If you’re anything like me, I LOVE seeing everyone’s grad pictures… So if you’d like to see some of mine, here they are!

“An emotional rollercoaster” is how I would describe graduating in this pandemic. One moment plans are made and the excitement begins to grow and the next everything changes. Never having plans that would stay consistent was way harder to deal with than the fact my grad wasn’t the way I expected it to be. And yet, at the end of it all, I can look back and say that this was one of the best graduations ever.

It is ironic really, that my luggage went missing on the Vancouver to Regina leg, but had no issues getting from New Zealand to Vancouver. It is also interesting to note that I have never had issues with my luggage, and my first trip flying with no parents ends with missing luggage. Thankfully, I had all of the baggage tags and we got the issue sorted out very quickly. It was almost a blessing in disguise that my bag was still in Vancouver, because I’m not sure how we would have gotten all of the luggage to fit in the car otherwise!

I’m going to start off by talking about what we did at home for the two weeks before my Mom writes about her amazing, and slightly warmer, adventures because, as I wasn’t there, I don’t think I could do their trip justice.

“Does anyone want to sing?” asked the tour guide at the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. I had been dreading this question but Mom had been looking forward to it, so we put up our hands (some of us more enthusiastically than others) and sang in the cave’s “cathedral”. We “wowed” the other people on the tour with an enthusiastic rendition of O’Canada and the acoustics were amazing! We weren’t allowed to video – which was slightly disappointing but by the end of our national anthem, I may have been enjoying myself…

“AwwweeeeEEEE, wook at da wee wittle wambSSS!!!” This basically sums up our whole trip to New Zealand, so maybe I should begin this post by apologizing to my dad that his three teenage girls were overcome by all of the cuteness as we drove past each pasture full of lambs. Most of the lambs were close to a month old but sometimes they would just look so cute and happy playing in the fields that we couldn’t help but get really high-pitched and gush. Lucky for all of you, I didn’t include any video clips of the squealing…

I wanted to title this “The Trip of a Lifetime” but since I’m desperately hoping I’ll get the chance to return again, I stuck with “Bucketlist Trip” as that truly is what this trip was. Ever since I was young, I’ve wanted to go to New Zealand. It isn’t for any specific reason that I can remember but it was on my bucketlist.

Sometime during October 2018 my dad told me that himself and my mom were going to New Zealand by themselves and not taking us girls. He obviously wasn’t expecting me to burst into tears at that statement or else he would not have sprung it on me while I was driving down the road. Long story short, at Christmas that same year my parents gifted us going on the trip to New Zealand with them. Of course, I promptly burst into tears again – even though I was happy crying this time. Then October 1, 2019 we finally set out on our long-awaited trip; destination: New Zealand!!! Continue reading →

So I’m just going to say “YAY ME” for getting this post up after only a couple of months since we disembarked from the ship…???? Those weeks were very full of travelling and meeting new people – as well as being reunited with some of our old friends.

Our trip started on Valentine’s Day because there is nothing more romantic than spending 15 hours in a car with your family on Valentine’s day, obviously… But it wasn’t all that bad. We have portable wifi in the USA so we put the timer on for one hour and did an hour of homework. Once the timer went off we switched and had “free time” until the timer went off again an hour later. It was an efficient way of getting work done and I finished almost a week’s worth of homework in 8 hours of work – which definitely lightened the stress for the rest of our holiday!

Wow! This post has been a long time in coming, for which I apologize, but after this everything will be up to date and hopefully you’ll be able to receive more regular updates on our lives…????

I woke up one Saturday morning, and was sitting on the easy chair staring out the front window when Mom mentioned Dressember. I remembered seeing something about it on Instagram and decided it was a good cause that needed support and awareness raised. So just like that I committed to a month of wearing dresses and ended up learning a ton in the process! But that isn’t all there is to the story of my November and December months so please – keep reading!????

October was a pretty good month! There were lots of new experiences – some of them were pretty scary at that, but I guess that’s what happens when you live in the country and deer are everywhere.????

I met new people, visited new places, and experienced fresh snow.