Boat

We saw a boat just off the beach fishing today.

Flowers

Every day when I come home from work I have a beautiful bunch of flowers picked for me!
They look beautiful on the dining room table.

Sand stone cliffs

Today we went walking to the beach after dinner. We went the other way around the cliffs. They are all sandstone and very beautiful. We can walk as far as the next town when the tide is out. Very wonderful.

Bonus pic!

This is our first proper dinner at our dining table. We had home-made burgers with a nice glass of wine and a beer.

Our local beach

Our new beach is so amazing. it was only a 5 min walk to get there. We went about 9am and there were so many people with their dogs. The island out to sea is called Rangitoto and is a dormant volcano.
We even saw a pug dog. you can see in the background the back of people's property right on the beach without any fences or anything.
We will definitely be spending a lot of time here!

Pool party

Today we went to my friends pool party. It was a combined housewarming/engagement party as they have recently got engaged. I went to university with Delwyn so we have been friends for I over 13 years!

New furniture

Today we started moving into our new place. Mark was busy all day arranging furniture and getting the tv stand ready to put together then I helped build it. Then we had a proper coal braai on our new braai and are setting in to our new place!

Visas and Liferafts

Mark got his work visa today!! We are so excited and relieved. now he can start looking for a job. He can work for 2 years until Feb 2014. By then the residency visa will be sorted. We will move into our new house this weekend so everything is finally coming together.

Also tonight my office did a liferaft and flare demonstration for a group of yacht racers who are off on a round New Zealand yacht race on Saturday. This is a photo of the raft in it's valise then the raft when it is inflated. plus a photo of a red hand flare and an orange smoke. All safety equipment I sell at work.

Cricket

Mark outside Eden Park ready to go into see the T-20 cricket.

Mark and I watching the cricket

1 minute of silence for the 1 year anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake where 185 people lost their lives.

South Africa won by 1 ball. Not sure how they did it as their fielding was terrible but i think their bowling saved the day in the end!

Our new place

This is our new house from an aerial view. It is a 2 bedroom house with a lounge, kitchen and a bathroom. It is such luxury compared to what we have been living in. The main thing is the huge garden, big lawn and vegetable garden! We were so excited about the place and the landlord could tell we really loved it. We looked at it last night then got the go-ahead today. There is an area for a braai (which we now have a small coal one) and a separate garage too.
The other day we bought a nice lounge suite and today we got a new TV for our place. Mark is going to get the key tomorrow and we will start moving our things across.
It is close to the beach (walking distance!) and there are many great things to do in the area. We are so excited!!

If you click on the link by Location "Our New Suburb" you can see where we are in Auckland, at the start of a little peninsula with lots of water all around.

braai

Tonight we had a braai at my friends Jason and Amber's house. I didnt take a photo of it though, I forgot! but wanted to add the event to things I'm grateful for. Good food and good friends!

Beach

We had a wonderful day at the Beach today. There was a group of scouts making rafts then having races. Some of them didn't last the distance but most did pretty well.

Beautiful Day

I went and relaxed in the park with a magazine.

Quote

I didn't have a chance to take a photo today but I found this online and thought it summed up my cause!

Peace

We saw this peace sign in front of a park bench at our favourite park. It is made out of bottle tops. We go walking there everyday but this was the first time we had seen this! There is always something new to see.

Korean

We went out for dinner tonight to a Korean restaurant. We got a spicy lamb soup and a codfish soup. Both were very good. We sat Korean style at a low table. Great food and cheap too. The little known, tucked away places are always the best!

Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day!
We had a nice dinner at home - some of our fish we caught last week and went for a walk down the road for some sorbet. We are watching our favourite TV show - The Frozen Planet and will eat our sorbet.

A day at the pool

We had a nice day at the swimming pool. It was so nice to be able to swim, the sun was shining and the water was warm. It was a great day spending time in the water with Jordan and Taylor.

Family

Here is a photo of my mum and I with Jordan and Taylor taken today. There is a nice scenic drive near our house so we stopped there to take a nice photo by a tree.

Taylor

This is my niece Taylor. She is 5 years old. She's playing on the exercise machine.

Seether

We went to a live concert last night. They are a South African band but live mostly in the States these days. I knew more of their songs than I thought I would so Mark and I had a great time.

what we did today

We went for a nice walk after dinner tonight and saw a beautiful sunset!

We walked through the park and found a huge California Redwood tree.

Mark wanted his photo on the flying fox.

fish

Fresh fish for dinner tonight!

Paddleboarding

We saw some paddleboarders while fishing today after work. The wharf always the most beautiful sunsets. It looks so peaceful when the weather is calm. It was a very pleasant evening.

Fish Curry

Here it is! Some of our loot from the past couple of days. We got 9 altogether and this lot went into Fish Curry. There is nothing like fresh fish and after a terrible summer of not catching anything we were so stoked to finally catch! The fish curry was amazing and we even have some left over for lunch tomorrow.

We were so disappointed to have to come back home after a wonderful long weekend away so having fish curry to look forward to made it all the more pleasant.

We got fish!!!

Yeah! Today we found the best spot. Sheltered from wind and nice rocks with deep water to cast in. We got 6-7 nice snappers so will have a nice fish curry tomorrow!

Boerewors

We got some real boerewors from the supermarket and it on our braai while camping. So nice to have the real thing as NZ sausages are awful in comparison. It's a couple of dollars more but so worth it. We are going to make it tradition to have boerewors rolls for dinner the first night camping every trip.

Pakiri beach

Here we are camping again for another long weekend. We are about an hour north of Auckland so it was easy to get here and set up after finishing work. We went to see the beach once the tent was up - mark has his "RFD" beer cooler - advertising the company I work for!

America's Cup Race Yacht

This photo is of the sunset at the Viaduct Harbour which is Auckland City Centre. This yacht is an old America's cup race boat and is on display for all to see.

Chinese Market

We get our veges and meat from the Chinese Market down the road. It is much cheaper than a normal supermarket and has all sort of exotic foods. Mark loves their dried anchovies and we get all our hot sauces from there too. Its close so we can walk there after work - as long as we don't buy too much to carry home!

Mark looking at the fresh vegetables.