we were always made to be zorbing together

Last week i was showing my friend Rachel my photos from New Zealand. When i got to the ones of zorbing she got super excited and made me listen to this song, needless to say i am hooked and have listened to it about 25 times. (who knew someone had written a song about how two people were made to zorb together, precious).

Zorbing: you do a running dive into a soft plastic ball that has a few inches of warm water in it. They then push you down a zig zag track that is cut out of a hill. If you have amazing acrobatic talents like Lynsey, you will get so rambunctious that you will bounce yourself out of the zig zag track and all the way across the hill. Then you get turned upside down and birth yourself out. weird.

some of us 'birth' a little more attractively than others...

case and point

Though we could have gone rafting instead of zorbing and gone down a 7 meter waterfall, I am pretty happy with my choice of being tossed to and fro like a hamster. We also did one ride with three people. As you can guess it was basically a lot of arms and legs flying every which way.

she got to go down with the two of us, we got all sorts of personal with our limbs flying...

I also found out that they now have a Zorb in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Yes, Sarah and Luke, I am taking your kids on this during one of my next visits. (okay it might have to wait a while, there are height requirements...)

classy

I always like to think of myself as a classy gal. I pride myself in the outfits i create on a daily basis and that i do classy things like seal letters with wax. I enjoy old movies and a good book. I love the way food looks when it is dished up neatly on a plate. I am classy.

However, after looking through all my photos from New Zealand I realized that I make a LOT of unfortunate, less than classy, faces.

And I wonder why I am single...

getting ready to go caving

this is what happens after 30 hrs of travel

lynsey sat on me on the rope swing and i got a rope burn on my thigh, go figure.

okay so i don't look that bad, but Lynsey's face is priceless.

that is what i thought of the stinky boiling mud.

Tim Tam Slam!

nighttime antics.

and my super amazing outfit that i hiked 8 hours in. I didn't know we were hiking and neglected to pack decent hiking attire...

utah hair? in new zealand?

once again another swing accident.

a tim tam thanksgiving

I have fallen in love with many a thing while i have been in New Zealand, so much so, i may never come back to the states. 

one of these newly found wonders is:

Tim Tam cookies

It is actually a Australian creation but i discovered it in New Zealand so i will leave it with that. It is pretty amazing and you can do what they like to call 'the tim tam slam' where you bite the ends off of the cookie and sip hot chocolate through it, then you slam the cookie in your mouth before it melts/disolves. This sounds like a winner of an activity. If i like you enough, you may be one of the few that is invited over for a tim tam slam night (since i will of course be bringing some back since i have ample room in my baggage as my last post indicated.)

In honor of Thanksgiving, i decided to be glutenous with Tim Tams instead of the usual pie (BUT i still need a pie fix, i am thinking i can only safely make it two weeks without the pie i was due today). We also had a turkey dinner, i think by accident, but however it came about, i appreciated it.

And in the true Thanksgiving spirit, here are the things i am currently grateful for (just some, not all of course):

-my hilarious family that is always a fountain of good stories
-a good job that lets me take paid vacations, a good brother named levi would go along with those too
-milo, especially when he wears a sweater and falls asleep on me at work
-tim tams and pie
-education and the fact that i enjoy learning/reading/school
-friends, the good kind that stick around forever
-boys, even if they don't like you back, having crushes is at least entertaining/fun/funny
-home furnishings, the more i apartment shop the more i appreciate good furniture/bedding/linen
-food, all of it (except mushrooms and olives, they are always a bad decision)
-and last but not least, i am thankful that i am happy.

In other news from my trip: i of course had a tiny mishap involving water, long jumping, mud, and my iPhone.

you can probably figure out what happened, but when i get a better internet connection i will add a photo...

packing minimalist

Lets go over my last few hours, shall we?

6:15pm rush home from the dog park with Milo to make it to ward temple night

6:30 decide the line is too long at the provo temple so we drive to the mt. timpanogoes temple.

6:50 arrive at timp to find out they are randomly closed. EPIC FAIL.

7:00 start writing my research paper on Robert Capa (who i may or may not be totally in love with, only if you were still alive, young, and tweezed your eye brows, this could be a beautiful love affair)

8:00 bake cookies to keep me awake

10:00 shower (third day in a row, this is a record. seriously.)

10:30 take a cat nap

11:20 back to Capa

1:00am eat more cookies, drink more coke

3:30 FINISHED my paper

3:31 second cat nap

5:03 edit my Communal

6:45 get dressed/ready?

7:00 finish packing

7:25 go to the library to print off my paper 

7:59 turn in my paper, before the 8am deadline

8:03 go the print lab, print Communal images

8:45 edit Harley Davidson images

9:00 turn in prints and edits

9:30 go to work

11:00 leave for airport

and that is why when i first started packing my suitcase looked like this:

I mean who wants to actually pack after a hellish night like that?!

I have the necesities. 

      Camera (actually two with a few lens etc)

                                                         underwear

                                                                    passport

yup, got it all covered.

Okay, so i did pack a little more. I did add a few shirts, one skirt, my trusty Chacos, running attire, and toiletries. BUT i am still a packing minimalist. When i got to the airport i realized that my bag has tons of extra space, like a lot, like i could fit a small child in there too. does this mean i am forgetting something important?

oh well. i guess that is why God put stores in New Zealand too.

on a different note:

please admire this image that is on the inside of my super industrial camera bag.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

I, unfortunately, do not have any whitey tighties that are hot and steamy, right out of the drier to pack.

well that about sums up my: paper, photography, editing, blogging, working, coke drinking, cookie baking, temple going, dog chasing- day.

now i am off to L.A. (currently i am in Denver), then Auckland, and then Wellington. good think i just recently became one of those people that is dead to the world 15 minutes before take off. (but the flight from SLC to Denver scared the living daylights out of me, i was so out of it that when the plane took off i couldn't remember where I was and about crapped my pants when the plane shot in the air...)