I'm dreaming of a sunny christmas

On the way up Mt. Roy!

Merry Christmas all,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and happy Boxing Day. Boxing Day??? That's right. For those of you who are confused over why anyone would have a national holiday celebrating all things pugilistic, wikipedia states that:

"Boxing Day is a traditional celebration dating back to the Middle Ages, of which the primary practice is the giving of gifts to employees, the poor, or to people in a lower social class. The name has numerous folk etymologies^[3]; the Oxford English Dictionary attributes it to the Christmas box; the verb box meaning: "To give a Christmas-box (colloq.); hence the term boxing-day."

So there you go.

Anyway, back to us. Drea and I spent the first part of our holidays (with the excpetion of Christmas day) relaxing around the house. We've been trying to sort out what we want to do with our two week (minus a few days for Drea's work) vacation. We ended up deciding that we would go up to Wanaka to do some hiking over Christmas. We left on Christmas Eve and turned a leisurely 4 hour drive into a leisurely 9 hour drive. The landscape early in the trip is famous from Lord of the Rings as the place where Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli were chasing the Uruk-hai across the plains. Along the drive, we stopped for a short hike, ate fresh homemade strawberry ice cream at a little side of the road fruit stand, stocked up on food since we weren't sure if we would be able to buy anything over the next couple days(with Christmas closures and all), and learned an amazing amount about the central Otago gold rush and methods for separating gold from rock. Did you know that the new zealand gold miners were the first ones to use dredging equipment to mine the gold out of their rivers? (by the way, this blog does not condone fact checking) We also found a couple neat tracks along the road to Wanaka that look like they might be fun to explore.

We arrived in Wanaka at around 5:30pm. We found a little hole in the wall restaurant where we had pizza and garlic bread.(Aside: 'Hole in the Wall' is also a Japanese-originated game show, also known as Human Tetris, in which contestants attempt holding correct poses in order to try to fit through cutouts in an oncoming wall. Please watch this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lam_1J65mes ) I think this was probably the best garlic bread ever. It was a whole loaf of fresh baked bread smothered in garlic and butter and chives. So good!!! After dinner we decided that we hadn't been in the car enough so we went to the movies. It wasn't a drive in but there was a drive in option...
We saw Elizabeth. Both Drea and I liked it but were unsure of its historical accuracy. The movie theater was a neat little one-screen place. They stopped the movie half way through for intermission during which they sold enormous fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Brilliant!!! We, of course, took the bait.

We camped in our car that night (surprisingly comfortable!) and were woken early in the morning by some guy who wanted access to his boat ramp. Whoops! Nice views across the lake though.

Once were we up and refreshed we decided to hike up to the top (and not anywhere short of the top, dammit!) of Mt. Roy. It was a 6-7 hour hike straight up and straight down (it seems a lot of the best hikes are like this). It was gorgeous but I'll let the pictures and movies tell the rest of the story.

That's dave, still about 300 meters from the top of the hike.



From the top!!!! Note ominous storm clouds behind us.

They're sooooo cute!

Once we were down we made a brief stop at a golfcross course where Dave mistakenly decided that it must be for Frisbee golf. Since it was Christmas no one else was on the course, so I was able to play a few holes with my discs anyway. Here's what I was supposed to be doing. http://www.golfcross.com/ After that, we decided to head home rather than sleep another night in the car (despite its surprising comfortability). It started raining on the way home and then got progressively worse until it started hailing on us about half way there. It was definitely a relief to get home after the drive. It was much quicker on the way home since everything was closed and it wasn't all that inviting to get out of the car.

Anyway, we're back home now. Drea is working and we're planning our trip to Stewart Island.
Talk to you all later,

Love,
Dave and Andrea

the saga continues

Welcome back to the Dave and Drea New Zealand Adventure Cliffhanger series.

To be honest, I didn't even realize the point at which I had left off the last post as I was rushing out the door. Anyway, when we last left our heroes, Andrea was flying down the wrong side of the road with Dave in hot pursuit. As Dave rounded the corner Andrea looked back into her rearview mirror and wondered to herself what Dave was doing on the other side of the road (during the reconstruction of events it was learned that previous to this Andrea was wondering why it was taking Dave so long to catch up) . Brief moments later she realized and moved herself in to the correct lane. Pretty exciting, eh?!? Ok, sorry, I guess that's a wee anticlimactic.

Anyway, we also finally got all of our goods through customs and home. It took a lot more work than we had anticipated to get it done however. First off, we had to get the MAF inspection and customs ok finalized. Which would have been easier if Dave hadn't misplaced the packing list for all of our boxes (bad Dave). But with that in hand the inspection finally got scheduled for Thursday.

In the meantime, I went about trying to secure some kind of transport from Christchurch to Dunedin for our stuff once it was cleared. The problem turned out that the shipment of good was just the wrong size and weight. I must have called about 20 moving, freight and courier companies. The moving companies had a minimum load size and wanted to charge their minimum fee of $500. The freight companies wouldn't do it because we didn't have an account with them and they wouldn't do one-off transports. And the courier companies after quoting me $300 changed their minds and wouldn't do it because it was too heavy. So come Thursday afternoon, I was so frustrated by the whole thing I was about to jump in the wagon and drive up there to get them myself. But luckily the last company I called (a company that specializes in hauling sheep to Christchurch from here) said they would do it no problem. For $46.38!!!!! Sweet! So now we have our goods, albeit smelling like disinfectant (from MAF spraying for bugs) and sheep (for obvious reasons). The weekend has been spent doing laundry and some extensive airing out of goods.

This weekend also included a couple of friendly get-togethers. We went to an Andrea's informal department work function where we dominated the one round of non-Dunedin-specific trivia and then got obliterated on the rest. We had a really nice lunch with our landlord and a couple (Erin and James) they wanted to introduce us to, Erin was from Andover, Massachusetts. So we had a nice time chatting with them and after it was over Erin and James took us on a little tour of the neighborhood. So that was cool. We also had our friends Brian and Mary and their kids over for breakfast Sunday morning. We whipped up some of our "now world famous" French Toast. Yum.

Other than all that it's been pretty mellow. We have a couple new words to add to the kiwi/english dictionary. If you are going to have "belgium for tea", it means you are having "bologne for dinner". And at work when someone comes around and offers you some square you should say yes. A square, or as I was offered "a triangle square" is a piece of cake. A triangle square just happens to be a triangularly shaped piece of cake. Go figure.

Today it's raining and as I was walking to lunch in the rain I...

tune in again soon...Same bat time, same bat channel!
cheers!

shipping and handling charges may apply

Hey All,

Sorry for the delay between posts. It's been a busy week. We went up to Christchurch this last weekend for a threefold mission.

First, Drea joined up with the Dunedin frisbee club to compete in the New Zealand Coed National Championships. Dave tagged along for the ride. Neither of us remembered to bring our camera's up with us (idiots!) so sorry for the lack of pics. The team had a lot of fun and went 3-1 on the first day that was marked by some pretty heavy winds. We were good with the sunscreen but I'm pretty sure we both ended up with a solid windburn at the end of the day. The second day of play was a little rough and The Dunedin Cortina (the team was named for a late model ford import that I'd never heard of) saw the worse end of a few close games. The team came to Christchurch with 9 able bodied men and left with 5. So you could probably attribute their lackluster finish to attrition.

Second, dave had scheduled (that's shed-juled in NZ speak) meetings in Christchurch Monday morning to meet with his counterparts in the OPUS office there. As part of the deal OPUS put the both of us in a super swanky hotel right off the main park in Christchurch, with an expense account (sweet!!). If we had known how nice it was we would have hurried over there right after the last game. They had free golf clubs for a free golf course, free spa, free food, free gym, free free free free free!! http://www.chateau-park.co.nz/

I got up early and wandered down to the office. Met a whole bunch of people that I'm going to have a hard time remembering the names of but I feel like I was able to make a decent impression on everyone I met. So that was good. I think Drea took a bath while I was out. (Free too!)

After the meetings and on to the third part of our grand plan. OPUS had set us up with a rental car to get back to Dunedin and we had received word from the shipping company earlier in the week that our goods had arrived and were available in Christchurch. So we were able to talk our way into a rental car big enough to transport all the stuff we shipped oversea. That's when things started to fall apart in our grand plan. It turns out the shipping company neglected to send me the cover letter that went with my shipments arrival notice. So I had no idea that I needed to schedule a MAF inspection (that's the ministry of Agriculture and forestry, damn you Ray Fort) and get approval from customs to collect my goods. I had assumed, and the form that said "your goods are available at..." led me to believe, that all this stuff was already taken care of. Well, after several trips back and forth across Christchurch we realized that this wasn't going to happen today. So, extremely frustrated, we drove back to Dunedin.

We returned the rental car the next morning and had a little excitement on the way back. Drea drove the rental car and I was following in ours. We stopped for gas about a kilometer from the rental agency near the airport. Drea jumped in the rental and took off and I jumped in mine to follow. As i get on the road I see Drea in her car half a km away on the wrong side of the road. AAAHHHHHH!!! So I race after her with the horns blasting and the lights flashing as she goes around the corner. She goes another half block before




Gotta run but I'll finish this post later. Couldn't save it as a draft so it forced me to publish. so here you go...

National Jandals Day

Hey all,

Happy National Jandals Day from the land of wacky holidays!!! For those of you who have no idea what a Jandal is (I had to ask), it's a flip flop. So here it is, Friday December 7th. National Flip Flop Day. So here at Dave's work things have gotten even more casual than normal. I personally didn't think it was possible. Just about everyone here today is wearing shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. If you don't believe me you can see for yourself... http://www.nationaljandalday.co.nz/ Of course, I forgot that I had a meeting with the Regional Transit agency this morning. Luckily I brought a pair of back up shoes.

Also to get everyone in the festive spirit here at Opus, they have instituted the 12 days of OPUS Christmas. I'll have to figure out a way to post the schedule on here but it includes a BBQ (yeah, summer Christmas), gift giving, and a coloring contest (who can color (sorry, colour) the best picture of David Hasselhoff, not kidding!)

In other news, Drea and I witnessed a rather bizarre episode last night. There was an ambulance driving slowly throughout the neighborhood with its sirens blaring every few seconds. The ambulance personel were jumping out of the ambulance and running up to every house and knocking on doors. We were a little disconcerted until we found out what it was. Any guesses??

That's right, it was a canned food drive.

Anyway, we're off to Christchurch where Drea is going to compete in the NZ national coed ultimate frisbee championships. I, unfortunately, am still on injured reserve. In exciting news, I did go for my very first run since my ankle sprain last night. And it has never felt so good to run.

Love to all,
Dave and Andrea

ah the internet!

Hey all,

So we've finally got the internet running at the house. Once telecom got around to putting us on their database and then having one of their service crews come out this morning to fix the wires leading to our place (hope nobody tried to call the last couple days as our phone's been dead) then we were in business. I'm going to try and throw in a few pics that show some of the things we've tried to describe.

Andrea's brother Mark made the very apt observation that our previous video showing the chicken capture reminded him of Rocky 2,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBEDwm0Xu9Q

See any resemblance? Apollo Creed watchout! I'm training hard down here.

Last night turned out to be Dave's company Christmas party. It was held at the Glenfalloch Gardens out on the peninsula. It's strange having a Christmas party where it's light out until 10. We did a fair amount of wandering around the gardens before dinner. They were beautiful with lots of cute little paths winding all over the place. There was a band playing all your favorite 70's hits and a pretty decent buffet that both of us ate too much of. I don't think either of us has the right mentality for buffet style eating. We forgot to bring the camera with us so there aren't any pictures of Andrea's fancy dress but hopefully someone at work got one and I can post it here later. She looked fantastic (take my word for it, this is Dave typing in case you were curious)

Today we woke up late since we were waiting around for the technician to arrive. Once he fixed everything up for us we got up, made pancakes and then heading into town. Today turned out to be a big shopping day. We went to the farmers market and bought some veggies and a pie (pies are the quintissential new zealand dish here and we've heard that a lot of people have pie every day, after eating our pie this evening we will not be that type of person). We ran a couple errands and then went to the art store. Dave has really enjoyed the art class that we've been going to and wanted to buy himself some paint and brushes and things so he could continue with it. Drea had to talk him down from buying a couple hundred dollars worth of art supplies. So after much deliberation we walked out with $70 worth of stuff and felt pretty good about it. Here is a picture of the two of us with our work. All you art critics out there be kind, it's our first work since third grade.

And in case you were worried that we weren't going to talk about birds in this entry, don't worry. We had a minor scare last night as our beloved (back to beloved status) Coco somehow got out of the coop and dissappeared. After a restless night of worry we were all set to go door to door around the neighborhood and post fliers, but she turned up in the morning looking for food.
Also in chicken news, after a short getting to know (and peck) you period, our two chickens have now totally bonded. They are rarely seen apart and have started doing choreographed dance together. See the following series:
Here's a picture of an Albatross!!!

And here's the view from our house at sunset!!!

Happy Movember!

Hello Friends and Family -
Happy Movember! Perhaps you dont' know this holiday, but it is a
month in which people grow (or paste) jolly mustaches, "mo's", on
their face for charity! It's apparently for men's health awareness,
but I bet half the people doing it didn't know that - ironically
enough. Anyway, Dave got all shy and decided not to do it. I,
however, am wearing a gray 'scoundrel' mustache today. It looks very

wild wild west. Drea and coworkers with their "mustaches"

There's a Movember parade that ends in the cafeteria
at 12:30 here at the hospital. I am not sure whether I will make it
that long. One of the therapists had a bunch of mustaches available
this morning that I couldn't turn down. You can buy them at the store
and they're called "mustache party." They have all types available:
bandit, scoundrel, smarty, rogue, casanova and partyboy. So anyway,
we chose a great month to join the kiwi nation!
Anyway, we got a new chicken, which I'm sure you are all aware if
you've read the blog. Coco likes to peck at new chicken's face when
she's eating, so Coco is slowly falling out of favor with me. Yes,
she's a chicken, but can't they just get along?? New chicken is still
as of yet unnamed. But is terrified of anything large moving outside
of the cage, and likes to chase little birds around the coop while
flapping her wings. She accidentally flew up and got her head caught
in the cage netting a few days ago.Silly chicken! I want to get a
wacky looking chicken with two chicks to add to our collection from
the ebay equivalent of new zealand, but dave is not in favor of wacky
looking chickens. Coco does look like those chicken tea kettle
warmers when she is sitting, though. Very picture perfect.
The garden looks great - except when the ducks get in there and dig
things up. Any ideas on how to keep ducks out of our garden? Send
them along to us!

Here is one of those pesky ducks on the roof of our sunroom.

Speaking of living plants, it seems very popular here to sell lettuce
and herbs and spinach with roots and a little dirt attached. I've
seen a little of that in the states, but it's very common here. The
produce seems to be pretty expensive (unless you're buying a 15 lb
head of cabbage). I accidentally bought a $3 potato yesterday.
Whoops.
Lots and lots of people are barefoot around town here. I saw someone
walk out of a mall yesterday barefoot, and it's very common on the
street. I'm thinking that's why spitting on the street is frowned
upon. But it's not like it's hot or even warm when this occurs. I
don't' know how they do it. I can't even handle not wearing socks in
my shoes.

As for more kiwi slang, we are still trying to complete the list of
translations for 'cheers'. Right now we have: you're welcome, see you
later, best wishes, toast, thanks. But there are many more. My boss
keeps saying 'jolly' instead of darn or damn, and 'wee' often . ("I
can't get this jolly drive to work.") Dave and I have been having fun
saying 'jolly' in place of worse words, because we always just end up
laughing instead of being upset. Is that the point?
In the hospital here, we have paper bags in the trash cans that say
"RUBBISH, burn when full'. Which I'm thinking is not very
environmentally friendly. There's also a lot of coal burning for
heat, and nobody seems to want to add insulation to their houses, but
instead get jolly wee 'heat pumps' which act like a reverse
refrigerator.
They have switched the jolly sides of faucets! From what i've seen
in the states, cold is on the right, hot on the left. Down here, hot
is on the right hand side of the faucets. I know that's not a very
interesting fact, but you know. The differences... And doesn't it
sound more exciting if I say 'jolly' and use a jolly exclamation
point!?
Fortnight is a commonly used term here. It means every two weeks. We
had to ask what that meant in the bank the other week. Speaking of
the bank, we were getting some paperwork done the first week, and
there was nice background music. We look around to find that it's
coming from a wee radio that's hung with a bungee cord from the
ceiling in the corner. Nice.
I've heard there's 70% homeownership here, and I keep getting asked
whether I own. There are some adorable houses with awesome views that
are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP, so I'm trying not to look.
There is a very regimented tea time here. 10:15 +/- 5 min, the office
walks out to the break room where there is free tea and coffee. It
took Dave a few days to catch on to why he was the only one in the
office for 15 min in the 10 o'clock hour. People call planners, or
mini calendars 'diaries' here. And everyone has them. It's weird to
hear men referring to their diaries all the time. Not that there's
anything wrong with that...
Sorry if any of this is repeat. I haven't checked completely what
Dave wrote recently in the blog.

Hope everyone is doing well, and we're so so so jolly happy to hear
that Dave's dad is doing so well! Hurray for Fred!!

Love to all,
Wee Andrea and Jolly Dave

chicken run

Hey All,

This is the first direct blog entry. The last few we've patched together from email updates we sent out to the family with some pics and video's spliced in. Hopefully, we'll try and do more on the blog later. I guess that might happen as soon as telecom gets off their butts and adds our phone account to their database.

Anyway, we've just added another chicken to the mix yesterday. We haven't quite figured out a name for her yet but we're thinking either puff, krispies, blanche (due to her seductive way of laying down), or brrrrreaaaaap (we had to let coco throw in her name suggestions too). Anyway, here are a couple video's of her release, escape and recapture prior to placing her in the coop.

Run chicken run!!!

Gotcha!

In other news this week, we've done a fair amount of planting in the garden. We've now got peas, beans, leaks, squash, courgettes (that's zucchini to you folks back home), spinach, tomatoes, rocket (sorry, arugula), brocolli, cauliflower, drunken woman lettuce (for the name, of course), basil, red onions, and a dead cucumber plant (didn't make it a week, poor thing)

we also just got back from a nice walk through the towns botanical garden. It's really amazing. There is a 25 acre section devoted to rhododendrons that was just spectacular. Here's a few of the thousand flower pictures that drea took while we were in there.

The flowers from a huge purple rhododendron bush had fallen all over the side of this hill.

And with great fanfare, I'd like to introduce you all to our new (yet very old) car. It's a 1988 Toyota Sprinter (and surprisingly enough, when driving through town last week we saw 4 more of these, same year too)


What the???

Love to all,

Dave and Andrea

I thought I needed an alarm clock, but I have a chicken

Our chicken - Coco

Hello Family and Friends -
Just wanted to send out another update. First of all, Coco, the
poultry love of our lives, is quite the character. We seem to have a
very feisty chicken! Every morning at around 6am, she starts up with
the clucking to wake us up because she's hungry. Sometimes we can
hear it from our bedroom at the front of the house and Andrea goes to
feed her, but sometimes we sleep through it. Well she wouldn't have
any of that this morning! She actually came around to the front of
our house, to our bedroom window, and started clucking. We haven't
seen her outside the backyard, so this was quite the shock. I am
starting to think that my mom (Marianne) would really really love
having a chicken. They eat all your food scraps (like April), they
grow on you (like April), and they produce eggs (unlike April). I
know all people say this about their pets, but Coco definitely has
personality. Instead of boring you all with stories of how she has
personality, you can call us, and we'll bore you over the phone. 011
64 03 473 0046 But apparently the answering machine is not working
quite yet.
Anyway, Andrea has discovered what Dave does when a loved dependant is
hungry at 6am: go back to sleep. Hmmm...
Dave's job is going well. Apparently he's the roading department
manager in addition to the land development manager, which is a huge
step up for him. He has caught several errors so far, so he's earning
his keep :) but is hoping he's not out of his league. Andrea got a
10% raise and extension to 5 weeks of vacation per year on her first
day (yeah union!!). Dave found out he has Dec. 21-Jan 8th off. His
office is closed. Andrea may not be so lucky (in that way). She
really likes her coworkers, though, and is excited to be working in
the field again.

Our garden - phase 1

Our garden looks great (with the exception of the butternut squash and
cucumber). Our main challenge right now is keeping the friendly ducks
out. Have I mentioned that one of the ducks tried to break in the
other day? Just pushed the door open.
We're headed to Mary and Brian's for Thanksgiving tomorrow, which
should be really nice. They have been very warm to us, and had us
over for pancakes on Sunday morning, followed by a walk on the beach
by their house.
Last night we attended an art class with a German teacher at a
neighborhood school. We got to draw with pencil, then paint a flower
on a large piece of paper. Dave took to it a little quicker than Drea
did, but it was fun for both of us nonetheless. We plan to hang them
up on our refrigerator (or send them to our nephews) as soon as we
have magnets large enough. We will go back again next week for the
second part (of three). There were two other students who have been
taking classes with her for years.
We're still trying to get used to the bus schedule that runs every 10
min during the day, and then every hour starting around 6pm.
It's been so so so much warmer than last week. The rain has stopped,
and the sun is warming up the house, making it possible to go around
barefoot(!) and without 7 layers on, even *after* the sun has set.
180 degree difference from last week. We like the 20 degree (Celsius)
days better than the 5 degree days.

That's all I can remember for now!
Love Dave and Drea
ps. here's the update on Fred Brokaw for the Zytkovicz's and Linhart's:

Tomorrow, Tuesday, I get to bring Fred home. They are releasing him a
day sooner than planned. I think his progress has been so dramatic
that they actually could have released him on Friday. It will be four
weeks tomorrow since this ordeal began. He will have some home
therapy at first as they want to see how he manages getting around
here and then he will move to outpatient rehab probably at the
Sotoyome facility near the main hospital. I picked up a temporary
handicapped placard today - good for 6 months. Rich is in the garage
installing the grab rail and fixing the garage door which is hanging
up. He will put the shower bar in as well. Do you feel a bit
overwhelmed with both your new job titles? How is Drea liking her new
job. You both have lots to adjust to. Remember to relax and enjoy it
all. More later. Love, Mom

previous update:
Your dad's progress has been nothing short of amazing. He was walking
today with a cane for added support and can actually walk fairly well
without it. He is able to balance now with arms across his chest and
eyes closed for over a minute. Last Saturday he could only do it for
10 seconds before wobbling. Today they had him putting and chipping
on the carpet working on his balance. He was very good at it. He
also worked out on a recumbent bicycles for 6 minutes. He can go up
and down the stairs easily using the handrail with or without a cane.
We decided to not put a bed in the family room. He really isn't going
to need it. He can stretch out on the sofa to nap if he needs too.
It isn't as if he hasn't slept on it before. For the time being, I
need to be with him when he goes up and down the stairs but I doubt
that will last too long
Just talked to your Dad and he sounds so good. He's much happier now
that he gets to eat real food. Tom and Jean will be up tomorrow for a
visit. They're going to help me plant the bulbs before they sprout in
my refrigerator. Hope all goes well. Love, Mom

albatross sighting and egg buying

Hello Family -Just wanted to give a quick update because we were not on the computeryesterday. Hopefully home internet will be coming soon, since we havea phone number now (which was a prerequisite for internet). Howeverthe email that we got from the telephone company was slightlyilliterate, so I'm a little sketched out. Here's what Eden fromTelecom (the biggest telephone company in NZ) wrote:Hay David its eden from telecom store. Your homeline has been proccesedalready. whioch is extremly fast.Should we be worried? Maybe Eden was in a hurry. I hope it's notsome kind of fraud.Anyway, Eden tells us our phone nubmer is: 011 64(country code) 03 473 0046.ANYWAY, we had a full day yesterday. We bought a $3 bike at the towndump/recycling center. Sweeet. I don't think that it'll be too muchof a loss if it doesn't work out. I have my work cut out for me,though. We visited a local brewery (Emersons - a kind of beer that Ibought for Dad and Mark) and Dave decided that we should buy a Flagonof one of their selections. It's like a growler. As it ends up, theyalso have Green Man Brewery here in Dunedin, which is another type ofbeer that I brought back for Mark and Dad, and is one of the betterreceived microbrewery beers in New Zealand. Along with Speightsbrewery, that makes 3 breweries in Dunedin that we know about.Welcome home, Dave. THen we went on to the Otago peninsula (right atthe base of Dunedin). It is prettier than I remember, and the drivein was dotted with all kinds of flowers, beautiful vistas andinteresting looking stops. We made it out to the end, where the onlymainland Albatross colony in the world is. The colony is on the farside of a hill on the sea, which you can only get anywhere near with a$35pp tour. We haven't started earning money yet, so we decided toopt for 'free'. It was extremely windy, which is supposed to be thebest time for viewing because they like to get up and soar the windgusts. We watched a bit from outside the visitor's center, and sawnothing that we could identify as a non-seagull - they can be hard todistinguish. So we went in, had lunch, and watched out the viewingwindow where we were told you can sometimes see albatross. I watchedand watched, and finally after about 15 minutes, this ENORMOUS bird,flew up from over the hill into sight. So exciting!!!! They werehuge! And looked kind of like the seagulls, only as if they were 10times closer. I got some *great* pictures of specs in the sky thatboth dave and I know to be albatross. So we saw a bunch more, andthen they stopped showing up, so we headed out. Feeling extremelysatisfied. Very very exciting.We then headed out, stopping at a few local artisan shops. There is abeautiful garden that we will have to visit at some point. We gotsome fresh blue cod at a fish shop, and then headed to a garden store,where we bought leeks, strawberries, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower,tomatoes, yellow and green courgettes (zucchini), green beans, arugulaseeds, and snail bait. We're pretty excited to get all those in theground. It's just been soooo cold and rainy, that the outdoors hasnot beckoned us much. It's been raining for 3 days straight, and thetemperatures are 40-50.Coco is brooding, and will not leave her automobile tire nest in ourbackyard. Dave wants to remove the eggs, but I don't know if that's agood idea. I've started bringing her food, and we set up a rainshelter over her. We gave up on waiting on the eggs, so we boughtsome eggs yesterday. :( Are we failures as chicken parents?Maybe we should attend a parenting class.We found a breadmaker in our closet, and made some very very richbrioche last night. It was delicious. A new fun toy for us.Today Dave walked by his new office, which just so happens to beconnected by sky bridge to the Speights Brewery. Huh. Fancy that...it's like some sort of weird... "coincidence"Anyway, love to all of you,Andrea and Daveps. the blue cod was really delicious!!

Are we Kiwi yet?

I'm not sure when we officially become kiwi's...

first bungee jump?

So... never. :)

We've moved in to the house, and we LOVE it, the chicken in the backyardis icing on the cake. She was up and walking (and squalking) around yesterday, but today wouldn't budge from her nest. Apparently she's brooding, and we haveno idea what that means. Unfortunately there are like a dozen eggs under her right now that we have no access to. We should have grabbed the eggs while we had the chance yesterday!

Here's a video of dave's negotiation with Coco. It didn't work out very well. No eggs were collected and no animals were harmed in the making of this video. Dave was pecked (lightly) once off video.

We have just started getting things set up here in NZ - like bankaccounts, tax numbers and car registration. It's been raining all dayhere, making errand running rather wet.It's really pretty here, and pretty darn cold. We're in for muchworse come winter, though.Dave and I have reassessed our wardrobes already. I've never seen dave wear wool until last night.We live 2 blocks away from the steepest street in the world, and we've learned that libraries charge you to borrow books and cd's and dvd's. Unusual. We met up with our friends-of-friends, and they are super nice. We look forward to having dinner with them at some point soon. So apparently the time change between us is different now due todaylight savings. You are three hours ahead of us on the west coast(on the previous day) and six hours ahead of us on the previous day onthe east coast. For example, at 1pm our time on Tuesday, you are at4pm on Monday in CA, and 7pm in Boston. Soon we'll have internet, and that will come into play. We just set up phone, our new number is 03 473 0046 from the states that's 011 64 3 743 0046.