It's almost Christmas and then....

Today is the winter solstice (Dec. 21) which means that in the northern hemisphere, it's the shortest day of the year..and here in western Washington, it's grey and drizzly which is to be expected.
But there is good news. First good news is that in 4 days it will be Christmas and Mark and I will have the privilege and joy of spending it with part of our family including son Christopher, daughter-in-law Jill, and the four munchkins- also known as grandchildren.
For those readers who may not know these grandkids, they are Julian (almost 13 on Dec. 27th),
Claire, 9 1/2; Audrey, 5; and Ethan, age 3 1/2. This will be the third year in a row that we will be with them at Christmas and the first time in our own home in Olympia, WA.
There will surely be lots of presents as I have it on good authority that all 4 children have been good and nice and not naughty- with the possible exception of Audrey dear who rode her bike away from her grandparents (us) a few weeks ago and was then officially "lost" for an hour or so. But we won't talk about that so close to Christmas in case Santa reads blogs.

Second good news is that tomorrow, Dec. 22, the days will already start growing longer which is a good thing in Washington state.

Third good news is why I decided to write this blog in the first place (thanks for the great suggestion, Jill) and named it 'Mark and Jofannie Down Under'. Yes, the wanderlust has thrust itself upon us once again and we will embark on a much awaited cruise trip to New Zealand and Australia with stops along the way at:
Auckland, Tauranga, Christchurch, Dunedin and the Fiordland National Park all in New Zealand. Then we go to Hobart, Tasmania and on to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Geraldton Australia. As a matter of fact, we will be in Melbourne and Hobart twice.

We then head north up Australia's western coast where, after 4 days at sea, we will spend a day each in Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City (Phu My) Vietnam, Sihanoukville, Cambodia (a province in southern Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand) and ending in Bangkok, Thailand.

This is a 32 day cruise but we will be spending an extra 5 days at the front of the trip in the Auckland area of New Zealand. By the way, NZ is composed of two islands- the North and the South Islands. Auckland, the capital of NZ, is on the North Island where we will be renting a car and traveling to various places. We are looking forward to swimming with dolphins, seeing the Glow Worm Caves, and eating plenty of Kiwi fruit (New Zealanders are called Kiwis by the way)
and plenty of delicious NZ lamb. We will also be kayaking, which we love, and generally having a very good time.

While on our trip we will post pictures on this blog for those who would like to go along with us on our trip...we wish we could take all of you with us in "real life"!

That's all for now. MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL!!