Some New Zealand Fun

 OK, here are finally some pics from our New Zealand fun.  I really didn't take many with my camera because Amber and Tyler were the designated photographers and videographers for the trip, so they captured all of the incredible beauty that New Zealand is on their really good camera.  It was nice to have the pressure off to get a picture of everything.  They put together a little movie about the trip that premiere's next weekend when Tanner and Alissa come to town.

So, this is a pic from our crazy glow-worm underground rapelling, zip-lining through a cave full of glow-worms, jumping off a cliff into an underground river, floating through the cave listening about the weird lifecycle of a glow-worm, swimming through the underground river and finally climbing up waterfalls to get out.  This pic was before we rappelled down about 130 ft. into a cave - they gave us a quick lesson on rappelling.

 This was right after we resurfaced into daylight after being underground in the water for about 4 hours.  It was fun because the group was just us...plus two Brits.   This might have been my favorite thing we did in New Zealand.  It's one of the only places in the world with glow-worms and it felt like zip-lining through outerspace - the glow-worms looked like stars in the cave.

 Here we are on the long flight - the twins did marvelously thanks to these handy bassinets that hooked onto the wall in front of us.  They slept most of the way...so we could too.  Reagan the poser poked her head up and smiled for the camera.

 Our layover was is Fiji!!  The babes loved listening to the Fijian music that greeted us.

 We left the airport and drove to this horse ranch way out in the crazy beautiful countryside.  This is a picture of the guy rounding up the horses for us.  I didn't get to go on the horses, but they went for two hours over the mountains and down to this awesome black sand beach that Carlos and I walked to through the guy's pastures. 

 We stayed at some really cool holiday parks where you rent little bunk cabins.  Wish I had a picture of the outside of them - so cute.

 We had Christmas Eve dinner at a traditional Maori Hungi.  First we went through a replica of a Maori village and learned about the culture, were entertained with their singing and dancing, and then chowed down together on roasted pig and other Polynesian cuisine. 

 We stayed that night at a cool house out in the country by a lake.  Nights looked like this because we packed so much in every day that we literally crashed before making it to our beds. 

 Reagan loves little chairs - here she is chillin on Christmas morning.  That morning we rafted the largest commercially raftable waterfall in the world (so they say).  Amber has a pic on her blog of it.  We actually went down a lot of waterfalls on that trip and the scenery was incredible.  I love fern-wood trees!

 We have a hill like this behind my Mom's house that is the opposite with trees on the bottom and a bare spot on top and it's called Bald Hill.  Carlos named this hill Hairy Hill.  This was Christmas morning by our house.  Those are the Bushnell reunion sweatshirts.

 Some of the holiday parks had cute little baby baths.

 While the others went canyoning in Wanaka, Carlos, my Mom and I rented bikes and rode around the lake.

 Reagan sustained the only injury on the trip.  She wiggled her foot in a space on the bike seat so the tire rubbed the bottom off.  She only cried for a minute, we rode back to town, found a pharmacy and I got her all fixed up.  It looks terrible but it healed crazy fast. 

 We took a trip down to the fjords and this was a valley carved by glaciers.

 We rode on a boat out into the Milford Sound and it was INCREDIBLE.  There were even dolphins swimming next to our boat.

 We went kayaking and the babies didn't want to get out of the boat afterwards. (They babies weren't kayaking with us...they stayed with my Mom on shore)

 This was a little stream you could mine for gold in, but we ended up just running on the trails around it and playing in the water after. 

 Don't go to New Zealand for good food....unless it's at Fergburger!

 The babes were such troopers.  I was a little worried about taking them, but I'm so glad we did!

 On our way home...thumbs down by Ty, Tann, and Alissa...I'm smiling because I'm ready to go see my other two kids, and Jason is looking GQ in his colorful sweater.

 Another layover in Fiji!  This time we got a taxi and took off for the beach for a couple of hours!

 The boys let their beards grow the whole 10 days - looks like Tanner and Carlos won the beard growth contest.

 The girl shot.

Back at the Fiji airport the ladies in the shop went crazy over Dreyton and totally freaked him out. 

Last, but definitely not least, Amber and I bungee jumped together at the site where commercial bungee all started - the Kawarau bridge.  She did a good job of descibing it on her blog.  I tried to take a picture of the picture we bought but the flash ruined the first one and without the flash you can't see how blue the water was.  Anyway, it was so dang fun!  I wish we could have done it a few more times though because it goes so fast.  I'm hooked.  This continued mine and Amber's "partnership".  A few people thought the twins were mine and Ambers instead of mine and Carlos'!  The little yellow raft in the river gets you down and to the side. This was on New Year's Eve...great way to send out 2010...we partied in Queenstown with thousands of others to ring in 2011. 

I stole these three pics off of Amber's blog because they're some of my favs.  Love those little guys so much.

New Zealand is one beautiful country!

Early December

(I was looking through my pictures and noticed a bunch of random ones like this one of edamame shells and realized Dwight got a hold of my camera. I really like this one though). This year Christmas for Carlos, the twins, and I was spent in New Zealand with the Bushnell bunch! Rivers and CD got to go to Utah to spend it with the Nuno clan. So, we don't have the typical Christmas pics this year. Here are a few from early December. I'll post some pics of New Zealand later but for a great little synopsis of our New Zealand fun (and some great pics of the twins), check out Amber's blog.

I had Jason and Diana's family for Christmas this year and put my crochet skills to use. 

One of the favorite things to do around here is put on rubber boots after a rainstorm and go play in the ditches.

Even though we weren't here for Christmas, we still couldn't pass up the Christmas tree hunt.

Carlos scored a couple tickets to the Civil War game. Such a fun day. I'm a beaver believer, but by losing, the Beavs actually made 3 million dollars because the Ducks went to the National Championship game.

Big 1st birthday, halloween, hikes, and Thanksgiving

The twins celebrated their 1st year of life and what a year it has been! It's hard sometimes to think about feelings from a year ago. I made a little slideshow DVD of their first year and Carlos and I both bawled immediately at the sight of them in their incubators with so many tubes and wires and looking so, so tiny but being so, so tough.

I attempted making an owl cake and they didn't even want to smash it!

We had baby races, played a game guessing what all of the tiny things from the NICU were used for, watched their 1st year slideshow, opened presents and had cake. The kids performed a special version of "Happy Birthday" which ended in a pyramid. A video of them performing is at the end.

This fall was so incredible weather wise. We took advantage of the 70 to 80 degree weather and went on lots of beautiful hikes. These are from Chip Ross Park.

If you could blow this picture up, you would see that the look on their faces is pure bliss :)

Carlos pushed the stroller all the way to the top.....

where we enjoyed this dynamite view. This was a hill I used to do hill repeats up with my running club when I was 8 years old, so the kids and I did a few. Nothing gets you in shape faster than good old hill repeats.

Rivers and I in our matching dresses. She wanted to wear them to church together and do our hair the same and everything and I know those requests won't last so we did it.

She is such a great kid!

Halloween 2010....we had a cavewoman, a shark...

...and two little chicks!

Loved these costumes!

At our halloween, hot chocolate party...the big banana is Cody...Osama is Tyler...I was Alias (Sydney Bristol in a spy outfit) but most people thought I was the designer lady from the Incredibles.

On another warm fall day I took the twins and Dwight to explore some new trails a couple miles away and we found the coolest oak forests. The leaves were falling, so the trails were full of those "poppers". Dwight informed me that his bike is now a mountain bike and he was going to go over lots of bumps, so he brought his balance bike and had fun on his first mountain bike ride. You almost can't tell that he's on a bike in this picture.

Shirtless and playing in the leaf piles.

It was like a huge, plush carpet of leaves.

I love how the twins both had leaves stuck to their heads the whole time.

Another hike, this time to the top of Bald Hill. You can see my mom's house in this picture way down below.

I love how ferns grow out of the trees. We had fun mushroom hunting on this hike. We saw probably 20 different varieties.

Mealtimes are crazy. I usually sit down on the floor with a bowl of something and let my little birds climb all over me. When I put the spoon in one mouth, the other one grunts or cries until I put a bite in their mouth and then the other one fusses. It just goes back and forth like that the whole time. I need to get it on video.

OK, this year we finally had our girls weekend. Whitney planned it and it was so much fun. We drove to Waldport on the coast and first stopped at this little diner called 'Salty Dawg'. It was right by where we were going to go crabbing, so we went in to eat before putting our nets out and we felt like we'd stepped onto a movie set... All the guys looked like they'd just stepped off a fishing boat that had been out to sea for months. One guy started talking to us to give us tips on crabbing and the conversation got so weird that Amber finally bolted out the door and we all quickly followed. Here's Diana and I enjoying our huge chowder boats.

We tried crabbing her in the Alsea Bay but didn't have much luck, so we headed to the cute little town of Yachats and then to our yurt.

Along the way we stopped at his gem of a lookout. We started feeling like we were in a horror movie with all the fog and trees and scary fishermen.

Good thing our yurt was so cozy. We cooked up some delicious tin foil dinners and banana boats in the fire pit outside. Yep boys, we got the fire roaring even with the rain.

The next morning Whitney and I went on the coolest run ever through crazy beautiful trails out to the beach and then up to a lighthouse that was over 100 years old.

Have I mentioned how much I love being back in Oregon?!

Posing in front of the yurt on our way out. Diana made it through the night without giving birth in the yurt. She had contractions and her babies typically come fast, so she was making us all a little nervous. Good thing we had a surgery tech. with us that could have caught the baby without passing out. It added to the excitement of the trip.

We drove to Newport and tried our luck at crabbing again... Whitney's saying "oh please, please let there be a crab in there".

Success. We took home 5 or 6 crab and boiled and ate them that night.

I missed this little face though. This is her new cheesy smile.

Ahhhh!

All Rivers wanted for Christmas was a zip line. Since we won't be here on Christmas, she got her present early and Carlos and I spent all day on Thanksgiving putting the 70 ft. line up. It goes through the trees and over a ditch.

Our little pilgrims at Thanksgiving dinner.

The night after Thanksgiving is the annual Corvallis Christmas Parade and tree lighting. Love this pic of Carlos and his twin Dre at the parade.

Tukey Bowl 2010