Christmas Vacation - Part I: Marlborough

Like I said in my Catching Up post, we ended up with over 3,000 pictures from our Christmas trip on the South Island with Rob's family, so we're going to have to do this in multiple posts.  I don't know how many posts this will end up being, but last year's Christmas Vacation turned 1,300 pictures into four parts, so be prepared!

On Saturday the 20th, Rob and I headed to the airport to meet up with Rob's brother M, who arrived very early that morning from San Francisco. The three of us jumped on a plane and flew down to Blenheim, where we met up with D&L, who flew down from Wellington.  Rob and I went to Blenheim for our first wedding anniversary in September 2013, and had been eager to get back ever since.

Blenheim is the main town in the Marlborough wine region, which is world renowned for its Sauvignon Blanc. Our first night there we had dinner at Herzog Bistro and then headed back to the Chateau Marlborough where M's fascination with cricket began.  Over the next 10 days, we spent hours watching cricket in an attempt to figure out how the hell that game works.  We never did fully figure it out, but other Kiwis seem to appreciate that we tried.

The day after our arrival we did an all-day wine tour with Bubbly Grapes, who we'd done a tour with before. It did not disappoint the second time around and we had a fantastic time!

Welcome to New Zealand, M!  

Wine tasting at Cloudy Bay (aka L's paradise) - did you remember your astronaut costume?

We're going to need some of these swings at Geist.

A great start to G Family Vacation 2014!

After our wine tour we hung out by the hotel pool - Rob and M were over wine at that point. Bottom right: A home brewing/second hand book store. Maybe Rob and I can take it over one day!

There's no wine tasting like Kiwi wine tasting.