A Warm December

As mentioned in previous posts, the hardest thing about getting in the Christmas spirit is the fact that it's warm and sunny with a slight breeze and it stays late until 9pm. All in all, it's summer...there's no way around it! So we're just holding out our feelings of yuletide until we get home NEXT WEEK! In the mean time, we're enjoying having our windows open, cooking out on the BBQ and wearing flip flops...or 'jandals' if you will!

All weather-related discussion aside, we did have a very enjoyable, relaxing, fun-filled, slightly-Christmasy weekend...

FRIDAY:
Drew & I grabbed a quick dinner at Tanuki's Cave before meeting our friends Will & Tally at the Auckland Town Hall Theater to enjoy a free Christmas Concert put on by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra. Our only critique was that the hall itself could have used a few more Christmas decorations, but other than that, it was absolutely spectacular!

They had the full orchestra, a huge choir and some incredible soloists--the gentleman in the video below who sang 'O Holy Night' to close the show had just had his wisdom teeth out THAT morning! God bless his heart--he was phenomenal!

This was the view of the Sky Tower on our way home that night...

SATURDAY:

Drew & I did some errands and stopped by the PwC building to decorate his new cubicle (which has quite the view, I must say...there will be a new post about that coming soon!) We pretty much just hung around the house the rest of the afternoon with the windows open and I tried my hand at some baking. That night, Erin & Scott and their roommate, Kyle, came by the house and we headed over to Parnell to meet up with the rest of our friends to celebrate my birthday a little early. This time of year has always been hard as far as getting people together for a birthday outing with all of the traveling and Christmas parties and whatnot. So we just decided to move up the celebration a little bit and were able to have almost all of our wonderful friends join in--and everyone came decked out in some tacky Christmas gear! We went to a place in Parnell called Windsor Castle--they had great food and live music and good champagne :) 

The plan was to head from there to the piano bar that we like so much, but much to our dismay, we found out that it has closed down! So we decided that since we had a good spot at the restaurant that we would just stay there and celebrate. We're all getting so old that we knew it wouldn't be a very late night anyway!

I was spoiled rotten with all of the gifts and sweet cards--y'all sure do know how to make a girl feel loved!

I have to say, though, that this was one of the best birthday celebrations that I can remember in quite some time. I had the chance to tell a couple of people that night just how blessed I feel to have made such wonderful friends in such a short time here. The people we've met here are so genuine and fun and reliable and caring...it really is amazing because they're all people that we would never have been able to meet anywhere else if we weren't all here. So...to those of you NZ folks who read this: I just want to say thank you for welcoming us into your lives and for really being the best group of friends we could ask for during this experience abroad.

SUNDAY:

We again enjoyed the morning with the windows open and lunch at home. Then I headed out to a baby shower for our friend, Kacee, who is due mid-January. The baking I had done on Saturday was for the shower and I took my first stab at making sausage balls--a concept that most people here aren't familiar with, even most of the Americans we're friends with! Luckily, the American Store had Bisquik so they actually turned out pretty well. Anyway...I digress...I picked up Melissa & Leah and we headed to the shower which was hosted by the wife of the American Consulate General (he works with Kacee's husband.) Their house was quite spectacular and full of open windows & doors to let in the beautiful sunlight and breeze. The baby shower was lovely and it was fun to see Kacee and some other expectant mamas basking in their baby glow! Way too much food and champagne and some of the cutest little baby things I've ever seen. Definitely got a slight itch to have a baby, but we'll hold off for now :)

While I was out, Drew went walking around the harbour and snapped some great pictures of the city. After we both got home, we grilled out on the BBQ and had a huge salad with fresh vegetables. Again, not very Christmasy but still good!

  

Now, we're getting through this week and weekend and still counting down the days until we get to head home!

More coming soon!

Cheers!