Purple Haze

The other night we had a really beautiful sunset.

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.