Arrived home yesterday morning ... feeling quite weary from the flight! Poor phil had to go back to work as well! Adding to that it was 35 degrees when the weather report was only 24 degrees! How way out can you get??

The wedding was fantastic on saturday and we had wonderful weather for it. It was held a 45 min drive from Kaitaia ( which was about 4 hours drive north of auckland). There was a clearing/valley bit among all the huge trees and even a river as well. A gazebo was put up for the wedding handmade by Greg (phils bro) and his dad. Bride-dani was gorgeous and the little flower girls and their daughter were in gorgeous little fairy dresses! Phils speech was great..although he felt over prepared, it was lovely and quite funny. There was even a bonfire towards the end of the night when it got a teeny bit chilly. We had yummy seafood and two pigs on the spit!

On the way back to Auckland on the last day, Phils mum drove us around to the scenic 90 mile beach, their old properties, and through some very cute and picturesque towns and places. Had more seafood for lunch.. yum yum!

Brendan made us a pork roast that night too.. how sweet :) Phil got his crazy japanese nitendo ds game featuring an all male cheer squad, (you play as one of the cheerleaders) and was very impresed with it. Dan bought it for him in japan.. so everything is in japanese, which makes for a lot of laughs!

Now Im back it seems really weird that I don't have to rush in the morning or around lunch time to go back to work. It is a really, really strange feeling. I'll get over it but its the first time in my life that I'm not working or studying. There IS plenty to do around the house atm though, lots of cleaning, and making the place neater.. and unpacking, oh its really not my forte. When we moved here, to the new place in black forest we put all our clothes into the suitcase and hadn't fully unpacked it until we needed it again for the trip to NZ we just went on!

Wellington:





A house made of shipping containers!


Some wide screen guitar hero action at Phil's friends place in Wellington as well!




Phil and Kristy (his sis) at a cute surfie cafe at lyall's bay ( i think thats where we were!) its stunning there!




Kaitaia: (Hayley and Cody-Phil's niece and newphew posing for camera) cuties :)










Kristy and I didn't try too hard to catch the bouquet..hehe




Photos from the drive from kaitaia back to auckland. Stunning landscapes!!

We are now in Auckland, flew in yesterday, weather is kinda cloudy not as sunny as wellington, also not as cold though.On the last day we were there we went up a cable car up the mountain side and that was very kewl... they had a museum of the old cable cars there too so it was all very educational! Went out for a great chinese meal with brendan, phils friend, very authentic - impressed :) Bit of shopping here and there and met up with some of phils ex workmates who worked on top of a huge tower, so I could see fantastic views for free for a while too! Gonna see another one of his friends tonite and their super cute baby so that should be good and then more friends tomorrow.. it seems to be friends-shopping-friends-shopping.. and etc. Tho i have been good and havent bought much at all. Am keeping in mind of my no income situation atm. :(
Friday we'll drive up to kaitaia, 4 hour drive up, so will be good to see some country side. Been in the city most times. But still a pretty green city! And then the wedding on saturday.. wont be long till we come back as well! And phil has yet to write up a speech as hes the best man at the wedding!!!

Once again, if ur reading this -ben- thanx for getting the mail for us!!!:)

So.. its our last day in Wellington today, i have a wee bit of time to type something... we visited the museum Te Papa yesterday, it was fantastic! Also saw some of phils friends last night and they made us a nice dinner, we even got to play guitar hero 2 .. so there was a bit of rocking going on last night even though the people that had us over had a 5 month old baby sleeping!

Have taken lots of pictures and its going to take a while to sort through them when I get back home. Only today did i think about my ex co workers back at work, on deadline and thought "ahhh" how relieving it is not to be in their position right now!!

Got some really nice NZ jade as well and some bone pendents at a special shop that phils mum took us to. They had so many beautiful carved pieces there and it was nice to know that the prices weren't jacked up and the a lot of the money actually went back to the carvers unlike other places like museum shops where the original creators of the pendents got hardly anything back for their work.

Wellington actually reminds me a bit of adelaide in the smallness of the city but of course the weather is completely different. We've had really good weather though since we've been here apart from the first day. Quite sunny!
So it will be perfect weather to go on the cable cars today!

Anyway were flying up to auckland this arvo and the place were staying at won't have internet so i will be post-less for a while :) But ill sure be taking a zillion pictures!

ciao for now!

WELLINGTON

its ours 2nd day here now, its a very pretty city with four seasons in one day! We landed in a very turbulent way due to the gusty wind! Our plane was basically lobsided and it looked like one of the wings were going to scrape on the ground while the other one was still in the air just before we landed. My stomach was doing flips as I've and it was all quite exciting. But after this experience ill know what to expect if I landed in Wellington again. It is VERY windy here!! And seeing so much rain on the first day we arrived was a welcome sight after the very dry environment of Adelaide. Yesterday we got up real early to go to phils aunty and uncle's house to watch a 9am game of rugby NZ vs France. NZ beat them by heaps and his aunty and uncle cooked a big buffet breakfast for all of us. There was other ppl there as well and the only one french guy so maybe he was feeling a bit strange? As, of course everyone was going for NZ. I really had no idea what was going on so I just enjoyed the brekky :)

Got to see an christmas parade in the city and phil got really sunburnt on his face. I had a little bit too. The sun is a bit different here, apparently they have little or no ozone layer above nz (its where the hole is?) and the sun penetrates in a burning way. Its still kinda cool and breezy so that fools you into thinking its not going to do anything, but looking a phils face now i can say its pretty full on. I think in oz its so hot everywhere that youre really aware of the getting burnt so you are conciously avoiding it..

I will continue later, were being picked up.

Time has sure flown! We've been at our new place for around a month now and I've only got a few more days left of work at SALife. Training a new person while we're on deadline is extremely hectic and a bit frustrating... especially leading up to the giant Christmas issue of the mag. Sad that Im leaving as I've been working at that office for nearly three years now but also glad. After initial doubts that Im making the right decision, I am now over the whole thing and wish to start a fresh. Its a relief and my poor RSI'd shoulder would thank me for it.

It will benefit me greatly creatively to have more time to devote to art, so Im looking forward to some reflection, inspiration then creation. Phil has been very encouraging about it, hes great! :)

On another creative note, this time food related; while surfing the web I came across a way of roasting chicken in a weird but wonderful way. Its the beer can up the chickens bum way. Anyone who has tried this will agree that it makes the chicken yummier! Apparently you can do this by grilling, and also to any time of bird, not just chicken! :) So, one slow but creative Saturday, we decided to experiment with this new way of roasting.

And ... it was a success!!!!



Doesn't look the most appetising BUT it WAS!!! So I recommend everyone try it! You can get the recipe by just doing a search on the words "beer can chicken" on the net. A zillion recipes will probably pop up. You don't have to use beer either, could be lemonade, as long as its in a can I guess. Stick the herbs in the half full can and the aromatic steam will absorb into the chicken while its roasting. Keeps it moist and apparently the beer makes the skin more crispy!

A few more days and Phil and I are off to NZ. This time I'll get to see more and go to his bro's wedding which will be very sweet :) My camera should get a better work out this time than the last NZ whirlwind trip :)