for over two weeks. :) I can't believe the south island trip is over! Boy was it a great one! Now I'll just have to go through and sort out all of my photos :).