"Now...cluck like a chicken!"

Hey all,

Sorry for the long dry spell of postings. But all I can say is we've been busy. But here's a quick attempt at catching you up...

First the big news...

That's a picture of Anna, Drea's... niece. (ha ha gotcha. Sorry Drea's mom)

Last weekend Dave went up to Paradise and Queenstown to play in a disc golf tournament. The little town of Paradise is about an hour past Queenstown. And it really is...paradise that is. They were filming the movie Wolverine just on the other side of the hill from our golf course. So whenever that movie comes out you can get an idea of what the scenery was like. You might be saying, "Dave, how about showing us some pictures instead?" Well, I'd love to but unfortunately I brought my camera and forgot to charge my battery. I was only able to take one picture and had I known that ahead of time I might have saved it for a scenery shot. Instead, all you get is a picture of my meager accomodation.

The previous weekend we had made plans to collect cockles on the beach (Hawkins! Quit giggling!) and cook them up with a Slow Food (as opposed to fast-food) group that Drea had heard about during one of our trips to the farmers market. Apparently you wade out at low tide and just dig them up. Unfortunately we got rained out and spent the weekend doing Dave's taxes. Boo. We're waiting to hear if there are any plans to reschedule.

We're also trying to learn all kinds of new things while we're here. Dave was sent to a project management class for a couple days in Christchurch and Drea signed herself up for an embroidery class. She's so crafty! And while we were at it, we both signed up to be our office coordinators for the Dunedin bike to work competition. We were responsible for encouraging people from our respective offices to ride their bikes. As part of it we also entered in how many kilometers we rode during the two weeks. Between the two of us Drea won with 112 km to Dave's 98 (I blame my project management class)

And we've been busy planning. First, we are taking off over the Easter holidays (yay to 5 day weekends!) to do the Kepler track. It's a four day hike and one of New Zealands great walks. Then Dave's parents are coming to visit in mid April. And then Andrea is flying off to Dublin Ireland to go to a course on Medical Physics stuff. So it's going to be a busy end of March through early April.

Here's a picture of us on one of our bike rides to the beach.

A side note: We miss hearing from you all, hope you're doing well and enjoying the blog. Leave a comment on the blog or send us an email and let us know what you've been up to. (Even if it's raining non-stop and all you're doing is your taxes)

I would just like to leave you with the following video. Drea finally convinced Dave to try out his hypnotic ability on poor unsuspecting Puff. Just one of the many wonderful things to be learned on youtube. Now when I clap my hands, Puff, you will cluck like a chicken....