Sunburned Me: Twas 16 "sleeps" before Christmas...Part 1

And the house was all clean.

The guest bedroom was ready,

and luckily no spider was seen...(yet).

I made my way to the airport,

welcome sign in hand.

And waited eagerly for my parents'

international flight, to land.

Here they are!

I waited among the crowd of people, all of us holding our welcome signs and mine a joking family nickname. I hadn't seen my parents in 5 months and after a few meals, a few movies, and an ambien they hopped off the plane looking excited and refreshed! We gathered their luggage and I impressed them with my newly acquired left-side of the road driving skills.

We got going right away to stay on top of the jet lag and started our day with a traditional Australian brunch and took a long walk through the neighborhood and downtown to the market. My parents loved Queen Victoria Market, we tasted cheese and wine (favorite sparkling shiraz) and bought some fruits and veggies. Jet lag started to kick in on our walk home so we made our way to the much needed gelato, and they were revived! We took the tourist bus around town to give them a feel for the city and some history, mum really likes to learn about history, but she fell asleep. 20 hours traveling, 16 hour time difference, and sugar coma, who wouldn’t?! When Jaime arrived home from work that evening we ordered pizza from our favorite pizzeria and enjoyed having the excellent company. It was really nice to see my parents after 5 months and a move across the world, they settled into their little guestroom and it was just like home.

We told my parents to take ambien on the flight over so they could sleep a few hours, which they said worked great. Mum was told to take ambien again the first night in Oz to help with adjusting to the time frame. Mum went to get ready for bed and when she came out, she settled in on the couch with me, as we love to sit and chat. At this point I didn’t know she had taken a whole ambien. About 10 minutes into our conversation she appeared to completely and randomly fall asleep mid-sentence. “The dog was runni…ng…and……” her eyes squeezed shut and her head fell slightly forward. I just watched her for a second thinking she was trying to remember what she was going to say. But when she didn’t say anything else, I started tapping her and saying “mom, mom”. Nothing. Head forward, glasses on, sitting fully upright, and appearing to be fast asleep. Now again, I didn’t know she had taken an ambien. So I began to get a little worried, although it was so bizarre that I couldn’t stop laughing. Jaime was sitting at the table doing work, watching me as I was laughing and freaking out saying, “I don’t know what happened…she won’t wake up!” Jaime told me to check her pulse, but I was having a hard time focusing. Her pulse was low and her breath barely audible and so I was worried my mind was playing tricks on me. My mum doesn't drink much alcohol and never gets drunk, but if she were ever to pass out I would imagine this is what it would be like. I am actually having a hard time writing this because I keep laughing. So after some more shaking and calling her name, Jaime came over and applied pressure to her shoulder, like they do to wake people up after surgery, and she groggily lifted her head and let out a really slow “o….o..o…owww.” I said “mum, you just fell asleep mid-sentence are you ok?” and she said “well apparent…….l…y” and boom…she was out again. So again, worried but unable to stop laughing, we concluded that she took the ambien already and that she probably should have just taken a half. I brought out her pillow and blanket and moved her so she was lying semi-upright, but comfortably, as I was still a little worried, so she could dream away her ambien overdose on the couch.

The next day we toured around Melbourne and passed by Federation Square just before Oprah arrived to say hello! So we didn’t see her in person, but she wasn’t far away. We ate lunch at the BEST dumpling place in Chinatown. The great thing about the ethnic food here is that it really is ethnic. In the US we eat “American Chinese food” here, we eat real Chinese food, real Indian food, real Vietnamese food etc…the same things you would eat if you were visiting the particular country. And it is delicious! I had to learn how to eat the dumplings correctly, you put it on your spoon, dip in your soy sauce with pieces of ginger, then you bite off the top of the dumpling, suck out the broth, and then eat the rest. They are so good and so addicting! Yum!

The next day was Saturday and Jaime had the week off, so we woke up early and began our travels. First stop, Christchurch New Zealand. About a three hour international flight to Christchurch which is on the far east coast of South Island, New Zealand. (NZ is described as North Island and South Island). Christchurch itself was a small city but the biggest city in its region of Canterbury. We had a delicious lunch with the local beer, Monteiths. We had a few hours to check out Christchurch and then we began our drive west for our first night in NZ at a much anticipate (for me) farmstay.

Warwickz Farm was fabulous! Run by a husband and wife team, (she is a true kiwi and inherited the farm from her family). We stayed in the red barn, which was half guest house, and half their little shop/workroom for all things made from wool or alpaca hair.

They had tons of alpacas (related to the llama but smaller), two large Arapawa Island pigs with 5 new little piglets, tons of chickens, roosters, ducks, messenger pigeons, doves, sheep, rabbits and guinea pigs, all with a variety of breeds, a donkey and of course Tracey the angora goat. Tracey was born not too long ago from their resident angora goats, she has been raised by Chris since birth and so she basically follows him around like a dog.

Long-haired pig and her piglets (felt like a paintbrush)

Freshly sheared!

Hungry and curious...

Up close and personal!

One of many bunnies!

Beautiful rare-breed chooks

He loves apples!

I love sheep!

Perfect Easter bunny

Tracey makes her debut! Playing tag with dad.

That night we were greeted by our hosts with wine and fruit cake and were introduced to some beautiful angora rabbits, with really dirty feet!

The angora bunny has to be brushed for two hours everyday to keep her coat smooth and fluffy. She was soft and so warm, perfect for cuddling on a chilly night.

The next morning, we awoke early to the roosters “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” There were two roosters, one young one old, and so the cock-a-doodle doos always came in twos. One sounded normal while the older one sounded like he had just smoked a pack of cigarettes.

Glamour shot

I walked downstairs to my parents room (still in my pajamas) and found them sitting on the bed fully dressed, suitcases packed, talking and giggling. (This is usually how I found them in the mornings, up and ready to go with bright eyes and big smiles!). While Jaime and I got ready, Tracey the goat and Chris set-up breakfast and we ate outside our barn right in the middle of the farm.

Chris and his helper...
This was right before Tracey licked Jaime's cereal bowl.

Breakfast on the farm

After breakfast they took us on a thorough tour of the farm and we met and learned about all the animals. They had some really great stories such as a random finding of a hedgehog family in some chopped wood, a self-made incubator for a special breed of chick eggs when the power went out after the recent earthquake, and a wool shedding sheep that gave Chris such a run around while he was trying to hold him that the whole wool coat came off in one piece in his hands and the sheep kept running. I was really excited to stay at the farm because I really wanted to hug or even shear a sheep. But the sheep were SO dirty that I opted for a hello wave instead. The farm was delightful, we all enjoyed seeing and petting the animals. Jaime was especially good, he didn’t have pets growing up and so he is not too sure about how he feels about animals, but he always ends up enjoying himself and the animals loved him! Chris grabbed a piglet for us to pet and this pig was squealing like a madpig, he was not happy but Chris didn’t put him down, just let him squeal and squeal, but then he passed off to Jaime the hypnotist and immediately that pig looked up at Jaime and went to sleep in his arms. Amazing! He also bonded nicely with Tracey, which definitely helps my case for getting a goat someday (zone permitting!).