Can you even believe we’ve been gone for six whole months?! It seems like an eternity, but at the same time, it feels like it was just yesterday that we arrived at the airport in Auckland and started our journey in the Land of the Long White Cloud.

But as you probably surmised from the title of this post, we are homeward bound in 3 months! There is still so much for us to see and do in New Zealand as the the winter wanes here in the Southern Hemisphere and spring starts blooming.

Here is a look at what lies ahead for us in the next 3 months:

• We will take the ferry back to the North Island at the end of next week and spend the weekend in Wellington, staying with friends we met from church during our last visit to this most windy capital city.
• From there, we will travel up the east coast, stopping to stay with hosts in Napier, Gibsborne, Tauranga, Rotorua, and Taupo. We may or may not have time for a stop in Hamilton before heading back to Auckland.
• On September 25, we will watch Fiji play Samoa in the Rugby World Cup! I’m hoping the atmosphere will be electric–full of rowdy Pacific Islanders rooting for their country. We plan to cheer for Fiji in honor of our friends from the PTC in Lautoka.
• If we aren’t able to stay in Hamilton prior to the rugby match, we’ll backtrack a bit to stay with a host there and learn about permaculture gardening principles.
• Back to Auckland we will go in October. I have my eye on a HelpX host on the North Shore who teaches authentic Italian cooking classes (yum!). We also plan to stay with Christian & Kirianne and their girls again.
• October 29th brings the 5K for A Girl Called Hope (this is the New Zealand parter for Mercy Ministries-a great organization we support back home. They provide a residential counseling service to girls who struggle with life controlling issues such as eating disorders, self harm, or sexual abuse.) Drew is a 5K ninja, but this will be my very first race! I’m counting on the warm spring weather to motivate me to train for it. (PS-you can help us support A Girl Called Hope by purchasing photos from our Print Shop!)
• Then, sadly, our time in New Zealand will come to a close in early November when we (not so sadly) fly to Fiji for four more days in a tropical paradise.
• Once we land in L.A. we plan to stay with a friend from college and check out open gym at the Tempest Free Running Academy–the first of its kind!
• Then it’s back home to Nashville!

There are so many things that we miss about home. Friends and family are a given–we always miss you! But there are also quite a few other things native to Nashville that we are excited to come back to. Things like: