I have posted a whole pile of pics of my weekend, but they won't load in the order I want...SCROLL DOWN till you get to the pic titled Taupo weekend and then scroll up from there....I think its 18 pics down or so...

cheers
Mim

Mt. Ngarhoe...these pics were taken on the drive home, it was incredibly beautiful and I would have taken more but my battery was running low.

Home: pick up the kids, try and get organised and get to my place to find the gas heater broken..(bad news its FREEZING) that it had been flooding in Wellie while we were gone (yes again...great weekend to leave), and that a train had derailed due to the heavy rain, (yes one of the ones we regularly take...)

Mountain ranges on the Desert Road...

Mt. Ruapehu

Vince doing his best impression of an Australian Cockatoo...his hair which sticks up was stuck to the roof of the car with static electricity this morning, it was hysterically funny...

As you can see the two of us believe in enriching our cultural understandings....such edifying reading material...

The view from the bank of the prawn restaurant...Vince is trying to find a peaceful, unobtrusive place to barf... :)

Vince after we polished off 2/3rds of a kilo of prawns with salad and rolls. He says he is never eating prawns again if he doesn't have too...it WAS very very rich. We both had slightly wobbly tummies afterwards...but I'd eat some now if you gave them to me :) We were at the "Prawn Farm" in Taupo...they 'grow' giant malyasian prawns with water heated with excess thermal energy from the adjacent geothermal plant....

Was not a cheap lunch but it was a good one...

The Huka river/falls while the sluice gates are open...

The hydro electric dam gates. It was interesting you could see the trout gathering at the bottom of the slides where the water comes down just before they opened because it stirs up the bottom and they now that means lots of food. The power company opens the gates and roars water down the gorge 3 or 4 times a day in treaty with the Maori in the area to continue to allow the water to flow freely some of the time. It means a loss of income to them but more power to the company for being sensitive to the needs of the environment and to the needs of Maori.

Home after the baths and a roaring fire in the grate..which was good it was close to zero outside and the bach is not insulated...once it was warm it was really really nice. Just kept shovelling wood on :)

Maori boys playing giant chess....

Me...grinning inanely...incredibly warm and relaxed...those minerals in the water make you feel fabulous...no need for recreational drugs...I bought some thermal mud face mask...

Vince after the baths....very very very relaxed...dig the big smile :)

Me in the bath...I have some more 'uncovered' shots but won't inflict those on you all :)

Our private bath...with a doort that locks...pure and utter bliss...

This is the entrance to the hot springs! One of the best places in the world as far as I am concerned :) The middle of the north island is a lot of dormant volcanoes and sits on a huge geothermal network. Active I might add. So there are hot springs all over the place mid island. We went and sat in the mineral baths (39C) for two hours and that was one of the cooler baths...42C was the hottest. We paid extra for a private bath...so we could go in completely naked...it was fantastic

Another view of the livingroom

This is the lounge room of the bach, very old furniture and pictures of family that go back to the fifties and old back dated magazines...perfect :)

Taupo Weekend - August 25th-28th 2006

Vince and I went up to Taupo which is about a 5 hour drive from Wellington on Friday after work. We didn't get there till midnight and it was SO cold you would not believe it. We were staying in a bach, what the Kiwi's call a cabin, by the lake. The bach was fantastic, it belongs to a colleague of ours and has been in her family for over 50 years.

This is the kitchen, you can see the old wood stove underneath the microwave. It has been pouring rain in Taupo, well everywhere in NZ this winter and we couldn't get the fireplace going so we put the electric blankets on 'nuclear fission' and crawled in and went to sleep

This is the punga tree that grows outside the bedroom window, they are giant ferns and very nice. When you open the bedroom curtains in the morning its punga that you look at....


very nice on the eyes first thing in the AM....

One more week and we're on leave....YAY!

This is the view of Wellington from the deck at Vince's place in Rangiora Avenue, Kaiwharawhara. I took this this afternoon, it was misty and raining, very nice day to be in the house cooking and putting around which is what I did. Its been busy at work again so a day just bumming around was great

We were playing Settlers of Catan this afternoon, Vince won...I had a terrible game, the dice rolls were not kind. It is definitely warming up which is good, I had the windows open today and only needed a couple of layers :) It reminds me of Canada in that you are so glad to feel warmer weather you immediately start airing out the house. It is exceptionally damp though, I have the little 'fin' heater on in the bedroom to dry it out a bit. The gas heater behind Vince is what passes for central heating, and considering it gets down to 5 degrees here its prettyb darn cold.

My dad took this photo of the seagulls its a particularly good one so I thought I'd share it. Had a hard day today...Jake phoned me at work which is great...as their Dad curtails their calling to almost zero. But I missed them so badly and felt so sad all day that it was hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I miss my kids every single day but I try not to go on and on about it, there is no use and I help no one, least of all myself by being a martyr. But some days are tough. Poor Vince... I cried all the way home in the car, had a mini nervous breakdown at my place and am now closeted in his room on my laptop. The boys are here, Ben and Alexandar, and I am giving Vince some space with them as well as ensuring they don't see me upset. Tomorrow will be better....

It has gotten extremely cold here again just when we thought we were over the worst of it. A cold front from Antarctica has moved in and its supposed to hail tonight. We have to head up the motorway to go and get some groceries so hopefully it holds off or the roads will be very slippery.

Great picture Dad, it IS worthy of wallpaper :)

Will post more soon...

This is Vince in the position most familiar to women everywhere, it also reminds me of my Dad, who spent a chunk of my childhood most weekend afternoons packing ZZZZ's on the couch...and after dinner too. Vince was waiting for his dinner...(teriyaki steak with broccoli, and brown pasta with garlic, parmesan cheese and salad). He's much more patient then Dad we ate at 9pm.

Vince is one of those lucky people that can go to sleep anywhere. But then he teases me because some nights we go to bed and I will fall asleep so fast that I don't remember talking to him (this is after, we aren't in the stage of being "over it" or each other yet!!! I can hear Jess yelling EWWW Ryan Mum's sharing again!!!" from here).

We had a very good Saturday, we went to the boys soccer games, and then went for a very long walk around Oriental Parade and the Harbour, ate ice cream and blabbed for 7 hours. It was fantastic. Back to work in 9 hours (its 11:30pm Sunday night)...I need to win Lotto...

Mim

This of course is Jess...she's asleep in the sun in my window seat. I had all sorts of plans for today, clean my bedroom (which is a bit of a bomb site) do some baking and other stuff but I ended up lying on the couch reading "Touching Tibet" and talking to Jake, Sime and assorted Canadian friends on the phone. Couldn't be stuffed. NO IT ISN"T its a bloody on Buddhism you bunch of perves!!!

Heh, Vince and I have been playing Scrabble... he just caned my ass. By over 100 points...the last two tiles I picked up were Z and X!!! The language got pretty bad at this point (and this is me remember, I'm legend for being able to string expletives together).

My friend Rob sent me a very funny email that I replied to, I was howling as I was reading it. He has had a friend of a friend staying with him and he listed everything that was driving him nuts and then said

Goes back to the States in five days

Praise the Lord

Rob is quite Catholic and very droll and sharp witted so that was just such a funny way of putting things. Oh Vince says to tell you he beat me by 125 points...I hope he brought his sleeping bag :)

Welcome to my bathroom door...why am I showing you this? Because the lock broke today and it broke and STAYED LOCKED!! Vince was at his wargaming (toy soldiers) club and was not there to fix anything and it was broken...(or as Vince would say "the fucking fuckers fucking fucked" This is rather serious when you have one bathroom and three people living there, none of whom have had their morning 'cleanse'.

Liese was climbing in and out of the bathroom window and I of course couldn't, a)Im too short and b) my boobs would have gotten totally in the way, so she was ok but I was DYING! By lunch time I was rather desperate and Liese was suggesting buckets and all sorts of solutions but you have to remember that I'm the person who can't use a public toilet because I'm afraid people will memorise my shoes, follow me out and tell people I stink. Anway after about 7 hours we finally got the mechanism apart without breaking the door or the doorframe and I spent a very relieved half hour in the bathroom detoxifying...oh the excitement of New Zealand life...

Hey everyone! I'm back :) I apologise for the length of time between posts. Once Vince and I are in the same house permanently (we are currently doing house-about, or "aboot" as Vince says I say :)) there will be a lot more posts.

This is Vince and Ben on Saturday morning, I was making pancakes. What have we been up too...well we spent the weekend (last one) going to the library, eating yum cha and trying to stay warm. The weather has been SHOCKING. I was just getting Vince to feel my bum (NO not for that reason) because it is SO cold is isn't even funny. I LOVE the weekend. Even though we often have to get up early for soccer we can hang out with each other all day, no pesky work to get in the way :)

We have completed the big move at work and are now residing in St. Paul's building instead of Vogel. Its one street back from where I was. It was fairly fraught as moves usually are. But we did it and the group of people I work with are great. Even better than that Vince is now 3 floors above me and we can meet for coffee in the Ministry Cafe (horrible horrible food and even worse coffee) or go out if we don't want to poison ourselves. As far as institutions go mine is fairly dysfunctional but you focus on the job at hand, the people you like and try not to worry about what you cannot influence. Survival in the public service, something tells me as a career I won't be making this particular ministry my long term goal. I like the public service and am a very good analyst, just not this particular area. But I"m cheerful and doing well, I am not without resources...thank GOD. And I met Vince :) ALL good.

Vince and I are going to Lake Taupo at the end of the month to stay in a bach. I will take piles of pictures and post them all. Its really good to see Jaye and family having such a good summer (rock on girl) and drop me a line to let me know what's up with you all.