Just to let everyone know I am now on Facebook which I'm finding a lot of fun and interactive...if you'd like to come and visit me on there look me up on Facebook and send me a message.

LEVI'S IMPRESSIONS OF WELLINGTON

Morena! Levi has been tiki-touring through the city with Ben and Alexandar and I have decided to put up some of his impressions of Wellington. He really liked the city and I thought his pictures were great...enjoy!

Downtown near the bottom of Lambton Quay...

Levi down the harbour with a local art installation...

Down by Te Papa...the silver balls are another Wellington art icon...

Levi downtown at one of Wellington's landmark buildings...

The famous Cuba Street water bucket fountain...you would not want your kids playing in that let me tell you :)

Downtown Wellington...

The Beehive, the seat of government and right across the street from where I work...interesting shape eh? But the place you'd want to be if there is ever a big earthquake...you'd have to nuke it to kill it... :) its that secure. Which is a good thing, maybe they'll shift my office there :)

This used to be the courthouse, its not the University of Victoria, Wellington law school and faculty.

This is an artwork done by my favourite artist in the world...Lin Onus. General news...I got the job I applied for. As of May the 11th I am the statutory relationships manager for the Electoral Commission. Its a half time position, so the money is less than what I am on now but it also means much less stress and a much better quality of life generally. I want to publish my 'fud' which I can't do working all the hours god sends in the stress factory that is my current work place. I also, once the PhD is fully edited for publication start the research for my second book, which I can't do under current conditions either. So its all good, and Vince is totally copacetic with this plan as well. I've also been thinking about how I want to spend my life, my time and my intellectual energy, and working where I am now does not even register on the radar in that equation.

Levi's had a couple of bumps settling in but its smoothing out now. Mostly just jet lag and a bit of culture shock, nothing big or stressing. I think having to support himself the last two years, almost three really, has been stressful for him and he's enjoying just being a kid again for a bit. Vince and I aren't in a hurry for rent, he can come and go as he pleases, just a few simple house rules, nothing complicated and he gets on very well with Vince, Alexandar and Ben. He still likes to come flop and watch TV with me and have a yack and a back scratch so its all good. I'm very very glad to see him.

Just in case you ever wondered what Tim Horton's employees get up to in their "down" time, this is a photo taken at Levi's going away party where they all got completely shit faced and generally made mayhem...all 50 of them. Oh good old Prince George where the major recreation is drinking and I mean that quite seriously. Doesn't matter whether you are 17 or 47 all people do there is drink. Normality is to have a six pack of beer after work...do I miss it? Are you kidding? I"m booking my ticket back...(that is meant to be ironic just in case anyone thinks I'm serious...)

One of the pictures Levi took of the river up the road from our house. He keeps commenting that the scenery and vegetation is like something out of Lord of the Rings or Jurassic Park.

On his walk with Alexandar and Ben Levi found a wild pig skull and of course he brought it home (oh joy). Pigs are an introduced 'pist' (pest) in NZ and they are shot by hunters with much glee. He's cleaned it up and I am going to soak in a bucket of hydrogen peroxide overnight and leave it in the sun to bleach. I looked up what to do with it on the net...

I bought Vince's wedding band. Here it is! :) Its a solid chunk of sterling silver with heavy engraving on the band. Its very nice...I found it at a jewellers in Masterton.

Beautiful beautiful weather today. Feels like fall, but very warm fall...in the 20's and just wonderful. The boys, including Levi had a good day doing projects around the house and then going for a walk on the river.

LEVI'S HERE! :)

Levi arrived two days ago (Wednesday) at around 2:30pm after an interesting trip. His plane was delayed for 8 hours in L.A. Bad enough but it was made far worse by the fact that he sat on the plane for the entire 8 hours on the tarmac with no aircon, no food, nothing. The stewardness was kind enough to lend him her mobile and he was able to ring me twice and let me know what was up.

I immediately rang Air NZ to change his connecting flight only to be told because I booked his flight on a supersaver plan that I had broken the rules!! What freakin' rule??? News to me...anywho is seems that you can only book those particular flights if you are an NZ resident (that is living in NZ not related to citizenship). Vince who has worked for the commerce commission says that is dodgy as hell, you can have one rule for some people (NZ'ers) and then another rule for others (as this is related to cost and is suss to charge two different prices). The upshot was they weren't going to honour his flight due to my rule breaking. I was going to have to pay 200 extra to get him on the 1:30pm flight. I kept the woman on the phone for an hour and a half and whittled her down to $75.00. I acknowledged that I had made a mistake but that under NZ laws and regs they have to be VERY clear with their regulations and rules around certain tickets.

Levi was very happy to see me at the airport and he and Vince have been getting along famously. Hard not to get along with Vince, as Levi says he's so calm about everything and he is. I've been feeding him up and giving him vitamins and he's enjoying himself. He was telling me how his Grandma got up every morning to make him breakfast. Vince and I had to talk him out of running around looking for work the first whole day he was here. Number one he's zonked, he still looks a bit pale and black under his eyes (jet lag). He had a four hour nap yesterday afternoon AND its the Easter weekend. Nothing is going to move until Tuesday.

He and the boys are helping Vince fix up the sleepout/flat so he can move in there ASAP. Its wonderful to have him here and wonderful to see him.

I purchased these sunflowers at our local market for 3 dollars for the bunch. Sunflowers are one of my favorites and I am intending to grow them next year. I didn't know they were called sunflowers because they actually follow the sun! I thought it just had to do with their appearance!

Carterton 150 Year Celebration - Kick-Off Parade

Carterton turns 150 this year and the celebrations have begun with this parade. It was quite large, lots of floats, old cars and lorry's and a lot of animals in the parade as well.

Best of all it kicked off directly across the street from the end of our driveway so we sat in our chairs on the front veranda, drank coffee and watched them, it was great :)

Materton Marching Band...(big town about 10kms up road...)

Old fashioned steam roller...

One of the big draft horses pulling the sheep...

A lorry load of sheep in the parade, representing the argricultural and farming side of Carterton's history...

This is a girls marching band...Vince and Alexandar were at pains to explain to me that girls who participate in marching bands in NZ suffer from the stigma of a 'certain' reputation...I was a bit sceptical that being in a marching band automatically renders them all easy bogans... :) (bogan = Redneck)

The forces band coming out from the park...

ISN"T HE BEAUTIFUL!!! :)

Just took this picture about 10 minutes ago. This is Vince obviously, starting to get the sleepout ready to plaster. We are doing it up for when Levi comes as this will be his living area. I'm happy to report Levi that's its very warm out there. I walked into the sleepout on a windy cool day and it was quite warm and nice. I will be supplying some kind of heating device as it gets damn cold in the winter but you can't run it all day and night as it will cost a bundle!

A man who fixes things!!!! :) I'm going to help with what I can....(that should be interesting :) )

Mim's Gourmet Dog Dinner

I decided to make Katie and Horse a home-made meal tonight for their tea instead of just dumping kibble out a bag into their bowls. This was the result, it lasted about 2. 5 minutes. For those of you who have dogs here is the recipe:

(will feed two large dogs)

Katie and Horse's Saturday night tea

5 cups boiling water

2.5 cups of brown rice

2/3 cup of cubed dog roll (or if you don't have dog roll, mince, chicken or left over meat will do)

2 tblspoons chicken stock powder (or beef or bacon if you like)

1tbls Marmite or Vegimite

1/2 cup of peas

Place all ingredients into the boiling water, turn down until all water absorbed into rice, cool to 'warm' place in clean dog bowls. I decorated their dog bowls with a little chopped up dog roll and dog biscuits but that was more for my benefit. :) The good thing about brown rice is its a 'binder' so you can feed this to your doggie with no fear of it causing the runs. My dogs are prostrate on their bed in the kitchen with very full bellies. It was Katie's fifth birthday yesterday and she had to have surgery on her foot!! :( We were upset for her, she had a thorn stuck in her paw that had to be dug out while she was under general, she had to be knocked out. She has a cup around her neck to stop her chewing the bandage and was not overly thrilled at first but is much better. I covered the bandage with duct tape so she can walk on the foot.

I just took these photos about 10 minutes ago. The balloon festival is on in the Wairarapa, it started early this morning with balloons from all over NZ, North America, Australia, you name it. It is very calm weather wise in the Wairarapa, unlike Wellington which is always windy so its ideal for the festival. We will have to see though, its cooled down considerably here and we had some wild weather the last day or so. I have the heat on in my kitchen, I brought my gas heater in from the garage to warm the front of the house.

Rising moon in the Wairarapa with Stonehenge Aotearoa to the left...such an amazing place to live...

Vince and I went to the Bic and Boh Runga concert on March 3rd at the Alana Hills Winery. It was EXCELLENT! Sitting outside in the hot sun, drinking the wineries sauv blanc and listening to some amazing music with everyone very relaxed and chilled out is one of the best things to do on a Saturday afternoon!

Boh Runga going for a stroll after her set. It was the last concert in the winery tour for Bic and Boh and it was very relaxed and casual. They are extremely talented and very popular in the States. Bic had a song featured in the first American Pie movie which was extremely popular. Bic and Boh perform solo and as part of a their band Stella. Highly recommended.

Given that the concert was in a winery wine was definitely on the menu. These women were winery employees going around with bottles in amoungst the concert goers...it was great...you didn't even have to move :)

Me at the Bic and Boh Runga concert, very hot...3 glasses of sauv blanc later... :)

Ben and the babies :)

Tuesday night, the dogs snuggled on their bed, under their wool blanket...spoilt or WHAT! :)

I cooked flounder for the first time on Sunday for tea. Very hot pan, onion, olive oil and butter. It was DIVINE!

The rest of the Chief's headstone and marker...

A little ways from the swimming hole is a teeny cemetary which is a Maori burial area, consisting of mostly one nation. This was the oldest grave in the cemetary, he died in 1890 at the age of 90. He was a great chief and his grave it very imposing looking.

The view down river from the swimming hole, you can see the underside of the bridge at the top of the photo

It was very hot the day of Ben's party so once all the rugrats left we went and threw ourselves in the swimming hole of the Wahinie River...it was GREAT. Cool and clean and refreshing...we were swimming under the bridge that is at the edge of Carterton

More birthday children...waiting to go on the train, well the bus because they were doing work on our train station so they had to take the bus to Featherstone

Psychelic cupcakes, black icing and multi-coloured hundreds and thousands :) They didn't last very long!

Ben's birthday party, 5 twelve year olds. Actually they were very good, they enjoyed themselves immensely, Vince took them swimming they played soccer in the huge park across from the house, drank 7 litres of soda in one day, watched movies, played Xbox etc.

Horse with his bone I just baked for him. We buy cannon bones from the butcher and I bake them on 200 for about an hour. They love them and the only time Horse will growl is if you try and take his bone away...its a no go area :)