Busy Weekend (Feb 19-21)

     Last weekend was pretty busy. Friday afternoon I worked then I was planning on going to the Lantern Festival with Bevan and some friends from uni. I was really excited about the festival because it moved from Albert Park to the Auckland Domain. There was also rumour that they had lots of new lanterns because the Domain is much bigger than Albert Park. I have really enjoyed the Lantern Festival the past two years and it reminds me how long I've lived her.

The Museum in the Domain that had special
lighting for the lantern festival. 

Panda Lanterns! These are the only ones I saw.
I don't remember seeing them last year.
The pandas are on a teeter totter but they look
a bit sad. 

     Due to some poor communication I didn't get to the lantern festival until 9:30. By the time I met my friends they were all hungry and wanted to eat. We wandered around the food stalls for about an hour. Then we set off to see the lanterns...right as they were turning them off and shutting it down for the evening. I only got to see the panda lanterns that were next to the food stalls. I was pretty bummed but there wasn't a lot I could do at that point.
     Saturday I got up and went to the ocean swim clinic I have been going to all summer. It was a technical set which was really hard because we did so many drills. By the end of it I was absolutely exhausted. There was a bomb threat at Mission Bay (where swim clinic is) while we were swimming so they had closed off most of the park and the beach. I had planned to run after swim clinic but they had closed the side walks and there were loads of police around so I decided not to. Instead I went home, had a shower and a nap then got ready for Bevan's sisters engagement party.

Bev and I at the engagement party

     Bevan's sister, Emma is engaged to Josh. They are both really nice. Bevan came to pick me up and we ran to get a few last minute things for Emma. We got to the engagement party about an hour after it started. The engagement party was at the Marine Center in Browns Bay. It was nice because the building is right on the beach. I didn't know any one there expect Bevan's family. I got to meet his Aunt and Uncle. They were very nice. Emma had some games set up like guess the number of kisses in a jar and a quiz about the couple. She also had a photo booth set up that had an instax camera. I have a cute picture of Bev and I from it. I tried to take a picture of it for the blog but they are all kind of blurry. I mostly hung out with Bev and his parents and chatted. It was pretty nice. At the end of the party we stayed to help tidy up then had pizza with Bevan's family for dinner.
      Sunday I relaxed and got ready for a busy week. I have Masters Orientation this week and next week my program officially starts!

Rainbows End

     Last Sunday (Feb 14th) I went to Rainbows End with Bevan, Alix, Sean, Ali and Haley. Rainbows End is a theme park in South Auckland. Here is the link incase your interested http://rainbowsend.co.nz/. It was a pretty fun day. We didn't get there till about 11. We started off with a movie room thing which wasn't very exciting. Then we did a smallish roller coaster and a log ride. That was pretty fun. As we were about to go down the big hill on the log ride Bevan reach foward and tickled me so I screamed naturally. I got teased about being scared on a calm ride. Then we went and did a corkscrew roller coaster and a cool spinning ride. After those we had some lunch. We went across the road to the mall for lunch because it was way way cheaper. When we came back we waited in line for ages to go on the go carts. After we went on the go carts we did a ride called Stratosphere. It is sort of like the Kamakazi ride at the fair in Helena but it also spins around as well as going upside down. They have the "extreme" setting which goes all the way upside down and the "chill" setting which only gets to a 45 degree angle. We were in line for extreme but after we got to a 45 degree angle it started slowing down. Turns out there was an issue with the harnesses so we had to reset them then do the chill version again to check them before we could do the extreme version. It was mildly frustrating. By the time we finally got the whole ride we were all pretty excited which probably made it better. Unfortunately that was our last ride of the day as the park closes early on Sundays. We kind of missed that when we planned it. Oh well it was pretty fun.

Bean Rock Swim

Everyone has a number on their hand. I got number 1 cause
I was obviously meant to come first. Not cause I have a last
name with two A's. 

     Today Tanya and I did the Bean Rock Swim. It is a swim from Mission Bay out around the Bean Rock lighthouse and bak to shore. It ends up being 3200 m or 2 miles, if you swim it in a straight line. I most definitely didn't swim it in a straight line. I had planned on doing the half (1600 m or 1 mile) however Tanya said that she would do the full with me. She is a much faster swimmer than I am but she had said that she would swim the whole way with me so that I wasn't freaked out. I am super grateful that she offered to swim it with me and I'm very glad that I did the full 3200m.
     It was a beautiful day for a swim. It was bright and sunny. the water was mostly calm. Everyone had a number written on their hand that matched their alphabetical spot on the list so they could keep track of us. I was number 1. We started at 11 from shore. It felt like it took forever to get out to the lighthouse. I am certain that it was trying to move away from us. I didn't particularly like being near the light house. It was significantly larger from the water than looking at it from land. As we were swimming by clouds came over so it was very dark and murky under us. There was also really high boat traffic so there were some reasonable size waves. The water near the light house smelled of petrol. It seems weird that you can smell while you are swimming but you definitely could pick up on the petroliness of the water. They had kayakers out to alert boats that we were there and to make sure we were safe which was nice. We had been warned about getting too close to the light house cause the water moves quite quickly and you can suddenly be on the reef if a big boat passes. We did however make it out unscathed. Once we got around the light house we had to swim all the way back to shore. My arms were actually tired at this point which wasn't boding well for me but I just kept swimming. Swimming back in was easier than going out. If definitely went by faster knowing that I had already done more than half of it.
    The swim took 80ish minutes. Results haven't been posted yet and I was pretty excited about being done so I didn't really listen to what they told me. I was 8th in my division. It took me 1:26:07. I came 253 overall out of 277. Technically I tied with Tanya cause she swam the whole way with me.

Picture of Bean Rock lighthouse that I downloaded from the race page. It was taken from a boat so looks reasonably close 

Waitangi Day Weekend

Route from home to Whitianga

     Last weekend (Feb 6-8) was Waitangi Day weekend so we get a three day weekend! Yay! Two three day weekends in a row. My friend Alix invited Bevan and I to go with her and her boyfriend Sean to her grandmas house in Whitianga for the weekend. It seemed like a good (and affordable) three day weekend. We left after everyone got off work on Friday night so we didn't get there until quite late.

View from the house we stayed at. 

View down from the balcony at the house. It was cool to be
above the canopy because there were lots of different
native birds. 

Map of The Lost Springs. The Lagoon isn't a heated pool but
the other pools are heated. The Crater Lake pool is the warmest. 

     Saturday we got up but the weather wasn't great. Alix's grandparents were kind enough to make use breakfast and do the dishes! It probably doesn't feel like a huge luxury to many 25 year olds but I was thrilled that I didn't have to cook or do dishes. Being an au pair has really made me appreciate how much work it takes to run a house and how nice it is when someone else does it. Because the weather wasn't great we decided to forgo the beach and go to mini golf instead. Half way through mini golf it started raining but luckily it wasn't too bad and cleared up quickly enough that we could finish our game. After mini golf we got some lunch and ice cream before heading back to the house. Alix, Sean and Bevan had some down time while I went on a run. Unfortunately Alix's grandparents live on the top of a hill and the only place to run is down the hill which means at the end when my legs were tired I had to go back up the hill. It was really hard. After our down time we went to some Thermal Pools/Spa called the Lost Springs. I didn't take my phone to The Lost Springs so I only have the map that they have on their website. It was really cool though. They had build it up to look like caves and they had tons of cool rocks and geodes attached to everything. There was also lots of foliage so you hardly knew you were near a town.  I really enjoyed hanging out at The Lost Springs. We didn't do much, just floated around. It was great to just chill out. When we got home we had dinner then played cards/Farkle or as Bevan calls in Nang. Farkle/Nang is a game you play with dice. I used to play it all the time at home but I hadn't played it in ages. It was super fun to play again. I don't like calling it Nang though. I think Farkle is a much better name for it but I was out voted on it.

Cool rock sculpture in Scorpion Bay

Route to Cathedral Cove 

Me in a tree at Scorpion Bay

 Sunday the weather was better so we took a trip to Cathedral Cove. Cathedral Cove is a big tourist place. You park and then you have to walk 35-40 minutes to Cathedral Cove. We had a hard time finding a park so we ended up parking on a residential street a 15 min walk from the start of the trail.  At the top of the trail I got a coffee from the coffee cart (I love coffee!). The man at the coffee cart was able to pin point my accent to northwest America and guessed Montana which was pretty cool. We started off on our trek. Bevan found a cicada and I insisted that I wanted to hold it even though they freak me out. So he gave me the cicada. I held it for about 3 seconds before it poked me with its proboscis. I promptly screamed and flailed about flinging the cicada into a poor unsuspecting man who was walking back to the car park. He was a good sport about having a cicada thrown at him. I got teased a lot.  We had planned on having lunch at Cathedral Cove but we were a bit hungry so we stopped at Scorpion Bay which is a little bay on the way. We had our picnic lunch there. After lunch I climbed a tree and we wandered around Scorpion Bay for a bit before heading to to Cathedral Cove.

View from the tree I climbed in Scorpion Bay

     At Cathedral Cove we hung out for a bit. The waves were pretty big and we had a lot of fun playing in them. I think that there is a benefit to having grown up around the ocean because they seemed to play in the waves quite easily while I felt like I was a bit thrown around by the waves. We had lots of fun. Bevan and I played around. He would lift me up over the big waves which was really fun, well except for the time he didn't lift my high enough and a wave broke in my face. I had so much fun playing in the waves. After playing in the waves we laid on the beach for a bit before going back to the car. On the way home we had to stop for an ice cream, YUM!
     After our trip to Cathedral Cove we packed up and came home. Monday was the Super Bowl and Sean had a party to go to so it was leave Sunday night or get up crazy early on Monday to go home. Sunday night was definitely the better option. I was pretty happy that Alix invited us. It was a great weekend.

Bevan copied my tree climbing idea!

Cool rock garden in Cathedral Cove

Lovely view from the way to Cathedral Cove. 

Trip to Ragalan

Route from Auckland to Raglan for perspective

Jack, Indie and Tally looking at the
giraffess and zebras. 

   


















Last weekend (Jan 30-Feb 1) was Auckland Anniversary weekend so we got a three day weekend. Tanya and I took the kids to Raglan on Thursday afternoon (Jan 28). On our way to Raglan we stopped in Hamilton and went to the zoo. Unfortunaetly we got their fairly late (3pm) so lots of the animals were going to bed. It was a beautiful zoo. The enclosures were quite large and the walkways between the enclosures were shaded by tons of trees.

Kaiya at the zoo

Jack and Indie at the zoon

Tally and Indie at the zoo.

Looking for fish from the stairs that lead down into
the water next to one of the beaches

That evening we explored town a little bit and then went back to the house we rented for the night. We encountered a small problem when we got back to the house, there were lots of huge cockroaches. I'm not talking about the standard run of the mill cockroach which is about 1-4 cm. I am talking about the super big ones that are 6-10 cm, black and disgusting. I spent a lot of time squishing them while Tanya ran to the supermarket to get some spray. The kids were understandably quite worked up about the whole situation. Luckily the property manager had another property that was available the next day.
     Friday Tanya went for a run. I made a valid attempt to take the kids to the play ground but we got side tracked on the way and ended up climbing trees and looking at the fish. After Tanya was done with her run we had a nice lunch out. Then we moved to the new house which was AMAZING. It was pretty awesome. It was smaller and farther from town than the first one but it had beautiful views and a short walk down to the beach. Friday afternoon Rob arrived. Tanya and I went shopping and got some clothing as well as some food.
     Saturday we got up early and went kayaking. It was really fun. Tally amazed me by kayaking almost the whole way in a kayak all by herself. As we kayaked around we found some people who were looking for pippies. They are a little shell that has an oyster like animal in it. Bevan has told me about them before and has tried to show me how to collect them but there aren't enough near us. I was pretty excited to finally get to collect some. After kayaking we had lunch. Then we took the kids to the play ground. I had a wander around town. There was an art festival on while we were there so all of the artists had opened up their studios. I wandered through a few on my way through town. It was fun to stop in a few different galleries. After my wander through  town Tanya, Kaiya and I headed back to Auckland. Tanya had a mountain bike race Saturday and Kaiya had a sleep over birthday party Sunday night. Overall it was a nice trip. It was fun to go some where that I had never been before. Sometimes I forget about how little I have actually seen of this country.

View from our second house

try.
   

Western Springs

After I got back from America summer here was in full swing. Luckily Bevan had some days off work so we got to hang out a lot for a week before things got into full swing. One of the things we did was go out to Western Springs for a day. Western Springs is a park next to the zoo that has lots of trails, a large pond and tons of geese, puhkeko and really aggressive black swans. We got some cheap bread and set out on a bird feeding mission. Bevan was really assertive and fed animals out of his hands and even pet a few geese. I on the other hand got bit by a few swans and screamed quite a lot. 

See he pet one! Well a few actually but this is the only
one I have evidence of. 

I like this one cause it looks like a love heart

Kaveesha's Garden Party

     This year at uni I made some friends. One of my best friends from uni is named Kaveesha. She is a really great person. She is funny and easy to talk to. Kaveesha knows everything about uni and seems to be able to always figure out the most confusing of red tape problems.
    Kaveesha had a garden party a few weeks ago. Her house is in super south Auckland while I am in North Auckalnd so it was nearly an hour away and I got lost a few times...despite my GPS. Kaveesha had tons of food and drinks as well as a super cute photo booth set up. Some of our other uni friends were there. I brought Bevan and he wore the most hideous shirt I've ever seen. It had bright pink roses on it. I worked hard to avoid a photo of me next to him in that shirt. He was a good sport about my not liking his shirt.
    Overall it was an awesome party and a great way to spend some time with friends.

Alix, Kaveesha and I

Trip Home

Our Christmas Eve/Thanksgiving Dinner.
Mom made me a special dinner because
I missed out on Thanksgiving two years
in a row. 

Mom with a hilariously decorated present
I gave her. 

I got my Dad some silly presents

Me on Christmas Day. I got to pass out
presents (which is my favorite job)

     My trip how was wonderful and busy. It was nice to have some time to hang out with everyone and relax. I got home late in the evening and spent the first couple days relaxing around the house with Brian, Sara, Mom and Dad. On Boxing Day Kelley, Sam and Marilou came down. It was nice to see them again.  Kelley and I went on a Target trip. We also read children's Christmas stories to each other which was pretty fun. We spent a lot of time coloring and catching up.

Kelley and I on Boxing Day. 

   

Daddy got my an awesome hedgehog calendar

The Aasen/Mitchelle kids. Not very often that we all
end up in one place any more. 

     




After the Mitchelle's left we took a short trip to Billings to visit Dick and darlene. I hadn't seen them since before I started at Gonzaga so it was great to see them again. They are very much an extra set of grandpartents. We had a great time in billings. Darlene made us enchiladas. The next day we went shopping and hung out before heading back to Helena. It was a quick trip to Billings but still very very nice.

     After our trip to Billings we had lots of home time to connect with all sorts of different people. I was able to connect with my good friend Sydney and my friend Kenzie. It was nice to see people are reconnect.

      One of my favorite reconnections was going snowboarding with Aunt Sue. She used to take me skiing once a year or so and was always really great about making time for me as a kid. I have always really loved to spend time with Aunt Sue. She has helped me with many a math problem and taught me many things about life. I was never very into skiing as a kid but have become very into snowboarding since I got to New Zealand. It was fun to spend a day on the mountian with her.

Me in Billings with my favorite of Darlene's dolls, Patrick

Darlene's hilarious dancing dog

Dad and I being silly

Dad and I being silly again

Brian and I being silly
(notice a theme?)

Aunt Sue and I at Discovery

Discovery Ski feilds

One of the very few photos of my family. 

The last picture I took in Montana
from our back balcony.