#anettingnewzealandadventure: The Nettings Do NZ

I’ll try to stay focused on the entire week but, really, all I want to do is talk about Caleb and I getting away on the weekend! Monday was K’s typical day at daycare and Autumn and I went to Godley Head. On Tuesday, we said goodbye to Auntie Autumn! We had such a great time with her, good chats, good food, good wine! Prior to her leaving, we were talking about how little interest Kensley has in walking and then BOOM she grabs Auntie Autumn’s hands to walk. And this has continued all week – she is finally interested in walking! We spent the rest of the afternoon on Tuesday hanging out with Jacqui, Hugh and Walt. The rest of the week I can’t really recall what we did, but I prepped for Kensley’s weekend at Sarah’s and our weekend away! The ortho group had a mountain biking day on Friday, in the pouring rain, so Caleb made his way to Arthur’s Pass to join them. A total of 5 of them biked out of approximately 40.

On Saturday morning, Caleb and I packed up Kensley and all of her supplies to drop her off at Sarah’s. Then we drove 2 hours southwest to Hakatere. Caleb planned out the perfect hike and camp for us. We hiked into a very remote cabin for 2.5 hours. It was a pretty easy hike. Thankfully, Caleb took it easy on me after two years of nothing comparable (pregnancy and childbirth were way harder than any hike could be though). We dropped our bags at the cabin and explored some more for a few hours. Then we tucked into our cabin, Caleb cooked us some supper and we enjoyed a yummy bottle of wine! We had Blue Rock Pinot Noir (2016) $49.99 and we rate it 3.5/5, although it was a bit hard to appreciate because we were freezing. The cabin wasn’t heated so it got chilly but we were prepared for the cold. The next morning we were up early (naturally), enjoyed some breakfast and coffee and started our trek out. It was a great hike out; we were both high from the fresh air and the baby free time! On our drive home we stopped for a nice relaxing coffee and snack.

How was Kensley!? Well, when we picked her up she was happy to see us; she smiled, said “Dada” and then carried on playing at Sarah’s. As we expected, she had a great time! Sarah and her family said it was a perfect weekend. There were no tears and she slept great. That made our amazing weekend away even that much sweeter. Yes, we missed her and were eager to see her, but was it EVER nice to just be us again! It was such a success on all fronts that I’m already planned our next night away!