One More Sleep...

...or one might call it a nap.  I am leaving for the airport in about 5 hours.  Call me crazy but I waited until the last minute to pack.  It might be because of all the Christmas celebrating I did last weekend and the preparing for my sub next week and preparing for a week of teaching the week I return from the trip.  Or maybe it was because I had other things that I felt were more important like spending time with an important person in my life.  Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above.  Whatever the reason, I am now almost packed.  It's tough to pack for 3 weeks when a lot of my time before and after the cruise will be spent in the air.  I'm not complaining one bit, but it's a challenge.  On shorter trips, I've been known to plan out my wardrobe for each day, but there was no way that my mind was able to even think about doing that this time.  The weather was also a challenge that kept me from packing early.  It is supposed to be colder (in my mind) since it is almost winter, but it hasn't been that cold.  So I was wearing most of the clothes that I needed to pack.  Oh well, I'm packed now and all good :)

I'm really excited about the whole experience of setting foot on another continent....actually I'll be setting foot on two other continents.  Besides Australia, I'll be adding Asia too.  We won't be in Asia too long but it'll be enough time to stay overnight.  I'm excited also about spending the time with my mom.  She is a good travel buddy.....we take care of each other.  She lets me do what I want to do and I let her do what she wants to do.  All in all, we are a good team!

I have been somewhat distracted this evening in the midst of packing by the terrible and horrible news from Connecticut.  My heart breaks for those families and friends of the innocent children and teachers who lost their lives and those who were in the midst of the chaos.  It hits way too close to home.  I want my students to be and feel safe in my classroom and not be afraid to come to school.  I want them to know that I will protect them when they walk in the door and that no one will hurt them or do them any wrong at all.  The fact that someone would do something so horrible to sweet children is so disturbing.  Pray for those families....it's going to be a long road ahead of them.  Pray for the children that lost their best friends, their friends that shared their snacks with them, were in their dance class, or on the same soccer team.  Pray for strength, comfort, and healing.  I know the Lord hears us and knows our hearts.  He wants us to trust Him that He's got this.

With all that being said, I'll blog when I can and update as time allows, and I'll be tweeting probably more often so follow me on twitter (@ka204).  So sit back and enjoy the ride!

a little planning

Our Itinerary 

With summer fast approaching, I know my mom and I will begin planning our Australia/New Zealand vacation.  I keep thinking about how I don't get a big vacation this summer but it's OK because I get a really big vacation in 7 months.  I'm certainly OK with that.

I've been looking at shore excursions a little bit and I get more and more excited each time I look at them.  We have booked a few excursions the other day.  In Dunedin, we booked an excursion to see the penguins....as soon as I saw the description, I knew that was the one we had to book!  In Tauranga (Rotorua), we are doing an excursion called Hell's Gate & Rotorua Highlights.  It includes going to Hell's Gate Geothermal Reserve.  The description of the excursion sounded interesting.  We shall see.  Then in Auckland, we are doing an excursion on the America's Cup yacht.  We've heard good things about it.  There are a few other ports that either don't have excursions available yet for us to book or we haven't decided which excursion to choose.

We did have a change in our itinerary that we were informed of last week.  Apparently Christchurch is not allowing any ships to dock there the remainder of the year, so we will be docking in Akaroa instead.  It's 75 kilometers from Christchurch and apparently the same types of excursions are available but since they never had available excursions shown from that port, I'm not sure what types of excursions will be available.  

We've also booked all of our airfare.  We've got a bunch of different legs of the trip BUT almost the whole time we will be in business or first class, thanks to many many air miles.  We have one flight that is no longer than 4 hours in coach, so I think I will probably manage just fine :)  We have several 10+ hour flights.  I've only been one flight that has been that long, so hopefully I'll be OK.  I can usually sleep on flights and it shouldn't be a problem seeing as how we will have lay down seats most of the time.  We skip a day in there on the way over and then on the way back, our day is like 48 hours long and seems like it's going to last forever.

We've got our hotel booked in Sydney.  Thanks to Capital One Rewards, we were able to book one night before leaving on the cruise using points.  To book the hotel after the cruise, we weren't able to use points but we wanted to stay at the same place, Shangri-La.  We also have to overnight in Shanghai on our way to Sydney.  My mom looked and looked for a good place and finally came up with a nice hotel that had good reviews so she was able to book that using Capital One Rewards.

So, things are coming together and I know it will be here before we know it.  Now if I can just manage to get through the next 4 days of school, then I'll be another year closer to retirement!!! :)  I really don't view teaching that way...I do love it, but it's been a tough year and I will be glad when it is over!