A few of my favorite things

Over the past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about why I love it here so much. Its easy to know that its great here, but there are so many simple pleasures that get drowned out by the big picture. So with that being the case I have decided to start taking note of all the things that make Wanaka so wonderful for me so I could share them with you.

Here are a few of my favorite things:

- Laying out and swimming in the lake

- The local walks

- Driving on gravel roads

- Seeing Gods INCREDIBLE creation everywhere around me

- Picking fresh raspberries in my back yard

- Spending all day in the sun

- Driving in my car or being out anywhere and suddenly realizing “Holy crap this is where I live!”

- The long days (5:30am till 10pm its light)

- Worship at church

- Cutting fresh lavender for my room from my backyard

- Attaching beautiful memories to great music

- The concerts

- My co-workers and work in general

- Camping in what seems to be completely secret places

- Having picnics

- The trust within the community (i.e. can leave car unlocked with keys in it and not really worry)

- My boss taking us out on his boat (this Saturday he closed the gym early and took us wakeboarding!)

- Making coffee at work, my favorite part is pouring the steamed milk in and trying to make it look pretty

- The amazing local wines

- Swimming in the lake by moon light

- Working on the wall!

- Bouldering by the lake

- Walking barefoot

- The view of the lake from my house

- The slow pace of life

SO those are just a few of the simple joys in my life. I wish I could paint you a better picture and you all could expierance it first hand. There are so so many more, and I will be sure to keep track of them. In all honesty there are not too many things that I don’t like about this place. I was wracking my brain trying to think of the things I don’t like and this is what I came up with:

- It being such a transient town (but now I have some good friendship with some locals!)

- Knowing how laid back the culture is and not always adapting. i.e. I show up to places relatively on time or 5 min late, and still to wait because everyone else functions on the "kiwi clock." (not always the case but most the time its true)

- Having the one day in two weeks that it isn’t sunny fall on my day off.

- The fact that the F word is so common that they don’t even censor it on TV

- AND most importantly the fact that the people I love the most aren’t here with me.

Really that’s all I could think of at the time. So there you have it, now you can sorta see the reason I am having a hard time sorting out when to leave. Its like paradise here! Mom and Dad I cant wait to have you here!!!!!

Here is the link to my most recent pictures:

http://unt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2167483&l=6eb52&id=23902206

http://unt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2172080&l=f50d8&id=23902206