Christmas, then Thanksgiving?

Hey All,

So last weekend my company had their annual Christmas party (or as they call it here, the Christmas Do) . We booked a restaurant and had drinks, dinner and then more drinks. We had a good time talking with coworkers and enjoyed getting to know Melvin and his dentist girlfriend Susanne. (We hope we didn't give her a complex with our slightly skewed views on dentists and dentistry)
From Monday mornings reports, the rest of the folks at the table behind us didn't end up so good. Not surprising as they started the night sneaking wine bottles from the other tables.

The only strange thing about having our Christmas do the other weekend was that it came before Thanksgiving. And even though they don't celebrate Thanksgiving down here. It just seemed strange. Neither Drea nor I are quite ready for it to be Christmas. But now that I'm reminded, any Christmas requests from anyone?

Love to all,
Dave and Andrea

Happy Birthday Molly!!!

Happy Birthday Molly!!!

We want to wish a very Happy Birthday to Molly!!!!! (Andrea's sister-in-law).

This is Molly's baby daughter, Anna, with Molly's glasses on. So smart looking!

GObama!!!

Hey all,

We've been AWOL [andrea edit] about taking pictures the last couple weeks so sorry, no pics this time. But we wanted to make sure you were up to date. Drea and I were both very excited about the US election and have been taking lots of questions about our new president elect from friends and coworkers. We went out to dinner and to the symphony that Wednesday night and were congratulated by several kiwis (and Americans) after they found out we were American. Kiwis were for Obama roughly 9 times out of 10. We topped the night off with red, white and blue shots after the symphony (because we're classy like that). And it also happened to be Guy Fawkes day here so there were fireworks to accompany the victory. Anyway, yay for Obama, yay for the US, yay for the world.

Other than that, I went on a mountain bike trip up to Naseby (a old gold mining town), Drea's been learning lots of fascinating things about Permaculture, and we've been doing lots of work getting the garden into shape to take advantage of Drea's newfound knowledge. We even started our own little worm farm. Yay for knowledge, yay for worms!

Hope everyone is weathering the economy ok. miss you all.

Uh... Yay!
Dave and Andrea

You toucha my chicken, I putta my fist througha you glass window. Oops, that's a my glass window.

Oops!

So around 6am this morning Drea and I woke to the frightening sound of a cat screetching right outside our back window. From where we were, it sounded like whatever it was was attacking our chickens. Drea literally flew out of bed and to the window to attempt to scare the intruding animals away. Now over the last few months we have developed the bad habit of rapping on the window to scare off any of the ducks, cats, birds or other animals that may have ventured into our backyard. Drea attempted to use this same technique to break up the mayhem that was currently underway. Well, at 6 in the morning Drea doesn't know her own strength. She punched a hole through the glass, shattering it nicely and sending shards into the yard. Drea recieved a small cut on her hand as a result but nothing serious. She did, at the very least, scare the holy bejeesus out of the cats. Hopefully they don't come back.

Kudo's to our landlord who called her insurance company and arranged for the glass to be replaced (at no charge!) and also to the glass repair company who arrived within an hour and had the window replaced in 20 minutes.

best to all,
dave and kung fu andrea

labour day weekend

Hey All,

We recently had a nice three day weekend to celebrate New Zealand Labour Day (that's the same as labor day but with a u). We decided to get away with our friends Frankie and Tom for the weekend up to Frankton (a little town near Queenstown). We booked a nice little bach (holiday home) overlooking Lake Wakatipu. Taking the scenic backroads up to Frankton Saturday morning we made a few stops at wineries, knitting and antique shops along the way. Sunday we went hiking along a couple lakes near Queenstown followed by a delicious dinner cooked by Tom and Frankie then several rounds of scrabble, chocolate and chocolate cake shots.
Yum. We'll let the pics do the rest of the talking..

This is my wine tasting face. And no, I haven't had any yet.

Sorry Tom, it's not my fault you can't just smile for the camera.

The winery was located inside an old church. Very cute.

Watch out for slow kiwis.

The view from our bach.
We took a liking to a pair of kids glasses we found in the house
Actually, Frankie hated them. Sorry again Tom.

Silliness on the trail.

Lake DisputeI think maybe I shouldn't pose with walking sticks anymore.Silliest hike ever?

Sunday morning stroll along the shore of Lake Wakatipu with the Remarkables (the mountain range) behind us

Sitting on the dock at the lake edge.

We had a nice drive home stopping for a picnic lunch on a serene riverbank. Thanks to Tom and Frankie for a great 'double date' weekend away.

We've also been keeping ourselves busy during the week. We've been going to a sustainability class on Tuesday night learning how best to limit our environmental impact. Drea has also signed up for a Permaculture design class so I'm expecting big things from our garden this year. Anyway, to wrap up, I leave you with some pictures we took recently while walking through the Dunedin Botanical Gardens..



Hope you're all doing well and are as excited as we are about the upcoming election. Don't forget to vote.

All our best,
Dave and Andrea