Another day another plane

When it rains it pours…and we go in search of sunshine.

It has been winter here in Wellington. Cold, dark, wet and windy. And did I mention cold?

So what have we been up to? ...Work.
We have both been very busy, and traveling a lot. As of right now, I am still a Gold Elite member of Air New Zealand/Star Alliance and Eric is now a Gold member as well.

I did head off to China at the end of March and then we both went to Calgary, Canada for Calgary Expo in April. On our way back we had a few days in Los Angeles to catch up with some family, a few friends and managed to catch "The Book of Mormon" at the Pantages Theater. We enjoyed it very much. It was very inappropriately funny -as we had expected.

Then I went back to China again in May and Eric went on to Korea to set up a Weta Show in Seoul.

From there he went to San Diego and Los Angeles where I met up with him along with a few others to head off to Denver for Denver Comic Con.

From Denver I went to Hong Kong and China for a week of production and quality assurance. While Eric went back to Los Angeles/Seattle to sort out some of our House stuff. It is currently on the market, but not much interest. We may need to rent it out again.

I came back to New Zealand for about 10 days before heading back to LA to join back up with Eric for some much needed "down time".

July was a big blur. It was great to visit with family and friends, and to celebrate my birthday at my favorite restaurant.

The weather was fabulous! - warm, sunny summer weather. I was really ready for that. Back in NZ we were having the shortest days of the year with sunrise at about 8:00 am. and it stated getting dark at 3:30 pm. It felt good to be wearing short sleeves and flip flops (sandals). We enjoyed many In N Out burgers (I lost count) as well as lots of good Mexican food. And quite a lot of frozen yogurt.

The days went by too quickly and we were off to San Diego to set up Comic Con.

Lots of work and a huge success. It took 3.5 days and a crew of about 12 to set it all up.
and we miraculously broke it all back down in a day and half.

The highlights of the show for me were that I did actually get a few breaks (as opposed to the 2 previous years). I was able to meet an author I admire -Cornelia Funke and got my copy of Inkheart signed. And I was able to enjoy the John Barrowman panel. He is very entertaining! I am looking forward to seeing him again in Salt Lake City. We also had a great photo taken of a group of us at the The One Ring.net Laketown Luau.

We had a few days to recover before taking a quick trip to Indiana for Eric's grandmother's memorial service. Ruth was am amazing 97 years old when she died. A life well lived, and we will miss her.

It was a very quick trip. We left early Friday morning and were back Sunday night.
Flying in to Indianapolis and then driving about an hour to Hagerstown (picture farms and lots of open spaces) It was nice to see some of the family we had not seen in several years.

From there it was back to San Diego, LAX and then Auckland. Good to be back.
Unfortunately, we knew it was not for very long.

Eric had about 10 days and then he was off to Korea again to take down the show he helped put up in Seoul and move it to Busan to set up again. He will then go direct from Korea to Salt Lake City to meet back up with me and others to set up Salt Lake City Comic Con.

After Salt Lake City Eric will return to New Zealand for bit. Our kitty Myztyc will be pleased. She has not been too happy with us of late. I will get a few days to see family and friends again in LA a well as have a few work related meetings, before heading off to Hong Kong/China for a week. Then I will be going back to New Zealand.

…But only for a few weeks before Eric I go back to New York for Comic Con in October.
This will be our first time attending this show and our first time together in the Big Apple. We are looking forward to it and are going to take a few days after the show to stick around and enjoy the city. Hoping to see a show as well.

So, aside form traveling the globe, living out of our suitcases and working shows, there is not much more to report.

We had a hail and lightning storm the other day and a bolt of lightning hit our wind needle, and it was caught on camera. Very cool. Unfortunately they had just finished refurbishing the installation about 2-3 month before. They are repairing it again now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyrometer

The Wellington sign (see earlier posts) has been revised changing the "W" to a "V" to honor the indie -mocu-mentary "What we do in the Shadows" about vampires living in Wellington.

It was great seeing those of you we did and our apologies to those we missed this trip and hope to see you again soon.

…Now where shall we go next with all of those frequent flyer miles?

Warm wishes to all,
Stacy & Eric

Time moves on

Time moves on...

And apparently at speed.

So now it is the beginning of March. I swear it was just January.

Eric and I are both doing well. As is Myztyc.

It is currently bucketing down rain here. Most of our friends and family back in the states would not find this unusual as they have been getting rain too. However, I will remind you that it is currently "supposed" to be summer here. I have to say, apparently this year we were skipped. In the almost 4 years here this is the worst summer yet. Almost non-existent. I am very thankful for our week in Australia at Xmas. Hoping we still may get a few more warm sunny days. 

AnimFX took place mid Feb. And was fun. Met some new people from around the industry and caught up with some friends and colleagues.

Eric and I did manage a little 4 day get-a-way to the a Coromandel.  A small peninsula north of us and south of Auckland that we had yet to explore. It was quite beautiful, and very relaxing. We slept in, took long drives and short hikes. Spent some time on the beach and enjoyed some good away from work time.

This was my last little respite before I start travel again. Back to China mid March and possibly Calgary, Canada mid April.

Hoping everyone is settling into 2014. The adventure here continues….

Love & Hugs

Stacy & Eric

Happy New Year!

2014 has begun and we managed to ring out the old year with a much needed get-a-way to Cairns, Australia and the Great Barrier Reef. It is never easy being away from family for the holidays, but this year Eric and I needed some alone and away time.

So without further ado here is our vacation….

Bats!

The largest bats I've ever seen in the wild(and this was actually in the city). Not in a zoo. 

And not just a couple. A whole lot of em.

There are trees where they gather and hang upside down and sleep during the day. 

Then at dusk, they all wake and take to the skies. It's incredibly cool!

Swarms of fruit bats flying over head for about 20 minutes. 

We knew there were Koalas, Kangaroos, Deadly Spiders and Crocodiles, but no one mentioned Bats!

Butterflies. We loved the butterfly sanctuary. There is something peaceful and calming about being amongst them. And special when they land on you. The Ulysses butterfly was the most spectacular. It was a butterfly I did not know about nor ever seen. It is beautiful. But very difficult to photograph. The iridescent blue is only on one side of the wings so you only see it when it's flying. Once it lands its wings are black. We were told that almost all the beautiful images/photos of these butterflies are dead posed shots. How sad... Yet Eric managed to get a good shot of one!

Koalas and kangaroos and wallabies - oh my. 

We saw them all at the Wildlife Habitat in Port Douglas. We got to hold a koala. They are truly a very drowsy animal. It could have cared less what was going on as it was passed from one tourist to the next. They are a very dense and solid creature. Their fur is very soft, and claws are very strong and sharp. They also have a pungent spell, I didn't care for. 

The kangaroos and wallabies were more fun and more friendly. They were quite happy to come up and eat from our hands. They are quite interesting and unique. They resemble a bit of rabbit, and deer with a funny back end and long tail. 

The oddest thing was to see their "parts" hanging in shops as souvenirs. Why on earth would THAT be a souvenir ? Very disturbing. 

There were lots of other fun creatures too. 

The Cassowary a very old and odd looking Australian bird.

An Owl even winked at me….

These are Tawny Frogmouths - Swoop and Audrey

And of course the Croc.

Here in the Australian rain forest even the plant life is aggressive.

And there are fun tropical plants to see as well. 

My favorite were the trees that reminded me of Dr. Seuss tree.

Under the Sea ...

And of course the main purpose of the trip. To see the Great Barrier Reef!

Oh and what a reef it is. 

We did a total of 9 dives over 3 days.

Our first day of diving was Xmas day. We woke up to a cloudy sky with light rain. And a rainbow outside out hotel window. We walked down to the dock toting our gear and boarded the boat. By the time we reached our dive site the clouds had cleared and we had a beautiful day.

thank you Tanner!

Note to future tourists...please take sea sickness meds before boarding a boat. Any boat.

Do not try to impress anyone by saying you don't need to. 

It is not appreciated to be among sick people when climbing into ones dive gear.

If you really get sick at sea don't book a trip out on a boat.

Saw lots and lots and lots of tropical fish and many beautiful corals. 

We saw incredible giant clams, sting rays, a leopard shark, a white tip reef shark, but no turtles. And no jellyfish!  What we noticed was that in general the fish were both larger and smaller in size compared to the fish we've seen in Hawaii and the Caribbean.

This is a Trigger fish that chased Eric away from his nesting area.

This is Nigel - he is a Maori Wrasse

There are different schools of thought regarding diving the reef

1 - go slowly spend your time in a small area and see all the varieties and details

2 - cover as much distance as you can to see as much as you can

Eric and I both prefer the first method. 

We got to do some of both with our 9 dives and honestly, we did not see more by covering more distance. We had 3 different guides on the 3 days and 2 were great. The third one we did not care for. He was the one that had us swim the distances. The second dive was supposed to be a drift dive. Jump in and go with the current and then the boat will be at the end of the dive to pick us up. Except there was no current. So we had to swim the whole way. Ok so bad current day -oh well. But then the third dive he tried it again. Still no current. Not cool.

The water temperature was wonderfully warm. The visibility was not as good as we had anticipated. 

No sure if that was the norm for the reef or if we were there after some weather had stirred it up. It was about 10-15 meters. 

It was an amazing trip. It went by very quickly, and we were glad to have had another week to just relax at home before returning to work. 

We are not sure what 2014 will hold in store for us, but we look forward to the continued adventure. May the new year bring with it good health, good times with friends and family, new adventures and good cheer.

Warm Wishes to all,

               Stacy & Eric