Celia's Make-A-Wish trip

Skiing!

 What a perfect way to celebrate Celia finishing treatment! By coincidence, Celia's Make-A-Wish trip to the snow was scheduled for the end of June and it turned out to be prefect timing weather wise too. Although it was the opening week of the season in Queenstown, the snow conditions were perfect so we had 4 wonderful days at Coronet Peak. Andy and I got time to ski on our own while Celia and Max had private lessons in the morning and Mabel went to creche at Skiwiland (cute!)

Coffee break time after a hard morning in ski lessons

We also managed to catch up with Andy's old uni friend Julie Brown and her family who are lucky enough to live outside Queenstown. They and their children are of course all top rate skiers so I should have known better than to accompany them on a little tour of the mountain - 2 black runs, an impromptu off piste detour and numerous tumbles later, I was shaking with fear and anger as I had made it quite clear I was not confident or experienced enough to keep up with them. Anyway, all was forgiven after a well earned mulled wine!

clinging on for dear life

We were there for a week so we had plenty of time to sight-see too. We took the cable car up to where they have the luge track, a round of mini golf was fitted in and we found a rope swing which even mummy had a go on (I didn't fall in much to everyone's disappointment).
Andy took Max on the Shotover jet boat which they (Andy) enjoyed - he claimed it was for Max's birthday but what 5 year old claims to want a breakneck speed boat ride through a narrow canyon as his birthday present?!

Max and Andy on the chairlift to the luge

Julie sorted us out with one of her regular babysitters so we manged to have a night out with her and her husband Julian. We had an amazing meal (and cocktail) at Madam Woo followed by drinks at a bar with yet another roaring open fire - every pub, restaurant and hotel has a fire that would make Mr Kerr Senior jealous! It was a bit of a blast from the past for Andy as he remembered it was the same bar that he spent his 30th birthday in - small world!

Beautiful Queenstown

The final part of Celia's wish was ice skating and I think she actually enjoyed that more than the skiing. They had little penguins to help them balance on the ice and Mabel sat on a push along seal which I of course couldn't let go of!

We are so grateful to Make-a-wish as it really was the holiday of a lifetime. When we requested a trip to the snow as Celia's wish, we thought we'd be sent to Mount Buller, 4 hours drive away, for a long weekend. We never imagined they would fly the 5 of us to New Zealand for a week and arrange skiing, ice skating, hotel, transfers, the lot - amazing!

Ice skating with the penguins

And as if that wasn't enough gallivanting for 1 week, I then flew to Sydney with 7 girlfriends on Friday for my friend Andrea's 40th birthday.
It has been a long time since I took 4 flights within a fortnight and I can safely say I am now well and truly exhausted, but in a good way!