small pleasures

We are really settling into a routine around here in Takapuna these days. Tonight we went to a dinner party with the kids at a friends house and it is so nice to have met great friends to get together with. I've met most of them through D's work via a play group so D knew the men and I knew the women. Nice to finally get us all together at the same time. All of them British though. Funny, no local kiwi's. I guess that's what we all have in common though is that we wanted to live in New Zealand. The girls are loving having a community of friends and one of the little boy's is in her Kindy so she' making connections. She say's to me tonight "I have so many friends here now!" Which is nice and makes up for the lack of toy's :)
One of the neatest things about the friends house that we were at tonight, aside from the fact that they are the nicest people and the kids get along beautifully, is that they live a short walk down the main street from us so we get to walk home at the end of the night. I even blended with the locals tonight and went barefoot the whole way b/c my shoes were hurting.
We are already thinking about how much we are going to miss this place but luckily we are blessed with the most amazing friends back home in Ottawa so I am constantly reminded of what I have to go home to.

Holiday from my holiday

We were fortunate enough to be offered a wonderful cottage (batch) for a week by one of the surgeons that D works with and it proved to be a wonderful week.
We had friends come for the first two nights who also have two boy's so the girls were delighted to be having a sleep over with their friends. While we adults were happy to kick back and enjoy the peace of being on top of a hill overlooking the ocean away from civilization.
Our first morning we were greeted by dolphins playing in the waves in our little bay. Darryl decided to go grab his board and get out with them. This proved to be one of our more memorable moments here so far. So amazing having my coffee looking out into the ocean with D surfing and dolphins playing next to him.
We had hoped this would be a repeated thing each morning so we could also get out there with them however it ended up being the only morning we saw them due to a lot of choppy weather and messy seaweed that floated into our little bay.
We did a few excursions up north from here to see the kauri forest with these amazingly huge trees that have been around for thousands of years, to the Bay of Islands where we took a boat tour to see some of the 145 or so islands in the bay along with a huge attraction called the "hole in the rock" (Grand Cathedral Cave... with claims to be the "worlds biggest sea cave"). The boat actually went right through the cave. Pretty neat.
We had some other local friends that we met come join us for a night or so as well which was great company and great surfing. D managed to get out surfing 2 to 3 times a day. First thing in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon and at night until about 8:30pm or so. He's getting quite good :)
All in all it was an amazingly relaxing week and quality time spent with family and a few friends. We feel so blessed for the generosity of D's co-worker. Everyone here is a little like that. They really want to help you experience NZ any way they can. There really is a different pace of life here (as D was promised by his supervisors before arriving). Maybe it's an island thing (reminds us of our island back home... NL).

I will warn anyone thinking of putting NZ on their short list though, these trips through the country side are not for those that get motion sickness easily. I boast on being pretty good about this but even I had a hard time twisting and turning through the crazy windy coastal roads. Thank goodness the kids inherited this gene.

Batch on the beach

We are going on holiday's from our holiday :)
One of the surgeons D works with was kind enough to offer us his "batch" (Kiwi term for cottage (cottage-mainland term for cabin) ) for a week. Anyway, we are of course taking him up on it. It is up north and on a beach. That is all I know but it sounds wonderful. No Internet though so we will be out of touch. Kinda nice actually. Hope to have some more great pic's to post when we get back.

So you know...

Just so you, its not always sunny and hot here. Yesterday we had our first "rainy day". So today and yesterday have not been as nice b/c its rainy and hot, lol. I'm being a brat, I know. But apparently this is an unusually nice summer for Auckland. It is really humid and muggy though and when there isn't air conditioning anywhere its really sticky with not much relief.

I'm not complaining though :)

Does it get any better than this??!!

So far our weekend has been pretty amazing.
I do not write this to rub it in for all my Canadian friends and family reading but simply because I can't believe how blessed we feel by being here. It is definitely living up to our expectations and making up for a hard 5 years.

The last two day's we've spent at the beach. Yesterday at Piha, a very popular surf beach that has its own local television show, Karekare, where scenes from the movie "The Piano" were filmed. And today at goat island, a marine reserve that has the best snorkeling in the area. We have been fortunate enough to meet some great locals that have been taking us around a bit.
To top off each day we all headed to the beach, just down from our "flat" here in Takapuna, to watch an out door movie on a big screen that faces the water. "Whale rider" last night and "The Fastest Indian" tonight. Two Kiwi movies.
Seriously though, a free movie under the star's and moon facing the ocean. Does it get any better? The girls loved being able to come to an adult movie (G rated of course :) and Ella's favorite part that she keeps talking about is being able to stay up as late as the adults. The little rascals still don't sleep in though.
Darryl's favorite part of the weekend i'm pretty sure is surfing two beaches in one day. He's getting pretty good.

Tomorrow may have to be a pool day :)

I remember now one of the reason's (besides elevators) that I didn't want to live in a building...Fire alarms!
We were rudely awakened in the wee dark hours of this morning by a siren that sat us straight up in bed wondering what the heck was happening. Being in a different country and never having lived in a building, I was thinking that it was some kind of city siren fore warning us of I don't know what....A volcanic erruption? And earth quake, we were under attack....
Darryl thought it was his alarm clock. He had a long, busy weekend.

It was really LOUD.

I figured out that it was only our apartment, grabbed a skirt in the dark, put it on inside out and went for the kids. Tracy was already out of the bed and going to get Zaiah. The poor girls are frightened to death at this point. We get out into the hallway and realized Darryl isn't with us. I run back, b/c I see and smell no smoke, to ask him what he is doing and he was getting our laptop, passports and the $50 cash we had :)
Not funny at the time.
Poor Ella tells me, as we are running down the fire exit stairs that she is "going to be sick". I ask her why? And she say's "b/c i'm so nervous about the fire" :(
Poor baby.
Anyway, we end up standing outside in the dark in out pj's and in the cold 5:30am this morning for, thankfully, just a spark plug that blew or something.
We found out how many people now live in our building. There are at least 10 other occupants.
We were able to sleep in a little this morning and then Ella started her first morning at "Kindy" which was so great.
Ella and Zaiah were a little hesitant to go to sleep this evening. Even after a walk to the beach and ice cream with friends after dinner. We had to rehash last night where, Ella, told me she would not grow up to be a fireman and that she is thankful for fire alarms even though they are scary b/c otherwise we wouldn't know and would get "fired up".


I'm heading to bed now as most of you are getting ready to get up in the north. Hopefully it will be a more restful sleep tonight.