Gabby Update

Hard to believe another Christmas is here!  It was a bit low key this year with Gabby gone, but we did get to see Corey & Terrell who came over for brunch.  There was a lot of yummy food and a few presents to open.  Somehow I ended up with most of the gifts.  I'm excited to try my new milk frother to make some London Fogs in the giant mug Corey gave me.  Scott and I are happy to have tomorrow off and hope to get outside if the weather holds.  Gabby attended a community Christmas dinner at the town hall in Dunedin and said that the food was good except for the plum pudding.  It's a pretty big event I guess.  The total this year was 520 guests with 160 volunteers.  That's pretty cool.  Here are some more photos from Gabby's adventures.  

Gabby decided to get her hair dyed.  She got talked into this color.  It looks good!

The two donkeys she watched one weekend.

View from a hike that Gabby did. She climbed 1800 feet in elevation!

Weird that Christmas is during the summer there!

4-T Hike #26

We did it!!  We completed our 26th hike on Saturday down in Portland to officially finish our 2019 challenge!  This was a special hike as we were able to do it with our good friends Rozanne and Eric, who will be leaving in a few weeks to move back to South Carolina.  We will sure miss them! It was great having them live so close in the past few years and being able to renew our friendship after they had moved away back in 2008.

Rozanne mentioned the 4-T hike which I had not heard of before.  The 4 T's stand for Trail, Tram, Trolley and Train.  We started off at the zoo then headed uphill to Council Crest where we were afforded some views of the city; no mountain peak views though as it was too overcast.  Then we headed down and then back up to OHSU.  That last part was a killer with some steep switchbacks, but we made it!  From there we took the tram down to the trolley and over to the train, which took us back to the zoo.  In all it's 4.5 miles of hiking trails with 775 feet of elevation.  We did this part in about 2 hours.  It was definitely a unique hike and I'd love to do it again sometime in the summer when the sun is out so we can get views of the surrounding peaks.  It was a great way to end our hiking quest!

View from Council Crest

Micah gave me a smile!

It was well signed which helped a lot.

Eric, Rozanne, me and Scott on the tram.

On the tram heading down.  

We enjoyed the pretty holiday lights while waiting for the train.  Glad we hustled on the trail and made it through that part before it got dark. 

This was taken later at Zoo Lights.

New Zealand Update

So we had a bit of a misadventure after Gabby bought herself a Christmas present off the Lively website a week ago.  Somehow (maybe via wi-fi?) someone got her credit card # and then made two large purchases on Cyber Monday on that credit card (which is on our name).  After being on hold forever and finally reaching Wells Fargo, they cancelled the credit card and were able to credit one of the charges for $400+.  Luckily the $600+ charge had been declined.  Not two days later I had to call Wells Fargo again because Gabby's debit card # was compromised.  Someone in NYC had been trying to make charges to it.  So annoying.  So for the time being Gabby has lost the ability to use her debit card and our VISA, but luckily we got her an American Express card on our account before she left.  Plus she has her debit card from her New Zealand bank (which doesn't allow online charges).   Hopefully we will get replacement cards to bring to her when we see her in February.  Oh I hate criminals!  On to better things...some beautiful pictures from a couple of beaches she's gone to recently.

 

 

A friend of Corey's that she met up with for a day.

 

The dogs at the Airbnb love her and hang around her a lot.