Photo of the week

I keep forgetting to post a photo of the week. The past few weeks have been so busy that I haven't taken many photos. 

Last weekend I went cycling with a friend. We rode early in the morning to avoid the rain but got rained on any ways. It was really cold once we were wet. We still had a good time though

Avalanche City

     On Friday I was working in lab when I got a text from a friend asking if I wanted two tickets to the Avalanche City concert that night. She wasn't able to go because she was going to be stuck at work. It was pretty late Friday so I didn't have a lot of time. I texted my friend Alix. Luckily she was keen and on campus. I finished my experiments as quickly as I could and we headed off to the venue which wasn't too far from uni. I was starving so we stopped at an Ale House near the venue (called Power Station). Around 730 the opening band came on. It was more a singer than a band. His name was Carian McMkeen. He is a local guy. I liked his music. I hadn't heard any of it before. 

    After that Avalance City came on. They are a New Zealand band. The lead singer is David Baxter. There was also a drummer, pianist, trumpet/xylophone player and a various string instrument player. David played the guitar. The trumpet player had a go at trumpet and xylophone. My favourite guy was the one who played bass, guitar, ukulele, a mini banjo type thing and an instrument I've never seen before and do t know the name of. I was super impressed at all of the instruments that were played. 

    I only knew a few of their songs but I still really enjoyed the concert. It was an interesting mix of people. There were people from my age to older than my Dad. I'm super lucky that I got to go. I highly suggest looking up some of their music. 

Picture Monday

So...I didn't take any photos this week. I did have this photo sent to me and it made me laugh so I'm sharing it with everyone else :) 

A second photo (cause I've forgotten so many)

I thought doing a photo a week would make it easier to post more but I got out of the habit. 

It's finally hit winter here which means around 40 degrees, windy and damp. It wouldn't be so bad if buildings were heated or insulated but you never really get warm which can be pretty miserable. 

Even though it's cold and windy I'm currently standing on a beach. Today is Jack and Kaiya's cross country race which I agreed to come watch. I'm classic child event style that means I've been out to work. I'm supposed to stand by a cone and be a race Marshall. I picked a cone on the beach so I'm in the sun with a nice view while I wait for runners. Waiting for them to organise 200 kids I to races also gives me a chance to catch up on my blog! 

Forgotten photos!

I forgot to put photos up again!

This is a photo that I made of the kids for Robs birthday. He always jokes that he is going to make them into his band so I made him a family band photo. I'm pretty proud of my photoshop skills. 

Picture Monday

Last week most of my friends graduated with their post graduate diplomas of science. I didn't because I haven't quite finished mine yet and it's expensive and there's no one to watch me graduate. This is a photo of me and three of my friends after graduation. 

We finally got internet back!!!

    For the past six weeks or so our internet has been REALLY bad. At best it's like dial up but most of the time we haven't had anything. I've missed lots of blog posts because of it so here is a small catch up.

King of the Bays
     King of the Bays is an ocean swim race that was on April 2nd. I did the 2.8 km race with my friend Fiona. I had hoped that the race would go super well but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I got lost from Fiona and ended up drafting off someone who I thought was Fiona and we headed off course. Heading off course made the swim longer than expected and was really frustrating. I'm not super happy with my time but I also swam a lot more than I expected to so it maybe isn't as bad as I think it is. I am really proud that I did King of the Bays considering when I started ocean swimming a year ago swimming 2.8 km would have been tough in a pool and I didn't have the confidence to do it in the ocean. I finished it in 1:06. I was 39th in my division and 977th overall. My goal was under an hour and I think I could have done it if I hadn't got off course.

Panasonic People's Triathlon
     The weekend after King of the Bays (April 10th) I did a sprint triathlon (500m swim, 20km bike, 5km run). I put one of the photos from it as my photo of the week a few weeks ago.  I really enjoyed this triathalon. I felt like I really found my cadence on the bike. Often on the bike leg I go full out and then get tired but I did a really great job of maintaining a consistent pace. It really paid off because I was nearly 7 minutes faster than the last one that I did! I am really happy with how the race went. It's the last triathalon of the season and it was so great to end it on a good note. I was worried about it because the week preceding the tri the Sharps had been gone for the week so I had cycled to uni and home ever day (24 km each way). It is way more cycling than I normally do so I was worried that my legs would be shattered and I'd really struggle. Doing so well after a big week definitely boosted my confidence and I'm really excited for next season.

Whanamata
    Last weekend (April 23-25) we had a three day weekend because of Anzac Day. One of my friend's boyfriends has a batch in the Coramandel so we all went down for the weekend. We didn't really do much. We went for lots of walks on the beach and hung out. The weather wasn't great. It was too cold to swim and cloudy but still fun to wander around and hang out. It was nice to have a break from uni and the fam and stuff for a week.