The Entire Fairy Smut Book Club Just Finished A Court of Wings and Ruin, and Part of It Was Actually Really Good! Most of It Was Not Tho...

You guys. Do you remember that my first introduction to fairy smut was back last Spring, when I was touring a college with my younger kid and saw a student-made flyer in a hallway advertising the "Fairy Smut Book Club," with a picture of the cover of A Court of Thorns and Roses on it? That's the entire reason why I got started reading this series! As the secret non-student participant and only active member of the Indiana chapter, I had to do my part!

On that topic, I have terrible news for you. My younger kid actually attends that college now, and I'm sorry to tell you that she reports that currently, there IS no longer a Fairy Smut Book Club. They weren't at the Activities Fair, they never post any meetings or activities on Bionic, and no more flyers have ever appeared in the hallways of the Old Library. 

Friends, I appear to be the last remaining member of the Fairy Smut Book Club. 

I promise to make them proud.

SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILER

In all serious, DO NOT READ THIS if you ever want to read any of these books for yourself, because I want to properly write about them here, not play coy with the plot details.

If you've read them, though, here's my review of ACOTAR and here's my review of ACOMAF.

And here's a TikTok about what it's like to be me just to take up some more room on the screen in case you're still deciding...

Okay, if you're in, you're in. Here's my review of ACOWAR!

A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This has been eating at me for three books now, and so I’m just going to come out and say it:

Y’all, I don’t think that Feyre and Rhys and their good-guy gang are very smart.

I’m not going to go so far as to say that EVERY decision they make, individually or collectively, is flat-out wrong, but I’m definitely willing to say that most of their decisions are in the neighborhood of wrong-ish.

Except for when Feyre single handedly takes down the entirety of Tamlin’s Spring Court solely out of spite--that shit is HILARIOUS and is my favorite part of this entire series. It turns out that Feyre only becomes her truest self when she is being a petty little bitch, and I loved it. When they go low, you go lower, Feyre, darling! I literally cackled when she went so far as to get up in the middle of the night and go move around a bunch of rocks just so that during their fairy ceremony the next morning the first magical sunbeam would just happen to strike her and not Ianthe. Lol! Oh, and when she did a bunch of machinations to make Tamlin think that she and Lucien were having an affair, for no other reason than to piss him off! I want THAT Feyre to be my best friend and come with me to every social occasion!

Sooo…. that was the 20% of *this* book that I liked! See also: Under the Mountain in ACOTAR. If we’d stopped at Feyre’s reunion with the Night Court--I’d even have allowed that gross sex scene at the end, just because I’d been spared smut up to then--I’d have given this book 5 stars. Feyre as High Lady of Chaos and then on a buddy adventure with Lucien is just that good.

But then Maas has to go and spoil it all with another billion pages of bad decisions by people I think we’re supposed to see as smart?

BUT THEY ARE ALL SO STUPID! Which is understandable, I guess, as none of them are scholars or appear to have been academically trained in administration, politics, or bureaucracy. All their history seems to be oral, told in folk tale format? There’s also not a lot of logic, or even common sense, on display. When two more of the bloated cast of characters, Miryam and Drakon, make their miraculous appearance at the end of the book, it turns out that they hadn’t actually mysteriously disappeared at all? They’d just put a glamour over the island they’d been living on, so when fairies flew over it the island would look empty? And so everyone thought it was empty and they’d disappeared? But they hadn’t? It was just that nobody had ever thought to, I don’t know, LAND on the island and look for clues? Perhaps even look to see if they’d left a note saying where they’d gone? They were just all, wow, that island looks empty from the air, guess Miryam and Drakon disappeared what a mystery!!!

And part of their trouble is that none of the other courts trust them because Rhys spent the past several hundred years acting like a sociopath to protect his one special city. So maybe he should stop acting like a sociopath! Like, YEAH Tarquin hates you and doesn’t trust you and is unwilling to cooperate fully at first, thereby hindering your ability to defeat Hybern--you all acted like ABSOLUTE SOCIOPATHS to steal his artifact, and then you let that artifact fall into the enemy’s hands and now it’s going to kill everyone. MAYBE THAT’S WHY TARQUIN HID IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Oh, that reminds me! It’s actually 25% of the book that I liked, because my other favorite thing is how they all try to have a meeting of the “high lords” (vomit) and when Tamlin shows up, he is such a petty little douchebag and I loved it. He is my college boyfriend who, when I told him that I was breaking up with him, immediately became incensed and started screaming, “NO, I’m breaking up with YOU!!!”, and then my Uncle Sherman, who was sleeping on the couch in the den and woke up to the sound of this random-ass guy screaming at his niece out on the carport, had to come outside and be all “Young man, it’s time to go home.” Thank you, Uncle Sherman!

In all fairness, the 25% that I liked should have been more like 60%--it only wasn’t because this book is sooooo loooooong! At one point I lost serious momentum with it when hoopla auto-returned it and then when I went to check it out again for some reason like 12 people were randomly in line ahead of me and I couldn’t get it again for months, but even when I got it back the last four hours were, like… oh, right, we’re still at war and we’re FINALLY having a battle now! I keep forgetting because we keep going on side-quests to ally with people and save random magical creatures and visit other random magical creatures and make deals with magical creatures and come back to visit them again to for more wheeling and dealing or whatever and fight somebody else and have a chat with our allies and go visit the mortal world for a minute. Like, can we not do a little more of that off-screen? Or just… not?

And THEN I lost the book again for a few weeks when I had only 45 minutes left, and when I finally got it back I listened to those last 45 minutes while riding the TranzAlpine over the Southern Alps from Greymouth to Christchurch, and absolutely nothing happened in that time. Feyre talked with the legendary fairy people who’d been lost. She had a funeral for her father. Amren doesn’t drink blood anymore (and that whole side-plot to get her god powers unveiled was also stupid). For FORTY-FIVE MINUTES. UGH!

Arthur’s Pass is sooooo pretty, though!

I’m sorry to report that my second-book prediction was correct and Nesta and Elain ARE part of the ensemble cast now, and I still hate them. I’m especially pissed that Elain is mated or soulbonded or whatever to Lucien, because Lucien is clearly the hottest fairy and he does not deserve that. The second-hottest fairy is Cassian, though, so FUCKING SIGH. I think we’re supposed to see Nesta and Elaie as… redeemed? Sisterly? now, but they still act basically the same as those basic bitches who wouldn’t even help Feyre chop wood or skin rabbits in the first book, and I don’t care what kind of powers and shit they have now--they’re still not very helpful! But the wooooorst redemption is their father! I mean, come ON! We’re supposed to believe that the bastard who ALSO wouldn’t get off his ass to keep his family from starving, or at least give his youngest daughter a little bit of help every now and then while she singlehandedly kept their family alive, had an off-screen redemption and is now a knight in shining armor? Ugh, whatever. Whereas Tamlin’s complete personality change is totally believable because even in the first book I thought he was high-key gross, this complete overhaul of Feyre’s awful family does. Not. Work. I know it sucks that Maas wanted to do something different with them after she’d written them into a corner, but sorry, that’s just what happens when you write people into a corner. Pick a different plot that works with what you’ve already done! And honestly, it would have made Feyre a much more interesting character if she chose to fight so hard to protect the mortal realm even though nearly everyone in the mortal realm had been worthless pieces of shit to her. She should have had more of Greyson’s characterisation, because that dude was all, “I fucking hate you but fine, I will help you, because morals.”

I’m also a little sorry to report that my second-book prediction that Feyre was going to have Rhys’ winged babies was INCORRECT, gasp! I would have bet real money on that one! I was also really hoping Rhys was going to die at the end, and he kind of did, but only for a minute, sigh. So I guess they can have some bat babies in the next book. Which, at this point I have NO idea what the next two(?) books are supposed to contain? I’d kind of thought we’d carry the war on for longer, but nope, everything is all wrapped up! So what on earth are we going to plot next?

And there was a little bit of queer representation in this book, finally, but most of it was brief and uninteresting enough that you’d miss it if you happened to instead notice a deer next to your walking trail, or a squirrel ran out in front of you (I eventually took to listening to this book almost entirely on walks, where I couldn’t get away to do something, anything more interesting). The only “significant” inclusion was solely to give me an extremely disappointing #bisexualrolemodel, sigh. Or, rather, what Morrigan describes is actually being a closeted lesbian with some really terrible self-hating masking techniques, right? That was… genuinely upsetting to read, tbh. The fairy realm really needs more qualified therapists.

Oh, but the good news--for a fairy smut book, it wasn’t super smutty! Or at least… I don’t think? Just between us, the sex scenes are sooo cringy that I do the 15-second skip forward every time one starts, then repeat until it’s over, and the little snippets are still veeeeery cringey, but I don’t think I had to do that too many times, so yay! The psychic snapchatting between Feyre and Rhys is something I’m super embarrassed for them about, but hey--what mutually consenting couples do together is their own business. They don’t know we’re invading their privacy, so we need to give them some grace.

So, predictions for the next two(?) books:

Feyre and Rhys will have a baby, maybe even twins so they can have a girl and a boy barf. Maybe there will be a kidnapping plot or something?

The only possible overarching plot I can think of is something with those cross-universe old gods, just because they got brought up a lot in this book for not really any good reasons.

PLEASE do not let the POV shift from Feyre to Elain or, god forbid, fucking Nesta! Feyre already gets on my very last nerve but I will flat-out stop reading this series if I have to continue through the eyes of either of those worthless pieces of shit.

It won’t happen, but it would be HILARIOUS if we had another complete turn-around in the next book, so that Rhys is now a total dick and we cheer as Feyre falls into the loving arms of Tarquin. I would read the snot out of that!

As for the Fairy Smut Book Club, perhaps it was just a busy semester for the members, and they'll reactivate it next semester, fingers crossed. My kid has told me flat-out, numerous times, that no, she will NOT join the book club on my behalf, but she IS a member of the school's Sherlock Holmes book club, so I guess there's that. The other day she was all, "One of the other members is really obsessed with Holmes slash Watson... you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

And that's how I may or may not have found myself sharing fanfic recs with yet another total stranger!

P.S. View all my reviews.

P.P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Cinnamon Dough is THE Most Delightful Winter Craft!

 

If you want a winter pick-me-up (AND a way to finish up all that ground cinnamon you bought for holiday baking), you will be delighted with cinnamon dough.

Cinnamon dough smells amazing. It’s as easy to make and use as play dough. It dries to near-permanence with just a couple of hours in the oven. It’s been my favorite winter activity to do with my kids ever since they were tiny.

Here’s all you need to make your own batch of cinnamon dough:

• one cup of cinnamon. Yes, one CUP!!! This project is made for those people (*cough, cough* it me *cough*) who overbuy the giant spice container every winter out of a fear of somehow running out during holiday baking. The struggle IS real, though: one year I 100% found myself Googling “DIY powdered sugar” at 9pm on Christmas Eve, and I never want to relive that experience.
• up to 5 tsp aromatic spices. I like to put in those spices that I know I’m not going to use before they expire (I’m looking at you, Allspice! And YOU, Ground Cloves!).
• .5 to 1 cup applesauce. Choose the cheapest store-brand sugar-free applesauce for this, although I won’t judge you if you find yourself panic-emptying a couple of pouches because you simply cannot go back to the freaking grocery store one more time today. Once upon a time, I made my kids a batch of play dough using organic flour because that’s what I had on hand. It wasn’t my finest moment, but I DID get to stay in my jammy pants!
• cookie sheet.

Step 1: Mix all ingredients.

Add all the dry ingredients to a bowl, then stir to combine.

Starting with 1/2 cup applesauce, mix/knead the applesauce into the other ingredients in batches. I’ve never figured out exactly why my cinnamon dough requires a slightly different amount of applesauce every year–is it the humidity? The age/variety of spices? It’s not the applesauce itself, because I always use that exact kind in the photo–but indeed, I make this cinnamon dough every single winter, and every single winter I have to play the exact amount of applesauce by ear.

You’re looking for a consistency like any other dough in your life–not crumbly, not sticky. If you’re working with younger kids, err on the side of making the dough a little wet and sticky, because a crumbly dough that doesn’t hold together with ease is almost immediately frustrating to little kids.

And yes, I’m sorry, but you will have to get your hands into it. It’s dough! If it’s any consolation, though, cinnamon is pretty nice for your skin!

Step 2: Decorate!

You can sculpt with this cinnamon dough just like you would with any dough, but my family’s favorite way to enjoy it has always been to get out the cookie cutters and make ornaments and garlands.

To make your own cinnamon dough ornaments, roll the dough no thicker than 1/4″, then cut with cookie cutters. Make a small hole for stringing onto a garland using the tip of a chopstick, or a larger hole for attaching an ornament hanger using a straw.

If you’re making a fiddly design, you can roll the dough directly onto parchment paper, then move your design, parchment paper and all, onto the cookie sheet for baking.

Just beware of trying to work with the dough when it’s cold from the refrigerator. It’s fine to store the dough in the fridge for a couple of weeks, but it will cooperate a LOT better at room temperature.

Step 3: Bake.

While you’re working with the dough, preheat the oven to around 200 degrees (depending on my oven’s capabilities over the years, I’ve used temps anywhere between 200-250 degrees with similar results. One of these days, I’ll even get around to experimenting with my dehydrator!).

This dough won’t expand, so don’t worry about placement; just set them onto an ungreased cookie sheet and set the time for an hour.

After one hour, I like to check on my ornaments and flip them. See in the above photo how the centers of the larger ornaments that I just flipped over are darker? That’s the bottom middle that hasn’t dried yet, so flipping them over and putting them back in the oven lets them dry out evenly.

After a couple of hours, the ornaments should start to be ready, depending on how big they are. I start to check on them about every 20 minutes, removing the ones that are bone-dry whenever I check. I don’t really enjoy a lot of hands-on kitchen stuff, so I’m always VERY excited when that last ornament is dry and I can finally turn the oven off!

Step 4: Attach ornament hangers.

This year, my teenager and I combined these cinnamon dough ornaments with dried grapefruit slices to make some lovely (and lovely-smelling!) winter garlands that we hope to keep on display through February.

I tied loops of embroidery floss through the holes on the other ornaments, and we put them right onto our tree.

With careful storage, these cinnamon dough ornaments should last for multiple years. A couple of years ago, after probably a decade of making them yearly and storing the survivors (it’s hard to be a Christmas tree ornament in this house!) with our other ornaments in the garage during the off-seasons, all of our cinnamon dough ornaments came out of storage a little moldy. They must have gotten damp or come into contact with something that ruined them, but it remains a mystery!

But whether you try to store them (I think I *will* try again this year!) or simply compost them in the Spring, or even just enjoy the dough as a process-oriented sensory experience and don’t keep them at all, I think this cinnamon dough will be a delightful addition to your winter craft projects!

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How to Make Dried Citrus Slices for Ornaments and Garlands

 

I first posted this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

This winter, let just a little more sunshine into your home with dried citrus slices turned into ornaments and garlands.

I’m happy to admit that I decorate the absolute snot out of my house for Christmas. It is not tasteful at ALL, and I LOVE it.

What I love even more, though, are the decorations that I don’t have to make myself take down on January 2. The tinsel and the twinkle lights and the tree and the four hundred nutcrackers and the paper stars all have to go, even though it makes me 100% sad to put them away.

It’s a good thing, then, that I have convinced myself that my decorations that are “winter” themed, rather than purely for Christmas, get to stay up through February! The paper snowflakes get to stay. The gnomes get to stay. And all the citrus and cinnamon dough garlands get to stay, smelling sweet and looking lovely, until I finally take them down to make room for all the spring gardening stuff I’m starting to drag out.

These dried citrus slices are easy to make during a cozy half-day at home, and easy to string to make ornaments, garlands, and other holiday decorations. Here’s how!

To make dried citrus slices, you will need:

• citrus fruits. I’ve successfully dried naval oranges and grapefruits (in this tutorial, I’m drying grapefruit!). Any citrus fruit in which the peel clings to the fruit should work, but I doubt that a fruit like easy-peeling clementines would.
• sharp knife or mandolin. The thinner the better for these dried citrus slices! I hand-cut my grapefruit slices and caused myself some extra annoyance since they were so thick that they took ages to dry, but dry they did, so don’t worry if your knife skills are as ham-handed as mine are.
• oven set to 200 degrees or dehydrator. The dehydrator takes longer and is noisier, but it uses less energy and leaves your oven free.

Step 1: Slice your citrus fruit more evenly than I did!

Although apparently, you can just hack away at them like I did and that works okay, too!

Set aside the ends that are mostly peel, ideally tossing them into your garden to do a little natural composting before spring.

If I’m too lazy to even take my end bits out into the garden (sometimes it’s dark out there! Or, even worse, precipitating!!!), I like to put them down the garbage disposal for a little natural deodorizing.

Step 2: Dry or dehydrate.

Either put your slices on sheet pans into a 200-degree oven or arrange them, as pictured above, in your 15-year-old Nesco dehydrator. I used to use this dehydrator allllll the time when my kids were little, making them dehydrated fruit slices and fruit leather and flaxseed crackers and such, but these days I only pull it out to dry herbs and make decorations like these. 

Your citrus slices will take 2-3 hours to dry out in the oven. In the dehydrator, they’ll take more like 8-10 hours, but again, your oven will be free to bake cookies! Make your own choice depending on your own priorities, but as for me, *I* like cookies!

After a couple of hours in the oven or six hours in the dehydrator, check on the citrus slices, and remove any that look completely dried. I had to keep doing this, because, again, I cut my grapefruit slices as unevenly as it is possible to cut them. You, with your better knife skills, will only need to keep an eye out for the end pieces with the smaller diameters, as those will likely be dried before the middle pieces.

Step 3: Decorate!

This is the fun part!

My teenager and I made both ornaments and garlands with these dried citrus slices. To make the garlands, we interspersed the grapefruit slices with cinnamon dough cutouts (stay tuned for that recipe next week!), but to make the ornaments, we used just a blunt tapestry needle and some embroidery floss. Thread the needle, then pull it through the slice near the top. Pull it back through the same spot, then take the needle off the floss. Tie the two ends of floss together to make a loop, then put one end of the loop through the other to make a nice ornament hanger.

These dried citrus slices look lovely on a Christmas tree or in a garland across your window, sure, but don’t sleep on all the other pretty ways to use them. Hang them outside, display them in a bowl on the coffee table, wire them into a wreath, tie them into a gift topper, or do any one of a hundred more cute things.

Also feel free to experiment with other types of citrus. I like orange for my own winter decorating, but there’s no rule saying that you can’t jazz up your decor with the yellow and green of lemons and limes, or the dark red of blood oranges.

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In Which I Plan the Snot out of 9 Days in New Zealand

The New Zealand Government's 404 Error page is lol.

While my older kid is still happily sailing the South Pacific in a tall ship, doing oceanography research and other ocean-y things, her dad and I have been busy all semester planning our trip to meet her when she finally disembarks in Auckland, so we can all wander around New Zealand together. By then she'll have spent a few shore days spread out between Fiji and Tuvalu, but this will be the first time for all of us in New Zealand. I don't know when on earth I'll ever be back, so I'm determined to see as much as I can in the little time we've got!

Our itinerary is pretty tight, because I want to be back home by the time my younger kid's school break starts, and you already know that I do NOT believe in down-time or relaxation during my vacations--that's what boring weeknights at home are for! That being said, we only pre-booked the stuff that absolutely needed to be pre-booked--you would not BELIEVE (or maybe you would!) how quickly Hobbiton tickets sell out!--so we can take or leave most of these itinerary items as needed.

Day 1: Auckland

Piha Beach and Lion Rock

The first thing that I want to do in New Zealand is put my toes in the same sea that my older kid is sailing on! I'm betting that fresh air, sunshine, and a nice walk along the beach towards a majestic rock will also feel awesome after a 15-hour flight. The early morning also means that my partner, who truly is the fairest in all the land, will hopefully tolerate the sun a little better. The UV Index regularly reaches 11+ during this time of year, and this handy website all about melanoma helpfully tells me that with that UV Index, fair-skinned people can burn in less than 5 minutes. 

Like, will I hear his skin audibly sizzle?

We've got reef-safe mineral sunscreen, sun hats (we own this one and this one, and I really like them both), and the dude has a UV-protective long-sleeved shirt to wear as a base layer. We may still come home chock-full of melanoma, but we'll have tried!

New Zealand Maritime Museum

If you told me that I was going somewhere exciting but the only sightseeing I was allowed to do was go to science and history museums, I'd be thrilled. I'd been dithering about whether I wanted to go to this museum or the Auckland Museum, but I liked my visit to the New Bedford Whaling Museum so much that I'm excited to learn more cool boat facts. 

Auckland Night Market

The other nice thing about the New Zealand Maritime Museum is that it's right downtown, so we can walk around and explore the waterfront afterwards. Conveniently, one of the Auckland Night Markets will also be happening in Silo Park, so we can graze for whatever meal our bodies have decided it's time for.

Newmarket

Our hotel is a short walk from Newmarket, Auckland's bougie shopping and dining area, although I'm mostly excited that it's got coffee, breakfast, and a grocery store. 

Day 2: Hobbiton

Hobbiton

I cannot believe that once upon a time, back when I first started planning this trip, I didn't think we'd even GO to Hobbiton! It turned me off that it would take most of the day, and that it's a guided tour, not just a place where you can wander around independently on your own schedule. And now here I am finishing up my hobbit door pendant so I can wear something thematically appropriate, and my partner and I are re-watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy after forcing ourselves to sit through the Hobbit trilogy, AND I'm re-reading The Hobbit and I'm just at the part where Bard has come to parley for aid and Thorin is being an asshole, and I downloaded the Lord of the Rings trilogy onto my nook so that I can re-read it during the trip. 

AND we found out about the guy who re-cut the Hobbit movies into a single 4.5-hour film that's true to the book, but we have to wait until we get home to watch it because I'm scared to mess with BitTorrent without one of my kids at least supervising.

Anyway, I cannot fucking WAIT to walk through the Shire!

Stardome Planetarium and Observatory

We might find ourselves too wiped out after driving back to Auckland to do more than grab some dinner at Newmarket and hit the sack, but if we're still up and at 'em, I'm hoping to check out one of the evening shows here, entirely for the planetarium tour of the Southern sky. Stargazing is one of my favorite hobbies, and I am VERY excited about stargazing in the Southern Hemisphere, especially in some of the remote places we'll be visiting. So it would also be nice to get a planetarium tour so I actually know what I'm looking at!

Day 3: Rotorua

Breakfast and Groceries

No matter what we do during the rest of the trip, this day will be my favorite day, because on this day my favorite sailor disembarks! She's supposed to disembark from around the Princess Wharf area, so hopefully it won't be too much of a hassle to find her. 

Our FAVORITE sightseeing activity when we travel is finding new snacks at the grocery store. We also like to try every new location's version of doughnuts and pizza, so depending on whether or not the kid ate breakfast before leaving the ship, we can break up the drive to Rotorua with a meal stop and the search for car snacks.

Polynesian Spa

Whether you're still recovering from two months on a tall ship or 15 hours on a plane, I think that a long soak in a geothermal pool will be JUST the thing! And it will give the kid a chance to take the longest shower of her life without hogging our hotel bathroom, ahem. 

Geothermal sightseeing

I don't know if we'll do our sightseeing before or after the geothermal spa (probably depends on how bad the kid smells after two months of navy showers...), but the kid and I are both high-key obsessed with geothermal features, and we are going to look at ALL of them (that do not cost money)! There's a geothermal walking track south of the Polynesian Spa, at Sulfur Point, then more thermal pools and hot springs all the way up Hatupatu Dr. for about a mile-ish. We'll use whatever free time we have over the couple of days we're here to see as much stinky water as we can!

Eat Street

Ice cream for dinner!

Day 4: Rotorua

Spellbound Glowworm Caves

When we first started planning our New Zealand trip, knowing we weren't going to have nearly enough time to do everything we wanted, we each made a list of our must-see items. The kid wanted to see kiwis and rainforests and albatrosses. My partner wanted to see something done by Weta Workshop, although he hadn't yet decided what. And I wanted to see glaciers, the night sky, and GLOWWORMS!!!

I am SO excited to see these maggoty little larvae buddies and their illuminated mucous extrusions!

Otorohanga Kiwi House

You might recall that the older kid loves zoos THE MOST. So I'm very excited that this little place on the way back to Rotorua from the Spellbound Caves not only has the kiwis she requested, but is also set up like a little zoo! As well as kiwis, we should be able to see several other native and endemic birds and lizards... and eels, which the kid and I are both obsessed with after listening to this Gastropod episode together.

Mitai Maori Village

I wanted to do a Maori cultural experience, and there are several to choose from in Rotorua. This one looks super educational, and it includes a feast! We also get to visit the site of an original Maori village on the property, and a sacred spring, and we might even see glowworms in the forest.

Day 5: Drive to Wellington

Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland

We'll have to get a SUPER early start on this day, so that we get here right when it opens at 8:30 am, but the geyser and hot mud and sulfur steam are worth it! Just like Maori cultural experiences, there are also several geothermal parks in the area, but this one is very well-reviewed, among the least expensive, and I also like that it's well outside Rotorua so that it's got some different features. I was also really interested in Orokai Korako, but it's too far off our path. Next time!

Tongariro National Park

We ARE going off our path to visit this place, and hopefully we'll have time to do at least one nice hike as well as a couple of tiny ones. The places we most want to see are Tawhai Falls, Mangawhero Falls, and Waitonga Falls. The kid and I will have base layers, but I've never been able to convince my partner to appreciate the joys of thermal underwear, so he might freeze to death on this day. Or, I don't know, maybe he can keep warm by jogging in circles around us as we hike?

Day 6: Wellington

Weta Workshop

My partner will simply have to survive the chilly hikes in Tongariro National Park, because he booked us for ANOTHER Weta experience on this day! Just between us, he usually just tags along with whatever I plan, cheerfully enough but with zero input, so I am happily shocked that he chose and booked some activities that HE wanted to do, for a change. 

Te Papa

So much for doing what my partner wants to do for a change, because as soon as our Weta Workshop tour is over, I'm dragging him to yet another museum! My excuse for making us go to yet another science and history museum is that our daughter didn't get to go to the Auckland one with us, and she loves museums as much as I do!

DIY Food Tour

The kid and I have so far gone on two big-city food tours, and although we enjoyed them both, the kid has long talked about how much more fun it would be to DIY our own food tour, so we could go where we want to go on our own timetable, and eat what we want to eat in the portions that we choose. Since Wellington has a ton of delicious-looking food options within walking distance of Te Papa, I thought we'd try out her plan!

Bonus that she's over the minimum drinking age in New Zealand, so we can add bars and taprooms to our list!

We'll likely do a lot of wandering, as well, but I've bookmarked Choice Bros, solely because it has two David Bowie-themed beers, Rebel Rebel and Star Man, that I'm crossing my fingers in hope that I can buy cans of to bring home to my David Bowie-obsessed younger kid; Shelly Bay Baker, which apparently has amazing salted caramel cookies; Duck Island Ice Cream, which has a flavor called Fairy Bread that I'm excited to try; and The Library, which is a library-themed bar with book-themed cocktails. There are also a couple of bookshops and a Daiso chain that we might pop into...

Day 7: Drive to Pancake Rocks

Interislander Ferry

The kids and I have taken the ferry to Prince Edward Island, but this will be my partner's first ferry! I tried to talk him into dropping off our rental car in Wellington and picking up a new one in Picton, but he didn't go for it, so we'll also be treating our rental car to a ferry ride, ahem. 

Apparently, the Cook Strait can be a little rough, alas. The kid will still have her sea legs, but I'm packing ginger chews and I'll be pre-gaming Dramamine!

Wineries

There's nothing like visiting several wineries when you're hopped up on Dramamine, lol! There are tons to choose from right on our path out of Picton, so even though the kid doesn't like wine, we can probably convince her to come along with us to at least a couple. No. 1 Family Estate is the only one with free tastings, but Hunter's Wines has a native garden and an olive grove, and Wairau River has themed flights, which I think is a fun idea.

Pancake Rocks and Blowholes

This short hike is so close to our hotel that if we miss high tide the previous afternoon, surely my partner won't mind driving me back at 6:00 the next morning!

Fingers crossed for me that this evening is clear, because we're staying in a teeny town near the beach, and how I would LOVE to stargaze there.

Day 8: Glaciers

Westland Tai Poutini National Park Visitor Center

I *think* I already know where I want to go in Westland Tai Poutini National Park, but I supposed it wouldn't hurt to check with a ranger. After all, the best travel insurance is the kind you don't actually have to use!

Do you think New Zealand national parks have passport stamps and Junior Ranger badges and other assorted merch? We'll see!

Franz Josef Glacier

Will my partner have given in and bought himself some thermals in Wellington, or will he definitely freeze to death on this day? Stay tuned!

We're not actually going ON the glacier, because that requires a helicopter tour and that was too spendy even for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. We used up most of our New Zealand trip budget simply getting to and from New Zealand! Side note: if you've got a high school kid who loves to travel and you know they're going to be interested in studying abroad in college, research study-abroad programs when they apply to colleges. One of the big selling points of my kid's college is that study-abroad is the exact same cost as their regular tuition, including all their need-based financial aid. That is NOT the case at most schools. So my kid got her $31,000 study-abroad program, plus reimbursement for a round-trip plane ticket across the world, for a song. And that includes a full semester of college credits! She basically went to college for a semester AND took a months-long trip of a lifetime for the same amount that her dad and I are paying for a 9-day trip.

Anyway, we're not going to fly up in a helicopter so we can touch a glacier, but we are going to hike through a rainforest so we can look at it through binoculars.

Fox Glacier

And then we're going to go on a longer walk to see another glacier!

I'd love to do this trek but I don't have the fitness level and my partner has a touch of acrophobia so....

Lake Matheson

If it's a clear day, we can finish up with this hike that has an awesome view of Aoraki/Mount Cook.

West Coast Wildlife Center

And if it's a rotten day and we've reached our physical capacities by simply not dying on our glacier walks, we can go look at some more kiwis instead!

Day 9: TransAlpine Train

National Kiwi Center

Okay, I know that by this time we'll have seen kiwis--maybe twice!--but here you can also FEED EELS!!! 

This is also our last proper day in New Zealand, so we'll stop either here in Hokitika or in Greymouth to stock up on our favorite snacks. I'm STILL sad that I did not buy a case of Cadbury Popping Jellies to bring home from our trip to England--I will not make that mistake again!

TransAlpine Train

This is supposed to be an absolutely glorious trip, and bonus: we don't have to drive it so we probably won't die!

Day 10: Fly Home

This kid of ours is a lucky duck in that her plane ticket, separate from ours, starts her off on her journey home not quite 3 hours before our journey starts, but she'll get to our home airport TEN hours before us!

We're currently all debating, so please feel free to chime in: do we think that she should hang out at the airport and wait for us, or do we think that we should give her the car keys and the parking ticket so she can leave and then come back and get us? The drive between home and the airport is only an hour and some change, so honestly she could even go home, take a shower, pet the cats, maybe even pick Luna up from the dogsitter. Or she could just stay in Indy but get a proper non-airport meal and hang out at Barnes and Noble. OR she could hang out at the airport but get the car from long-term parking and move it to the hourly parking near the terminal so she wouldn't have to deal with her luggage and we could just zip on out of the airport when we finally arrive. OR she could hang out at the airport but when she sees that our flight has arrived, she could go get the car and then meet us at the Arrivals curb?

Whatever has the most votes will win!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, encounters with Chainsaw Helicopters, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!