Our First Thanksgiving

At first I didn't feel like celebrating Thanksgiving. I just wasn't really in the mood because we wouldn't be with family or friends, plus it was about 75 degrees outside. Thanksgiving morning I worked online for a few hours and then we headed off to the beach for a nice run. I've never ran on the beach before, and I can now say I rather enjoy it! We went at low tide so the water was out and we could run on the hard flat sand. It's nice on the knees instead of the hard concrete road. We ran about 3km and took a little break, mainly because I told Dave to run at his pace and I'll meet him at the island in the distance. Once I reach him and cooled off a tiny bit, we ran back. I threw off my socks and shoes while Dave grabbed the water from the car. The cold ocean water felt very nice on my hot, sweaty feet. I laid out on the beach while Dave went for a swim. This time it was warm enough that he didn't get hypothermia. Then we soaked up the sun and read on our blanket. After a while, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few Thanksgiving dinner supplies and then it was off to the kitchen to prepare everything.

They didn't have pumpkin in a can, so we bought a whole one and made our pie from scratch.

Our cute little chicken cooking. Pie underneath. We even stuffed the chicken with dressing.

Sitting down to a nice Thanksgiving meal with just the two of us. We had chicken, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, fruit and best of all pumpking pie, which by the way, turned out excellent! Kudos to my wonderful chef.

Dave carving the chicken.

All full.

The Big Day

Sorry for those of you who have already seen lots of my wedding pictures and are getting sick of them. But I just want to share a few more. I finally got the CD of all the images my photographer took. Some of these are new, some are old.

In the Land of Mordor

I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan and a movie fanatic. I love visiting places that have been filmed in movies and learning little trivia about films. Many scenes from LOTR was filmed in the Tongariro National Park. Mt. Doom from Mordor was made to resemble Mt. Ngauruhoe (as seen below).

Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mt. Doom)

Scenes from Mordor were also filmed on Mt. Ruapehu.

The Grand Chateau is where the cast and crew stayed during their weeks of filming.

(I forgot to take my own picture of the Grand Chateau, so this one is from Google. I'll take my own the next time we go back down there.)

Climbing around Mordor.

The barren wasteland of Mordor below us.

For some crazy reason I wanted to climb to the top to see what was on the other side.

Sometimes we were literally climbing up the hill on all fours. I felt like Sam & Frodo climbing up Mt. Doom, except without the looming black clouds above and lava spewing everywhere.

A view of Mt. Ngauruhoe from the top.

The land below.

The top of Mt. Ruapehu.

Another view from the top. As you can see we climbed a long ways up.

A colorful sunset on our drive home. It was much more brilliant in real life.

Art Deco of the 1930's

This last Thursday and Friday, Dave and I went to a town called Napier to check out the sites. It was about a three hour drive to the east side of the island. In the early 1930's, a massive earthquake destroyed most of the town and was rebuilt in the Art Deco style of the time. Napier is one of the two best preserved Art Deco towns - South Beach, Miami being the other one. Here are some pictures from Napier:

A waterfall on our way to Napier.

I am so short.

Pretty landscape.

A cool hallway in Napier.

Art Deco.

More Art Deco.

And a little more.

In the park.

A little ducky friend.

Main Street.

Napier's Port.

A waterfall in Centenniel Gardens.

Flowers in Centenniel Park.

We stayed in a hostel for the first time. We played Monopoly and Dave got a little thirsty.

Ocean Beach.

Landscape out by Hastings.

On top of Te Mata Peak.

The snow covered mountain in the far distance is Mt. Ruapehu, the tallest peak on the north island.

Fun With Photoshop

Three Sides of Tara

Dave's Poker Game

An Early 4th of July

In 1605 a number of Roman Catholic conspirators attempted to blow up the House of Parliament, but failed. Last night we enjoyed a colorful fireworks display in celebration of this failed attempt. Since New Zealand obviously won't be celebrating Independence Day, it was an early 4th of July celebration for us. We first hung out in the backyard with our landlords, their children and some friends of theirs, and watched them light off a few fireworks of their own. We started off with a twirly sparkly thing, a roman candle and a few others. Then they lit off a larger firework that shot off a bunch of colorful sparks, however, as the firework was going off, it fell off the fence and started shooting sparks as us. The kids were scream and the adults were panicking. I freaked out and ran behind the fence, with Dave right behind me. Deb was trying to shield her son and had a hole burned into her pants. Pretty much we almost died. That may have been an exaggeration.

After that we went to the upstairs balcony to watch the fireworks display that would be going on at the stadium a few miles northeast of us. Dave and I grabbed some Root Beer (technically Sarsaparilla, they don't have Root Beer) and ice cream for Root Beer floats. We made one for each othe kids. They had never had a Root Beer float before or even heard of it. We had to wait a while for the fireworks to begin. They started about quarter to ten. Unfortunately our vision was impared by a bunch of tall trees in the distance so we could only see the higher fireworks. It ended with a not so grand, grand finale. The fireworks in the US are so much bigger and better.

Worship and Movies

I was asked if I would like to join one of the worship teams at church. Its nice to be involved in a church and meet more new people. We had practice on Thursday and sang this morning in church. I knew only one of the songs, but did my best to make it look otherwise. One of the songs was a really old hymn from the 1970's, so I wasn't the only one lost on that song. They also planned on singing the New Zealand national anthem, which had one verse in the Maori language. I sat that one out. I wasn't even going to tackle that.

In other news (that one's for you Sarah), I recently had an interview at the movie theater in town. I was starting to feel a little guilty for having so much free time. I saw an ad in the newspaper for a part time opening, so I sent in my resume. The interview went well and I was offered a job. I know the job is a little juvenile, but it's something to fill my time while Dave is at work. I'll work about 15 hours a week, two day shifts and one night shift. Free movies, yea!