Skyline Queenstown Archives

2023: A Year in Review

Published on January 5, 2024January 5, 2024 by Cheryl LockLeave a comment

Not a bad way to spend the beginning of October <3

Another one bites the dust, my friends! So here we are, with 2023 in the rear view mirror, and what a year it was. Travelwise, it was simply stellar. Things in the world, of course, continue to throw me (and everyone paying attention) off kilter. With that always in my mind, I continue to be forever grateful for the opportunities I have with my family to explore and enjoy what’s beautiful about this great big earth we all live on.

So, without further adieu, here’s what we got up to in 2023!

January

Celebrating 10 years married (!) in New Zealand!

At the beginning of the year our family was still on the other side of the world. Chris and I rang in the New Year (ahead of everyone we know!) on our anniversary trip in New Zealand, then finished up our Australia visit with a trip to Chris’ families’ favorite beach, Forster. The girls got to check out the Sydney Harbor area for the first time, too!

The girls and dad at the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Forster with the fam. We love you Auntie Sare-Bear!

Once we were back in the states, Emilia and I packed our bags (again) and turned around fairly quickly for a trip back east to meet my new twin baby niece and nephew!

February

In February we had a visit from some of our New York besties, so we did our best to show them the Colorado sites!

We also checked out Meow Wolf, which was so trippy!

March

In March we celebrated “spring break” with SO MUCH SNOW at Grand Lake! We stayed in a tiny cabin, walked on a lake, rode sleds off our roof and traipsed through Rocky Mountain National Park up to our knees in fluffy powder. It was a delightful (if somewhat cold) time!

April

April was a big month, what with ME TURNING 40 AND ALL! We celebrated with a tick off my bucket list: A trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. She was all that I could have hoped for and more. So stinkin’ beautiful!

You can’t go wrong with a hot tub in nature!

Polebridge Mercantile was an extra-special treat, especially with the puppies we played with outside!

Thanks for making my bday extra special, Montana. She was one I’ll never forget <3

June

The Museum of Natural History was such a highlight on our kick-off-the-summer trip to NYC!

Right when the girls got out of school we hit the road! We headed back to one of our favorite spots — New York! — but this time with a twist. We stayed in one of my bestie’s Brooklyn brownstone basement apartments and let our family come to us! We traipsed around the city and took in so many sites (blogged about here, here and here). It was the trip of a lifetime, and so much stinkin’ fun!

Meeting up with the fam in Cold Spring was a big perk <3

We love the Museum of Natural History whale!

But really … it was about being with our loves <3

July & August

I blogged about making the most of summer here (because we really, really did!), and our three amazing press trips (to Grand Colorado on Peak 8, the Park Hyatt in Beaver Creek and C Lazy U Ranch outside of Granby) all definitely helped!

Second baseball game for the girls! Seeing the Rockies play in Denver, this time.

Rode the gondola up to the mountain resort above our hotel.

August

Meeting up with my oldest friends from elementary school in Savannah Georgia!

To celebrate the big 4-0 for all of us, three of my besties from elementary school and I met up in Savannah, Georgia, for a weekend filled with fun and walks down memory lane! We had the best time catching up, checking out a new town, and just generally cheers-ing to life!

We took a historic tour and a nighttime haunted stories tour, both of which I would highly recommend!

September

For Labor Day weekend we headed back to New York (as I was fond of saying, New York was needy this year!). My little twinsies were baptized — and Chris & I were the godparents! — and we got to see all our fam again, which is always the best. I even went back to New York at the end of September — all my myself — for my cousin’s adorable and delightful wedding.

Always reminded of how very, incredibly blessed I am <3

Such a fun time watching my baby cousin get married in such a beautiful place!

October

Oh, October, how delightful were thee! I consider October to have been split into two EPIC events — the first was our trip to Disneyland with Grandpa! and the second was Chris’ 40th birthday adventures with ALL HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY IN TOWN FROM AUSTRALIA!

Look. The joy I felt in Disney — watching the absolute love on my kids’ faces — was very, very real.

Thanks, Grandpa, for joining in on the fun/mayhem!

We were home from Disney for two days before Chris left for a work trip to Disney World, and then his parents arrived two days after that! Little did Chris know, though, that the rest of his siblings — all four of ’em — were also Colorado bound. It was so. much. fun!

Happy birthday babe — thanks for giving us another reason to all be together <3

December

We started our holiday season with a quick trip back to New York (yup, again!) for Grandpa’s surprise 60th and a delightful visit with our besties in the city for some holiday shenanigans!

The girls saw their first Rockette show!

Bryant Park is a delight during the holidays, even in the rain 😉

To close out our holiday season — and the year! — we took an EPIC European holiday trip to Germany and France, Switzerland, and Iceland with Chris’ parents. We visited Christmas markets, ate delicious food, soaked in a geothermal hot tub and just generally had the time of our lives.

Phew … what a year! And now, blink, it’s 2024. We can’t wait to see what unfolds.

Bis bald, friends. Thanks for being here 😉

Holidays In Australia Part 3: New Zealand

Published on January 8, 2023February 20, 2023 by Cheryl Lock2 Comments

The excitement began before we even got off the plane, friends … look at that view!

After spending Christmas and the next few days at Chris’ parents’ house in Bathurst, we loaded up the car and headed off to Sydney, where the girls would be staying with their grandparents and some aunts, uncles and cousins, while Chris and I headed off to New Zealand — BY OURSELVES — to celebrate our 15-year meet-a-versary, our 10-year anniversary of being married, New Years Eve (which just happens to be the anniversary of both of those aforementioned things) and the upcoming year of our 40th bdays.

But really, you don’t understand. We never leave our kids, and we especially don’t leave them overnight. In fact, we’ve only left Lotte & Grace overnight once, and that was the last time we were in Australia.

In other words, this was long overdue!

Despite knowing how much we’d enjoy the trip, we definitely waffled. Leaving three kids with any number of adults is bound to be a lot, and flights and accommodation during the holidays are astronomical. After going back and forth on it, we finally decided to JUST GO FOR IT, and we settled on spending our three-night getaway in Queenstown.

I’m so glad we did.

The Details

With so much to celebrate on this trip, we decided to just really go for it. All of that is to say — we splurged in a way we don’t normally … and I don’t feel badly about it one little bit 😉

The largest expenses by far were the flights ($2,515) and the lodging ($2,243).

We stayed at the QT Queenstown and would highly recommend it! Besides the fact that they treated us royally (with the sweetest welcome/happy anniversary package of champagne, chocolate, bath bombs and free drink tickets at their hotel bar), the (absolutely spectacular) breakfast was complimentary and in a gorgeous dining room, the location was perfect, and the views were out of this world.

We also went all-out with our meals (besides breakfast, which was always free and always at our amazing hotel). Because hey, you only have a 10-year-anniversary and you only turn 40 once!

Day One: Arriving

Here’s a little pro tip from me to you — when you’re an American traveling from Australia to New Zealand (ie. me), you do need a travel Visa, and it’s best to get this sorted before you head to the airport. Also, Quantas and Jetstar both have weight limits for carry-ons (not sure about other airlines, but these are the two that we traveled). Both of these are fun things we learned the hard way.

After our initial hiccups, we landed in gorgeous Queenstown, checked into our hotel, then set out to take in the town at twilight and have dinner at The Bunker, a romantic hidden gem offering a prefix menu and wine pairing situation that we were all too happy to enjoy.

Also delightful was the fact that Queenstown was still all dolled up for the holidays.

This place is a must if you’re looking for a romantic and low-key dining experience!

This view was a short walk from our hotel.

Queenstown is probably one of the cleanest, most picturesque places I have ever been, and it certainly has some of the nicest people I’ve met.

Day 2: Biking Around Queenstown

Renting bikes has become a little tradition for us while traveling (see Japan, Iceland, London, Rome, New Orleans and Manhattan, to name a few), so we knew we wanted to do that in New Zealand if we could, as well.

Of course, I’m never one to let a little biking come between me and a cute outfit. (Please also refer to Munich.)

Anyway, we woke up whenever we wanted to on our first full day in New Zealand, had the breakfast of our dreams at our gorgeous hotel restaurant, then rented our bikes and hit the dusty (and sometimes very narrow and very close to the side of a cliff) trail. We traveled 18 miles out to the Queenstown Golf Club for a drink, then back via a stop at Altitude Brewing.

I basically had to re-learn how to use the gears properly — as well as remind myself to ride on the other side of the road — but it all worked out in the end!

Quick beers at the gold club before turning around!

Altitude Brewing was a delightful highlight.

As was the jack fruit bao bun from the food truck!

After our ride we were more than ready for our dinner/adventure with Skyline Queenstown. This included a ride up the mountain in a gondola, dinner at the Stratosfare and three Luge rides (which I was incredibly nervous about but which turned out to be basically adult go-karts down a hill and incredibly fun!).

I kept saying that I felt like Frank Costanza on this trip, wearing my travel resort gear!

Day 3: Burgers, Gardens, & New Years Eve

After a fairly intense Day 2, we were happy to lay low on Day 3 and do some more relaxed activities. We tried out the famous Fergburger (my mushroom sandwich was to die for, but Chris said his actual burger was only okay), took a stroll around the Queenstown Gardens, HAD TWO NAPS and had dinner and watched the fireworks/welcomed 2023 from the restaurant in our hotel.

I did eventually dip my feet in, just to say that I had 😉

And that was our short-but-sweet New Zealand trip. It was absolutely everything we had hoped for and more. Thanks for being awesome, Queenstown. You’ll have a special place in our hearts forever.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the final part of our trip — a visit to the beach where Chris and his family grew up vacationing.

Until then … bis bald!