Happy 1 Year Anniversary!

Well, happy 1 year anniversary. I can't believe that I left home a year ago. Unbelievable. To refresh everyone's memory, we moved here to be closer to Holming's family since he had been away for 13 years. We hoped to develop a closer bond. The other reason we moved was for a better quality of life. Healthy living, better quality of food and a more relaxed environment.

We don't quite have the bond that we had hoped for yet but everything else is going quite well. We'll keep working on the family bit, it will happen. I just come from such a strong family background where I actually enjoy seeing and talking to my mom, siblings, aunties and cousins, it's just such a different family lifestyle here. I so appreciate the continued bond and connection I have with my family, no matter how far away I am. Thanks!!!

Our lifestyle is a lot simpler here, which is good for us. Holming was convinced I would get hypertension before I was 40, but now that we have moved here I am a lot calmer and not so intense. I must say that I still apply every ounce of passion that I have into everything that I do. That's just me. I just don't have expectations of the outcome which has mellowed me right out.

So I had to move all the way to New Zealand to learn not to have any expectations.

Holming, on the other hand, has turned into a Leslie. Ha! He seems to stress more and always worries about my happiness. Poor guy. He's finally home and all he can hope for is my happiness. Honey, I'm happy as long as we are together.

With all that said, even though I have found happiness here, I still miss my family (even though we talk all the time), I miss San Francisco and I miss my friends. Thank you all for the support over the last year. I wouldn't have made it through the year with out.

I love you all!
xoxoxoxo

Afro-Cuban Dancing in New Zealand

Holming and I came across advertisement for a Cuban Carousel Dance Show a couple of months back. Being lovers of Latin Jazz and Latin Dance (and also desperate for some culture), we decided to buy a couple of tickets. We thought we would make a date night out of it...go to our favourite restaurant, watch a show and possible play a few hands of blackjack, since the show was at Sky Tower (the casino).

We went to Hammerheads, which is our favourite place to eat when we want to spend a lot of money. But this time we had a voucher for a free main dish, that’s $40 off the bill already. He had seafood chowder and seared tuna, I had a rocket salad with the snapper fillet. Note to self.... appetizer not required. The food is worth every penny (we don’t have those here in NZ but, you know what I mean), whether we have a voucher or not.

Went to the casino to kill some time. As we wandered down an aisle Holming decided to play a 2c machine. We sat down and put $5 in. He picked maximum bet which, we realised after we hit the “spin” button, was $4. Some pictures came up and the counter started going up. We thought it might stop at $20, but it kept going to $40, then $60 and finally stopped at $80. Not bad for a single bet! Mama didn’t raise no fool. We took the money and bought a drink.

So finally it’s show time. The show started 30 minutes late and was not worth the wait. Where should I start? Let’s see...was it the cheesy low-grain video playing in the background, or the really bad Cuban accent, or the horrible sound that sounded like a car stereo with the bass blown out?? There was also the dancer who was supposed to be some African God doing something resembling a Maori dance...he should have just done the Maori dance instead....or maybe it was all the white female dancers that looked like cheerleaders doing a routine when they were trying to dance earthy Afro-Cuban style. We stayed for 30 minutes...only because we were hoping to see something authentic. We got home and looked up this show on the internet, to find that they are a New Zealand dance company with mostly New Zealand and Australian dancers. We should have done our homework before getting excited over experiencing some real Latin culture.

Although we were disappointed with the show, we had a great dinner, stayed up way past our bedtime and won 80 bucks.

Bread Making and Knitting

As most of you know, we were burgled the day after our anniversary trip back in March. We have been without a Tele for 6 LONG WEEKs(we have moved on from that ordeal and that's all I want to say about that incident). So, since the month of April has been so dark and wet, and not having a TV and all, what else is there to do but to knit and bake?

Two stories

I had a knitting nightmare/meltdown. As some of you know, I started a very expensive trellis shawl the month before I moved to New Zealand, so that was April 08. I wasn't very inspired to knit during the summer months so only just picked it up again about 2 months ago. Well, I've been really focusing on finishing this damned project before my 1 year anniversary of moving to NZ. I just discovered a week ago that I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH YARN to complete the F***ing thing. I mean, what are the chances???? Fortunately I found one place in Los Angeles that has the lot number that I need. Thankfully my Mom will be able get it for me and drop it in snail mail. I hope to receive it within 2 weeks. Problem resolved, right? I hope nothing else happens. I've attached a photo of what it will look like once completed.

My other project for this month has been mastering my bread making. I don't have a bread machine, only because I love the challenge of making everything from scratch (and making everything that much more difficult). Holming has been loving it as he usually takes a sandwich to work every day for morning tea. My biggest problem (very minor) has been the yeast. Any suggestions from those kiwi readers? It usually takes all day or all night for my bread to properly rise. So, that means that my bread making is a 2 day ordeal. I've tried Edmonds Instant Dry Yeast, Tasti's Active Dried Yeast, Edmonds Surebake and finally tried a packet of Fleischmann's Rapid Rise from America. Wouldn't you know it, the one from America worked the best. Maybe I'm just biased. On the serious side of this, I live in NZ and so I really want to use NZ products. I can't keep have my Mama ship things to me because once she moves here I will be Sheeait out of luck.

So, if I have the time (2 days), I start my bread on Friday morning and bake it on Saturday morning in time for our Cafe style breakfast.

BTW, I know my bread looks small but, it's not the size the counts. We get to enjoy this homemade bread all week.

Our Anniversary in the Marlborough Sounds

March 15^th 2009 was our two-year wedding anniversary. We decided to celebrate by taking a long weekend getaway to the Marlborough Sounds in the South Island. For those of you who don’t know, a Sound is formed by the sea flooding a river valley. The Marlborough Sounds is made up of four large Sounds. We stayed at Raetihi Lodge located deep in Kenepuru Sound, which you can see from the map below.

We had picked this particular lodge as it was isolated deep in the Sounds. They have no TV there and only 14 rooms. The only way to get there was to take a water taxi across the Sound. We packed lots of books, board games and wine!

We flew into Nelson Airport and rented a car because the lodge was two and a half hours away from theairport. The drive was AMAZING! We drove around mountains, over bridges and through forests. As we got closer it got colder and colder. Being that our anniversary is at the end of Summer (on this side of the world), we were looking forward to a warm weekend where we could swim and snorkel. However, a cold snap decided to show up at the same time. It worked out, as we got to spend “quality time” with each other and actually play the games and read the books. Oh, and drink all the wine we packed.

The first day at the resort was the busiest of the days that we stayed there. There must have been 13 guests including us. Most were American. I couldn’t believe it! I’ve not been around that many Americans since my last trip home in August 08. I was surprised by how strong the accent sounded. I guess I am already becoming a Kiwi. Back to the trip… Our first day was the best day weather-wise. We got to go for a kayak. Yay! I’ve only been on a kayak once before so was happy to be out in the Sounds kayaking with my Honey. We were out for about 45 minutes, then headed back to our room for a little siesta. We ended up sleeping for 2 hours and woke up just in time for wine.

The rest of our time there was very mellow as it was too cold to go out and do much of anything. By the last night, there were only 4 of us at the resort. And it was definitely time to go home. Three days of not watching the news, taking 2 hours naps in the middle of the day, sleeping 10 hour at night, and spending all that quality time together was enough. We were definitely rested and rejuvenated.

On our way back to the airport, we stopped off at the Nelson Farmer’s Market, a big outdoor market in the center of the town. When we arrived, I quickly realized that we were the only people of any ethnic makeup there. Up till now I always thought that Auckland had very little diversity of any kind (coming for San Francisco), but Nelson… forget about it! Nelson makes Auckland look like San Francisco or LA…for a minute!