- Kia Ora – Welcome -

The Adventure Browns have arrived in New Zealand! Wanna know the details???

San Francisco, USA to Auckland, NZ

Total flying time: 12 hours 15 minutes

Distance: 10, 651 km

Auckland, New Zealand has a population of 1,225,000, elevation of 25 meters and an area of 637 km^2 – but who needs facts – we didn’t even stay in Auckland! After 13 hours on a plane we flew some more. ;) We are in Wellington, it is beautiful with good eats and friendly folks. We went to a neat little pub on the pier for lunch – Mac’s Brew Pub. The wall behind the bar was decorated with furniture that you would expect to find in your grandparents home. In a little game of eye spy we found a familiar play toy – Sophia’s little giraffe was sitting there on the wall.

Today the name of the game is stay wake till after dinner. We have already made two trips to the café and are bound and determined to switch over to Kiwi time. Tomorrow the adventures begin – we will see what fun we can find in Wellington before leaving the north island by ferry.

Air Force vs Army

 The weather was pretty cold when we went down to Colorado Springs to watch the Air Force vs Army football game with Amanda's parents. It even rained a bit before the game. We tailgated for a bit before we walked over to the game.

In typical Air Force style the parachuters brought in the American flag. There was a stunning fly over before the game and the teams echanged 'prisoners.'

Cuba Gooding Jr. was at the game to promote his new movie Red Tails during the game. He made quite the impression on the fans in attendance. What was even better is that Air Force won! Go Air Force!

Happy Halloween

This year we had a fun time docorating the house, coming up with new costumes and making some scary halloween snacks. Amanda was an octopus, Scott the rock star and Koya was a bull complete with riding cowboy! We made some fun new things this year for our friends who came over; monster smiles, boiling salsa over firey flames,merangue ghosts and a fruity cat.

 

  

 

 

 

We played some games from a popular tv show called Minute To Win It. One of the games is to see how quickly you can reteive a penny from the toe of a pair of stockings. We also tried rolling quarters between the prongs of a fork across the floor of the kitchen and trying to fill a cup with ping pong balls by bouncing them.

To Fo Co We Go

Happy Birthday! We headed up to Fort Collins to celebrate Debbi's birthday. A week late for the actual day, she just had our present to open and some candles to blow out. We also had a great breakfast Sunday morning at Snooze. Scott, Amanda and Bruce went to the Go Lite Store and long time favorite Jax. At Jax we found a huge backpack - not sure who that would fit - it didn't fit Scott.

Saturday night we went out to the corn maze for the Terror in the Corn. Debbi can make friends with just about anyone. We waited in line a while, but the scary maze was pretty fun! We also got a couple great ideas for our own Halloween Party in a couple weeks.

Durangatangs for the Weekend

 On September 30th we headed down to Durango for the weekend. Scotty rode in the Fall Blaze at Fort Lewis College while Mander took a run. We had a fun time checking out the shops in down town Durango and taking a dip in the Trimble Hot Springs. On the way back home we stopped by Navajo Lake. It was a pretty drive with all the changing leaves.

Run run run

We ran the Das Hustle Hoff 5k in Downtown Denver with Kelli. It was a good run and who doesn't enjoy celebrating with a tall pint or giant turkey leg!?!

Bear Tracks Lake

For our first adventure as a married couple we took a three day backpacking trip to Bear Tracks Lake west of Evergreen, CO. The trail took us on a 7 mile trek to a mountain lake where we made our camp. Koya went with us - she was sure glad to make it to camp; she was quite tired. We had great weather and were lucky that we didn't have any rain. On our second day we followed a nearby trail to Echo Lake. We saw lots of big trout and Koya took a swim. Later that day we took a walk around Bear Tracks Lake. The third day we packed up camp and headed back home. It was quite humerous to look at pictures from two weeks before when we looked our very best compared to how we looked after three days of camping and backpacking. It wasn't luxury, but we had a great time getting away.