It has been a busy last few days in New Zealand! After our South Island travels we spent some time in Palmerston North which was slightly less fun than expected given that I (Karen) had to go to the dentist two days running. Getting fillings makes me feel woozy, tired and pretty pathetic – so we didn’t catch up with as many people as we had hoped, but did still spend some quality time with our families.  We were scheduled to come back to Auckland by the end of the day on Thursday 1 March, but after our car had broken down twice and the 7 hour trip had turned into a 17 hour trip we were grateful to make it at all and tried not to worry too much about it being two am! Luckily the friends we stayed with are like family and so were very understanding.

The next few days were pretty busy. It’s hard to explain what takes time when we aren’t working – sorting out last minute things to buy, getting final vaccinations, visiting people, storing things under our house (currently rented out), getting haircuts…it doesn’t seem like a lot but somehow our list of things to do kept us hopping!

One of the most special things for us was farewelling our church community. We have been part of a house church for a number of years now and have felt loved and connected to the people there. We were able to say goodbye to them on Sunday and reflect a little on the adventure that lies ahead for us and for our friends this year as we talked about the challenges of questing through life, growing and changing and seeing our blind spots. I think that one of the biggest challenges for me (Karen) will be taking things one day at a time…and challenging myself each time I find myself getting stressed out about something minor to think…”Will this matter in a week?” Hopefully this will help me to stay more in the moment and gain perspective.

We fly to Dubai on March 6 for a four night stopover – this was actually just as cheap as flying straight there on Aerolineas Argentinas (which has a horrible reputation) and this way we get to fly Emirates. We are already picking out all of the newly released movies we plan on watching in our two flights to Dubai (all up, about 20 hours flying time!)

PS…posting this as we board our plane!