A Good Cleanse

We've been doing quite a bit of decluttering since we've been home. Since we live in a small space, a year or two of accumulating THINGS makes a big difference in how I feel about our small space! Both Adele and Ceci grew a few inches while we were away, so their clothing got a good weeding. Geoff and I tackled our room, which was quite a disaster. Closets are thinning out, and so are cupboards. It always feels so good. I'm the only minimalist in the house, and we never quite get rid of enough to really satisfy me, but I'm learning to take what I get!

I also finished up an 8-day cleanse last week, a decluttering of my body. We didn't eat very well during a good portion of our travels, and I felt like I wanted a fresh start. Aside from a nutritional drink that I could drink at any time, the first four days I could only eat a handful of vegetables. Whenever I go off of animal products I feel horrible for three days - massive blood sugar issues, but after that, I feel great. So not only did I feel like my body was eating itself, because I was so hungry, I felt lousy at first. I then could add a non-gluten grain to my vegetables once a day during the last four days. I craved everything. I thought about food constantly. I swore I would never do it again! But I stuck it out, and by the end I felt so clean and strong. Not strong in the physical sense  (because I was still so hungry) but I felt strong, like, in control. I realized that I was controlling my body instead of my body controlling me. That was a powerful feeling for me. It was interesting to notice my relationship with food. Here was my favorite recipe during the cleanse:

I chopped up two green onions, one celery stalk and a handful of spinach, and mixed it with about 3/4 cup of wild rice. I drizzled the most amazing olive oil we brought back from Israel, sprinkled it with a little salt, and voila, an easy, delicious lunch/dinner.

Since the cleanse I've been trying out all sorts of plant-based recipes. Some are a hit and some don't pass the family judges. Overall, I'm trying to minimize animal products and increase vegetables, just to see how I feel. Since I do most of the cooking around here, the whole family is along for the ride.

My children are such good sports.

Questival

The weekend after we returned home, Geoff and Adele saw a sign for Questival, a Cotopaxi adventure/challenge scavenger hunt, the night before the event. They rallied local family and our team, Mormor's Questers, was formed.

We went to a kick-off event Friday evening and started on challenges, called it quits early, started Saturday morning with a big breakfast at our house and spent the day strategizing, doing all sorts of crazy things and laughing ourselves silly.

I actually didn't get that many photos, as the challenges had to be videoed. Super bummer, because there were some classic moments, like Em singing a Mentos commercial in Maverik, Hunter eating a WORM, me killin' it as a pioneer in our Utah song to the tune of YMCA, Ceci acting out a scene from The Ten Commandments with our cat Mila as Moses, Nikki competing in a headstand contest (who knew?), Geoff and Ceci doing a Warren Miller "Mental Skiing" video, and so so many more.

 

We met all sorts of other fun teams and people, had a great time walking around downtown and getting to know this fun city of ours, found some fun new restaurants to check out, and let go of all of the seriousness of life for a day. (No pictures of Britt and Hunter, darn it!)

We've already got our eye on next year...

Meanwhile...During our Three Months Away

Tennie got a taste of independent living while we were away. She lived in our apartment alone, with a meager food budget to work with. Eventually she knew what it was like to eat Ramen like a starving student! But she is so capable and smart and resourceful that she did just fine.

A few things to mention:

Here is Tennie and her friend Christine, ready for a school dance:

Tennie got into BYU!!! She (and we) are so excited! She'll live in Helaman Halls! Woot! Woot!

Geoff's sister Erica and her cute family threw a surprise birthday party and congrats-for-getting-into-BYU party.

Tennie has been having fun with colorful hair lately. She has had blue for several months, but she's giving pink a try right now.

During an Art & Homelessness Intensive at school, Tennie and a group of classmates mingled with SLC's homeless population downtown. They talked with them about their life stories, attended a Thai Chi class offered at the public library for this population, and choose an art project to highlight the experience. Tennie chose to have homeless people create self-portraits. She collected six and displayed them at the school's Celebration of Learning. Here she is at the public library during that time.

She organized her high school's Never Again march, spread the word, presented the idea to school administration and resolved all concerns, and arranged for classmates to give speeches during the walkout. We are so proud of her activism and leadership.

She is a powerful soul.

Tennie rides her road bike to and from school every day. While we were traveling along The Catlins we got a phone call. She had hit a pothole, went over her handlebars and landed on her face. She had hopped up telling her biking partner she was ok, then blacked out. Due to a hole in her lip and the blackout, the school nurse suggested she go to the ER. Geoff's sister Emily picked her up, took her to the doctor, cared for her in her home that night and got her safely to school the next day. In addition to stitches, she had a slight concussion and took it easy for a few days. She was lucky to have been as minimally hurt as she was!

On her 18th birthday, family took her to dinner, making sure she was heartily celebrated.

Neighbors and ward members invited her over for dinner or dropped food on the doorstep regularly. Family did the same. We were SO grateful she was surrounded by caring people who showed so much love and support.

We missed her fiercely, and I think she began to miss us too, even though she loved the freedom and independence of living alone. She was in California with a friend for Spring Break when we got home, but when she walked through the door, in time for conference weekend and Easter, she was mauled with love. It was a very happy reunion!

Christchurch and Heading Home to SLC!

We drove to Christchurch for our last night. We spent a chunk of time reorganizing our suitcases again, for a different airline's luggage regulations. We had a little time to drive into Christchurch. Christchurch was heavily damaged by two earthquakes about ten years ago. Rubble has been cleaned up, but entire city blocks are empty, and many historical buildings are standing with the remains of what wasn't destroyed. It appeared that nothing has been rebuilt, but apparently 10,000 homes were destroyed, and the land they once stood on is now a strange sandy foundation that can't be built on. Maybe they've spent money and human resources on taking care of the displaced families first. Still, it seemed so eery and desolate. While a few cars were on the city streets, we saw very few people. Strange.

We caught a flight early in the morning and traveled for 24 hours, first to Sydney, then L.A. and finally to SLC.

In the last two weeks we traveled about 1777 miles, and that isn't counting detours or around town driving, just point to point on google maps on narrow, windy roads. We stayed in 10 different accommodations in 15 nights. The flight home was long. We were tired and ready to be home.

No pictures. But we made it. Home sweet home!

Mt. Cook & Lake Tekapo

We made our way to Mt. Cook, another location that was not on our initial itinerary but was highly recommended. Queenstown to Mt. Cook was the least scenic of our time in New Zealand, but it is all relative. Often as we passed the beauty someone would yell, "Harmons!" to remind us that in a few days we would be back in a city, in a dry climate where browns dominate and views just aren't quite the same.

Let me pause, though, to say that we really began to see that Utah had similar beauty to much of the alpine beauty we saw in South Island. We gained an appreciation for the beauty we had at home. While different overall, we decided to spend more time exploring Utah's national parks.

The drive approaching Mt. Cook is really remarkable. The lake is an aqua blue from the glacial snowmelt. Geoff must have taken 200 photographs trying to capture it (I know, I just sifted through them all!) In the end he took a picture of a postcard, and it is showing the real deal. No fancy filters or editing.

After getting some warm tea at the lodge, we went on a short hike to get out and stretch our legs before moving on.

You could see where they glacier had carved the valley in the last few decades (the line along the mountains). A new glacier is making its way down (far behind Adele). In the spring and summer there are huge ice chunks floating in this lake! Very interesting to see glacial valleys forming right before us.

Here is the other direction.

And to add a little humor, these signs were in all the public bathrooms on South Island. Made me chuckle after our squatting in Cambodia! I'm so grateful to be back with toilets!!!

We spent the night in Lake Tekapo. This is one of the best night sky locations too. Cloudy. We were grateful to have all seen the sky unexpectedly.

Before pulling out of town the next day we went to see the little church on the lake. I had walked to it from our Airbnb early that morning and was so bummed I didn't have my camera. The sunrise colors on the aqua lake were otherworldly. By the time we went later it was packed with people and the lighting wasn't nearly as good. Still something about the little church on the water was so pure and good.

I loved this sheep dog statue.

On my early morning walk, with the brilliant morning light illuminating the sky, I pondered the sheep dog. We had seen a few in action during our long drives. It was always the same, the sheep dog would lay in attention, waiting for his masters call. Different calls mean different commands. The sheep dog is anxious and alert. At the signal, it races off to complete the task, immediately obedient, then waits for the next command. The sheep comply to the dog's maneuvering, maybe not willingly, but the dog knows what to do. It has learned the wisdom and signals of the master "shepherd". 

We often refer to church leaders as shepherds, and in the Middle Eastern sense, they are. No sheep dogs over there. But with the big herds in New Zealand, they are the standard. I love the image of a sheep dog alert and anxious to obey the shepherd. I love that it knows how to recognize the commands, commands that work. The sheep dog doesn't just run around based on its own knowledge, it only responds to the shepherd's specific instructions. There is so much to learn from this beautiful relationship. I want to be like a sheep dog. Ready. Alert. Jumping to action at the master's call. A reminder for me.

Queenstown

We were definitely in the more touristy part of New Zealand now. Roads were crowded and traffic lights were all around. There were people everywhere, bus loads of asians who have a different understanding of photo etiquette than we do. It also had more restaurant choices, and things were opened until 6:00PM instead of 3:00PM.

We got an Airbnb just outside of Queenstown. For reals, this was our breakfast view.

An evening panoramic...

Queenstown is a ski resort in the winter and playground in the summer. It claims to be the adventure capitol of the world, and it really does have every high adventure you could think of.

We rented bikes in Arrowtown from Arrowtown Bike Hire to ride the Queenstown Trail. But first we walked around Arrowtown, a perfectly well-preserved gold mining town from the mid-1800s. It had a Park City vibe. I wanted to browse the streets for hours, but we didn't have the hours.

This picture below cracks me up. Look at Ceci hanging from the top since she wasn't tall enough!

It was a perfect fall day, ideal for a bike ride.

Irresistible cottage!

Geoff communicated with this goat for about 10 minutes. It made the most hilarious sounds; we couldn't tell if it was scared to death or just super talkative!

We came upon a well-known bungee bridge, the FIRST bungee bridge (for recreation). Man it looked scary! Both of the girls could choose an adventure while in Queenstown, and Ceci, after watching and gaining courage for awhile, decided she wanted to bungee jump. She was the last one of the day. I'm sure I felt enough anxiety for the both of us, but in typical fashion, she didn't even hesitate. Here are the pictures the adventure place provided for us.

She's nuts!

She bounced up and down before the raft at the bottom came to get her and lower her in. She let out a whoop and gave a big wave at the end. She loved every minute.

She jumped 141 feet. With her feet tied.

Queenstown for dinner by the lake.

Adele planned to parasail on a super long line. It looked like so much fun! She was so excited, but the darn weather was whipping up the water. The guy even took us out, set up the sail and explained all the details, but in the end he wouldn't risk it. It would be too rough. We didn't have another day to try, so Adele missed out on her adventure. Very disappointing.

We took a drive to Glenorchy, which was not on our itinerary, but people kept telling us it was a must-see. The drive was along the water, with mountains rising all around. It was beautiful, but it was windy there too!

We were lucky to snap a quick photo of the mysterious lake monster's head...

We stopped to skip rocks for awhile.

It was Palm Sunday while we were in Queenstown. We attended the smallest branch of the church I have ever been to. It had maybe 20 people, max, at least half of us visitors. One family with kids, and they had six!

As we walked through Queenstown we passed by a Catholic church just getting out. They handed us each a cross.

This kicked off our Easter week and devotion. Even though we were on the move and traveling, we still made time to read the events of the eventful, Easter week.