From routines and exiting travel news. Northland | New Zealand

Wow, the 4th week in our grandiose house is already over and time flies. It seems like yesterday that we wrote our last Sunday Summary. Do you know that feeling of loosing the sense of time? Not only the last year, but also the days seem to rush away. But we take that as a sign for loving what we do atm! As you surely know, the fun days feel a lot shorter than the bad ones.

So what was going on this week? Honestly, we had a hard time remembering what we’re actually doing. Well, we continued to work on the homepage - things that you may not see as a viewer, but will help us in the future to create posts easier and we improved the overall structure and usability of the page. With this kind of work, it always takes more time than you might think at the beginning. Other than that, we have developed an everyday life routine here: have breakfast, go for a walk with the dog, work a bit on the blog, do some research, possibly take a little trip with George to the beach or in the surrounding area, eating, shopping for grocerys, sleeping, reading, watching a movie... you know, just the daily hustle ;) One of our favorite rituals right now is to take George for a short walk in the evening, having a beer on the hill above our house, chat and watch the sunset.

The weather was extremely unsettled this week: one day, we are lying in the blazing sun, almost getting sunburned and the next day it’s raining cats and dogs and the wind whips around the house.

Yesterday, Toby got a gig as a gardener at a hotel and earned some money - our next grocery shopping is secured! It’s just an extra position though, not a daily thing. While Toby was working, Anna continued to sew the curtains (haha, talking modern gender roles here). We simply haven’t touched them since last week. This stupid tape on the Velcro makes it so difficult to pierce the needle. Every few minutes, the needle and the yarn are completely full of glue and even dipping it in oil helps only a little bit. But we have planned to get the curtains ready by tomorrow. On the needles, ready, set!

Since George loves our little Van so much, we wanna take him on an overnight trip next week. Unfortunatly, finding a campsite that allows dogs is not that easy around here. That's why we haven’t decided where exactly to go yet. But it’s freggin beautiful everwhere in NZ, so it doesn’t matter anyway. Keep your fingers crossed for decent weather!

George

Since we are currently writing a lot about George and our lifes currently revolve around this little rascal, we thought that we could introduce him at this point.
Here are 10 facts you should know about George:

- Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (thanks Lisa for enlightening us)

- 4 years young and 8 pounds heavy

- he loves to sleep, eat, our van “Vanettchen”, licking faces and above all, hunting birds!

- he hates birds (never gets them though) and beeing cleaned after one of his muddy adventures

- he is a free spirit and in his Hood (the olive groves around the house) he’s the King

-yesterday, he was stung by a cactus

-he makes us laugh every day

- He has perfected the puppy dog eyes and makes us feel guilty every night when we don’t let him jump in our bed

- not later than 2 o'clock at night, he will jump into bed and cuddles between us

- In addition to his food, George likes to eat flys, (giant-) moths, grass and rabbit droppings
Update on the rat poison incident:

George seems to have not eaten any poisen, he is happy and healthy!

Toby & George on the hidden Bushwalk to the Groves

Where we are right now:

Mangonui, Far North District, Northland, New Zealand

Downer of the week:

Somehow we find it really hard to think about something that would have pulled us down this week. The week was just normal, neither super exciting nor frustrating. We have a beautiful house where we live with a loving dog and enjoy a fantastic view. What should bring you down here? Don’t get us wrong, we don’t walk around with a big smile on our face all day long and it's not every day rainbows and unicorns either. But everything is just as good as it is.

Okay, one thing comes to our minds: at the beginning of this Sunday Summary we wrote, that time is flying incredibly fast right now and we perceive that as a positive sign for loving what we do. Now comes the but: the same goes for tasks and projects we try to get done. We realize that we can’t keep up with our planning. Some tasks take much longer than we thought at the beginning, others we’re procratinating, because we can’t motivate ourselves to do it (best example: our curtains) and sometimes other events or tasks that seem more important or are more fun get in the way. This can be frustrating at times, especially when spending many hours on a project and still having the feeling, that the effort might has been too big for the result.

Okay, enough of this fuss! Tonight, we will finish these stupid curtains!

Highlight of the week:

WE. ARE. SUPER. EXITED! We can’t tell you the whole thing (we don’t wanna jinx it!) buuuuuut: we received an unsuspectedemail from one of our travel acquaintances and concretized our travel plans for next year! After New Zealand the journey will definitely go on, that's for sure. And even earlier than we thought it would: we will leave New Zealand in March or April to start the next part of our trip. We still need to clarify the details, so we can’t say anything specific yet…

Okay, okay we can tell you one thing already: the final desitnation will be: Alaska!

We'll keep you posted, promise.