03 JAN 09 - Christchurch, New Zealand

Yesterday it was clear, sunny and 32 degrees. (Celsius that is.) Today it's a little cooler but still stellar. These conditions are a little different from we're used to around the new year. And from what we're hearing, it's been snowing back home. It's definitely strange to have the sun out for so long during the holidays too. I still haven't quite figured out if this is more weird or if being away from the family is...

The time is flying by and we've been spending the last two weeks getting everything sorted. We've almost got all of our ducks in a row and getting pretty set up. We've got most of our to do list checked off except a pretty big one which is me getting a job. And I think me being the 'house hubby' is only going to be a funny joke for only so long. Especially once Heather starts working here in about two weeks. (by the way - house hubby is not my term. It's what the membership lady at the work out club we visited called me when she was filling out our information.) So I better get cracking!

Because we've been busy getting everything set up, we haven't had too much time to get out and see what there is to see here in NZ, but here is a little recap of what we've been up to:

THE APARTMENT

The apartment we found is an old school two bedroom, second floor apartment right down town. It came fully furnished which was a huge bonus. I'm loving it too... except the kitchen is a little tight. Actually 'a little tight' is probably not the best way to describe it. It's really more like playing twister with hot frying pans, big cutting knifes and boiling water. Last night I had a scalding shell fish in one hand and melting plastic handle of a spatula in the other when I spun around to drop them in the sink only to get nailed in the funny bone by a plate that Heather was setting cooly and casually in the same spot I was going. Dr. Phil probably wouldn't have recommended the communication approach I used to tell her that I wasn't expecting her to be in that spot and I wasn't happy because of it... Today we're trying the one person at a time approach to kitchen activities.



The first night we stayed in our apartment it was very cold. This came as a surprise because it had been nice for the first week we were in town. This is when we realised that one of the cupboards in the kitchen has nothing more than a screen for an exterior wall and there is a pane of glass missing (but covered with a thin piece of cloth to act as a vent system we assume) in one of the bathroom windows. It's my suspicion that that cupboard used to be the ice box before this place had a fridge. We also found that just outside our front stoop there is an old coal box we are using to keep our rubbish bags in, and the lower cupboards in the kitchen are all filled with firewood.


FIRST MARRIED CHRISTMAS


My Mom should be happy to know that not even this year was I spared the experience of Christmas Eve spent in a Catholic based church service! I have come to learn that there is nothing more exalting than walking out of a Mass on Christmas Eve. The Cathedral in the city centre opened its doors to visitors to come listen to it's world renowned choir sing 20 traditional Christmas hymns. Most of which were in Latin. It was two hours like no other two hours I've ever spent. Walking out of the Cathedral this year reminded me of the feeling I had the first time I watched Shawshank Redemption. I felt like raising my arms up in the air and looking to the heavens... but I felt like that would have been a little dramatic and probably not for the right reasons.

But in all seriousness, I do love how excited Heather gets about the holidays and, especially, about Christmas. She'd real big into the holiday traditions. I can tell right now that this is one area that I shall not challenge. The amount of work I have to put in to make up for falling asleep and not saying goodnight before she gets done doing her pre-sleep rituals at night is enough! Next year maybe we'll go to the mid-night mass versus the 7:15 early evening service.

This is us in front of the Art Museum (just across the street from our apt.) after the Christmas Eve service.

SOUTH ISLAND MINI-ROADIE

We rented a car for about a week and took a trip from Christchurch, camping along the West Coast and Dunedin. The South Island pretty much has only one lane bridges; for cars and trains!

Aint no blue like glacier run-off blue.

Walking up to see the Franz-Josef Glacier. These warnings are really just suggestions...

Put yourself next to Heather here!!!

This could be you in this next year! Speaking of which, this is what we have so far from our tentative visitor list/roster:

May 09- Luke and Rae-Jay
June 09 - Teddy and Alanna
July 09 - The Good Doctor, Josh Spansail
November 09- Moms Madden
December 09- Mom and Dad Welsh
December/January - Haylee and Ty Ty "Talon" Bruce
January 10 - The Von-Schtooms


Heather shows off a chunk of the glacier that was floating down the painfully ice-cold river... Don't worry, these finds are not unusual as the glacier has been receding by an average of 10" a day for the last 120 years! Absolutely no parallel to the advent of the combustion engine.



We stayed at the absolute creepiest place ever on the west coast. I'm not sure what this place used to be (and purposly didn't ask) but it felt like what the Bates Hotel would feel like. The place is still all set up like it's a functioning retirement home but there were no old people there. The only other person there this night was a guy who set up tiki torches outside and blared creepy classical/jazz music as the sun set. No joke! He was dancing there with his two bottle of red wine and he couldn't be any less bothered by us staring at him. It honestly seemed like he was doing some sort of ritual and he was about to do something deviant. I kinda felt like I was watching live version of Silence of the Lambs. I figured only two things could happen; either we'd find ourselves tearing and screeching out of there in the middle of the night in shear terror... or nothing.

I still can't figure out how a light switch could have been affected by the Y2K bug...

After a hard days leisure, we agreed that beer was well deserved.

Here's me all wined up!

Jackson's Bay in Haast, New Zealand

Mike just sitting around with a giant thumb up his...

This sign aint jest; there are really yellow-eyed penguins walking around!

You can see a real one of these spook-easy birds standing on a hillside just of the surf. Once they hear you or see you, they stand completely still like you're simon and you just said freeze. It's really amusing to watch these guys come in from the water. The come onto the beach like a torpedo from the surf. Then they pop up from their belly's, do a good long survey of the beach and stark wobbling up to their nests. Their nests are either in the dunes or up on the cliffs; like this guy in the picture. (center, small black dot.) The best part is when they have to hop to get to a higher surface. We went down to Dunedin to watch them come in. There is a spectacular beach you can go to see them. But it's definitely a time investment because they take their sweet ass time getting to where they're going and they scare easily. And that's if they come at all.

On the very same beach as the penguins, you can find sea lions! They mostly don't care about you except for when you surround them. They're supposed to be biological relatives of the north American Grizzly bear. I couldn't see the resemblance, but I kept my distance none the less!