Thailand here we come!

We'll I told you I'd keep you up to date on what was going on so... I just printed off our e-tickets for our flight from Singapore to Bangkok. Pretty good deal considering we paid for them using our travel rewards points from our visa. :) We did have to set back our arrival in Canada by a few days because of some complications with re-booking flights but all in all it went pretty smoothly. SO...

We are officially going to THAILAND! Now we just have to work out all the details. For example where to stay how to get there, what to do while we are there, what to do with our 'other' luggage that we don't want to bring with us (like warm clothes!!!!) What kinds of vaccinations and med's do we need that we don't already have and can we get them here without paying an arm and a leg? The list goes on and on.

We have been looking into the idea of taking a train trip. Apparently the train lines there are pretty good way to travel and it would be a good and exciting way to see a country and get to a destination in style. We don't know how to go about getting that set up so we shall see what happens. All John want's to do is go snorkling again (and that's the last thing I want to do) and all I want to do is ride an elephant (which John told me is also lame but I don't care) :) I went out and bought the Lonely Planet book for Thailand and it's been pretty helpful so far.
If for nothing else than to learn about Thailand and get to know what we are getting into (at least a little).

Anyways that's all for now!

Where can we go next?

Well folks, keep your fingers crossed or pray or whatever... I'm in the process of trying to make our flights work out so we can stop over in Thailand on our way home. Right now it's all kind of in limbo as the amazing travel agents at Thomas Cook Duncan pull flights out of thin air. They are honestly amazing. It all gets kinda messy when you try and change your international flights that have been booked for ages, two months before you fly on them. Things are booked up, on these days and not on these... and so on. We're just trying to find a match that works. I'll let you know if it all works out or not, but here's hoping. We'd really love to stop over there but if it doesn't work out maybe we'll just pop over to Australia instead. We'll see! Once you have the travel bug I think it's like a virus that never goes away??? I'm not sure on that but I'm suspecting it's true. It seems wierd that we're looking at the end of our time here. It's gone so fast!

Once we're home we will be heading back to good old Grande Prairie to stay for a while at least???? who knows. We're hearing that housing is pretty crazy up there right now so you can all pray that we get somewhere to stay that's not CRAZY in price (as much as we love our parents for letting us stay with them...) We'll both be looking for jobs as well when we get back.

We'll folks it's a beautiful sunny day here in New Zealand +25 in the shade and I don't want to be inside anymore so I'll tell you more later! :)

Worlds YOUNGEST Shoplifter!!!

So I was thinking that this memory deserves to be posted. The other day in Kathmandu (during the sale) we were really busy and there was a LARGE man who came in with his little girl (about 2 yrs or so). The father had picked an item out and the little girl wanted to hold it. Well the item was no sooner placed in her arms then she turned and ran out the door. The father had looked away for a moment and hadn't really seen her escape route so when the security alarm went off all eye's turned to see who the "theif" was. Instead of some helpless shopper who had been unlucky we all saw this father (who looked like a big security guard) pick up his little girl from out the door and carry her right back into the stoor, stolen item and all. Everyone in the store had a good chuckle, So did I. I hope you will too!

That's all for now.

Good News!!!

So after the crazy mayhem of the first weekend of the Kathmandu Sale has passed, I am still alive, albeit, barely (at some points) and I am now making 50c more an hour! (bringing my pay rate to $11.50/hr) Hows that for cool! My boss told me I was doing such a great job she decided to give me a raise! That seriously made my day! She also told me that even though I was just a couple weeks short of getting the staff discount (you have to be there for more than 3 months) she would give it to me anyways! John's really excited about that and is eyeing up all the really expensive things like Goretex rainwear and -21 down sleeping bags that are regularly $850.00 or so ($320 ish with the discount)

I would like to add that I am officially just a wuss. Here I am whining about my long hours and how tired I am (I'm quite good at that) and I failed to remind myself and all of you that my amazing husband works from 5:45am to 6:00pm everyday with minimal days off that are sparradic at best doing heavy physical labour. The prize for most hardworking husband officially goes to John! :) He also makes $6.50/hr more than me :) so his hard work is ...more rewarding??? shall we say?

Finally some photos :)

So this is going all the way back to John's birthday. This was his cake :) and the next photo is us (with our van) on the beach for John's birthday!! The rest of the photo's are some random shots of our most recent explorations. The one that is hard to see what it is... is a penguin. :)

Kathmandu Easter Sale

Well for the sake of a post I thought I'd let you all in on my crazy work schedule for the next 5 days. The BIG easter sale starts on Thursday the 15th with a members only day and then for the general public on Friday. Well, this means that my hours are as follows

• Thursday: 8:15 am - 9 pm
  
• Friday: 8:30 am - 8:30 pm
  
• Saturday: 8:30 am - 6 pm
  
• Sunday: 9 am - 6 pm
  
• Monday: 8:30 am - 6 pm
  

That makes for a total of 47 3/4 hours over 5 days...standing...on a concrete floor...with insane amounts of people pushing their way around the store...etc...

I'll let you know how it goes. :)

A day off together...

Well, today John and I both had the day off so we hit the town... Our van's warrant of fitness had just about ran out (in New Zealand all vehichles need to pass an inspection every 6 months) so we took it in to get inspected and it only failed on one thing. The balance of the rear brakes. So we took the van to a local shop and got it fixed (for more than we expected...) and finished up the inspection with a new warant :) yay. While we waited for them to fix the brakes we walked around Invercargill. Wandering through the shops looking for... absolutely nothing in particular.

That's not entirely true. I wandered through a lot of "dress" type shops in hopes of finding the perfect "sister-in-law" of the groom dress for the wedding that we will be attending a week and a half after we get home. I haven't found a complete ensemble yet but I'm hoping to get something over here :) Other than that we just wandered around 'browsing'.

When the van was finished we went in search of panel beating shops to get quotes on fixing the side door that was bashed in before we bought it. One guy said it wasn't worth fixing and is supposed to call us with a price on a new door. The other shop hummed and hawed and then gave us a quote of around $1000 to make the door look like new again. YIKES! John will do some calling around to find out if he can get a door himself, but we'll see. We may just have to sell it as it is... bummer. That will most likely make it harder to sell but oh well.

All in all that was our day, it was just nice to hang out together for a day. I've been feeling a tad bit homesick the last little while since we've both been working. Ah well, the big Kathmandu sale is coming so I won't have time to feel lonely pretty soon! We were briefed the other day on the big sale and it sounds pretty intense. I don't really know what i've signed up for here but I'll keep you posted. Anyways that's all from us for now...