Weekend ramblings (a picture post)

June weekend

Our weekend was filled with walks by the ocean and a trip to the art gallery [forget the art, Abner loves to watch the film archives]. Not a bad way to spend a couple of days together as a family. What were you up to?

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day has nearly past here in New Zealand. Thought I would share a few pics of our family sharing the day together at Sandfly Bay. We did plenty of walking along the beach, checked out the sea lions resting on the beach, built many sandcastles, destroyed just as many, splashed in the ocean, and made the long trek back up the sand wall to the car park. All that, plus we went out for breakfast and had ice cream in Portobello. Phew. What a day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! I hope your day is as sunny and fun as mine was.

A very Kiwi Easter: Part 2

The rest of our Easter weekend was spent on the road with one of The Dear Sweet Husband's colleagues and his family. They somehow managed to take us on a tour of pretty much the entire south end of the south island all in one weekend.

Our travels took us to touristy spots like Queenstown (what Whistler and Osoyoos would look like if they had a baby), Arrowtown (just about one of the cutest towns I've ever been in - and not just because it had a great fabric store and a killer sweets shop!), and historic Old Cromwell (where the original town was flooded out when a hydro dam was built, so they relocated a few historic buildings before it was too late).

Due to our tour guides' passion and The Dear Sweet Husband's budding interest in rural New Zealand, we also had the opportunity to stop in at some out of the way places like Ohai, Nightcaps, and Wairio where we got to see the complete opposite of a touristy town. Booming or busting - it was all beautiful.

It was a marvelous weekend and so wonderful of our friends to take the time to show us around. For all the new sights and scenery we saw during the weekend, I can't help but be reminded of Canada. So much of the countryside here looks exactly like home. I wish I had better pictures of the scenery to show you...my kid is just too cute not to photograph, so most of the pics are of her instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very Kiwi Easter: Part 1

We are now a car driving Kiwi family. Yay! We picked up our new-to-us-paid-way-way-way-way-more-for-a-car-older-than-our-canadian-car-but-with-half-the-mileage car on Thursday just before the long weekend.

Our first trip took us out to the end of the Otago Peninsula on one of the scariest (read as most fun to drive) roads I've ever driven on in my entire life. Despite turning into oncoming traffic once, turning on the windshield wipers countless times when I meant to use the turn signal, and getting lost a couple of times on the first day, I'm now completely enjoying driving on the wrong side of the road.

How could you not like it when the road takes you to beautiful places like this, where we spent Good Friday having a picnic in near solitude.

Please pinch me, because I can't believe I really live here.

Just peachy in Dunedin

Fresh summer peaches and apricots sitting on our kitchen window sill during our first NZ rainfall. I'm sure the farmers and orchards in Otago are grateful for today's shower (portions of NZ are in drought), but those of us who are only going to get a few weeks of summer this year are a little less than impressed.

We've been in our new house for almost two weeks already, but we just got internet in the last few days. Our furniture is due to arrive in about two weeks, so I'll do some posts about the house after that. I can't wait to share some pics of this incredibly cute - if cold - house.

I think my family is getting a bit eager for pics of Abner, so here are a few from some of our recent adventures in Dunedin. Just realized as I uploaded these, that Abner's back is turned in most of them. Sorry.

Getting her groove on at a free concert at the Botanic Gardens.

Climbing the Duddingstone Steps near our house.

Guess who got in trouble while visiting First Church?

It's still warm enough to get sprayed with the hose in the backyard.

The warmest spot in the house - the sunbeam in the lounge.