why does love do this to me?

Our first rugby game! We went to a Wellington Hurricanes game at WestPac stadium to cheer on our local team. Luckily we already had our handy verlcro shirts left over from Andrea's visit so with a little craftiness we mixed things up and made theme shirts for the game.

Fall has arrived in Welly. We had to don scarves, vests and mittens for the outdoor stadium... not to mention our always handy ponchos.

Hurricanes...Hurricanes! The team mascot and some enthused fans.



Our new bus buddies, chris and greg. A very crowded stadium shutttle and new friends were made.

Our new NZ family. Turns out Chris' entire family was on the bus and we all headed out to the Cambridge Hotel for some drinks with mom, dad, sister, brother...and us.

Getting creative with our letters - the joy of the velcro shirt is the fun never stops.

Deb got thrown around a little, we dont really understand either but the guys seemed to think it was pretty fun to try and throw deb and get her to catch a pitcher mid-air.

And Creeps and Kitch finish the night on a high note.

April in Wellington

April was a month of a lot of work for both of us (gotta pay for all those trips somehow) and yet it was a super fun month here in Wellington.
I had a Trent reunion with Adrienne (my new zealand role model) and Lizzie who was here with the rolling stones. It was really great to have trent talk and a very fun couple of days with them.

I also went out for drinks with Kathmandu people and had a great night. This is my friend Morgan from work

Well it wouldn't be a month in welly without somesort of random visitor. These are our new found swiss friends. Daniel, who we met in Rotorua, was in town with his friends for the rolling stones concert and asked if they could crash here the night of the concert. We went to David Grey and Pete Murray the same night so after a delicious dinner made for us by the swiss we all went off to our concerts and met up post-show for some drinks and rice salad (the swiss seem to have strange taste in after bar food)

Well Debi's reign as easter hunt champion continued as she beat me in our easter hunt (set up by andrea) with a grand total of 28-16. Deb just seems to have the gift.



The rest of our visit with Andrea was great. She's a super fun girl (as well as a bad influence) Debi finally made it to last call in wellington with andrea, no easy feat. She also made a few more random friends.

The Big K...what can we say any place with $3 drinks is okay with us!




Waiting for our friend Nar Nar to call and goofing around with Andrea...funny times.

Abel Tasman and Golden Bay

We have been planning our trip to Nelson and Abel tasman national park for a while now and were sloghtly disappointed to arrive in a very rainy nelson on monday. We had planned to go a guided camping/kayaking trip but learned at 7am tuesday that that was not going to happen for us. So naturally we went to bed and when we re-woke up, assessed our sitution and at Deb's great idea decided to rent a car and drive around the area so we could still see it but be slightly more dry from inside our car then the inside of a kayak. Luckily we had both invested in these great ponchos (debi's cost 99 cents, kitch's was $3 but had a drawstring hood!) So with our trusty ponchos (ponchy and ponchelonian) we braved the rain, got the cheapest car in town (Petunia the Nissan) and with the radio set to the station "voices of america" (featuring such classic american hits as MMM Bop!!!) set off on a spontaneous adventure.

The beaches in Abel tasman are amazing. The sand is really golden and the water looks turquoise on sunny days. On rainy days it looks more grey/brown but still beautiful beaches and it was cool to be on totally deserted beaches (because really no one else was crazy enough to so sight seeing in the rain).

We found maple trees at one of the beaches. A little touch of Canada here in NZ. And since it's fall here all the leaves were changing colour.

We went on a half hour hike up to this waterfall. Because of the rain it was like a mini Niagara...another touch of home :)


The roads here can be crazy. This road goes over the Takaka mountain. Makes for some adventurous driving at times...

We spent the night at a very cute little hostel/cottage. Our "dorm style" room turned out to be our own private room. So great! We woke up wednesday to the sun trying to break through so we took off in Petunia and chased the blue sky. It was perfect rainbow conditions and all day we kept seeing rainbows. We already love pit stops on the road a lot but we literally had to pull over every 5 seconds for great photo ops. They kept getting more and more perfect. They were the most perfect rainbows either of us had ever seen, ending with one right on the beach. Apparently the rain is good for something. Once the sun came out we headed back to the main beach (kaiteriteri, where deb went earlier in the trip to visit paul) and ended up climbing over a lot of rocks to get to this other beach, recommended by paul. We both sustained injuries, kitch cut open her toe and deb bruised her bum an scraped her legs. But hey it wouldnt be a real adventure without some scars to show from it.


We randomly found this on the beach - how appropriate for us. We love NZ too! You never know what's around the next corner here and what each day will bring. And sometimes a rainy day is just an excuse for a spontaneous roadtrip.

Andrea is a bad influence on us

A night out with our home made t-shirts! We constructed them by buying cheap black shirts from "the warehouse" and velcro and felt from an art store. We used our skills from grade 7 home-ec and sewed the velcro to the shirts. Some of us had a little trouble with that task...(kitch). Then Andrea cut out the letters in white felt with what we wanted our shirts to say and we stuck them on to the velcro. With our $4.95 bottles of wine to kick the night off we headed out in style. By the end of the night Deb lost most of her letters but that is the great thing about the shirts...you can just cut out new ones for the next night out!

Unforgeta-BULL Waitomo

Well since we're such experienced left hand drivers now we decided to have our second rental car experience and head up to Waitomo for some adventure caving. We picked up our business class automobile on Monday morning and with our Nissan Bluebird headed up north - slowly! We made it about 10 minutes before realizing the lack of music was not going to do and 20 minutes outside of Wellington had to stop to try and find a cd adapter for our cars tape deck (where's a good mix tape when you need it?) We stopped at a mall - the first deb had been in since arriving here and managed to meet our electronic needs while still getting a good dose of mall culture.

We really love pitstops! We stopped at every road side attraction we could find along the way - including this scenic look out.

A motel - we're travlling in style now! We met deb's friend Andrea from Cleve's in Waitomo and spent the night settling into the glowworm motel. We made dinner and deb and andrea travelled to the town's "bottle shop" to get us some provisions to help survive the night in not so happening Monday night Waitomo. Tuesday we got up early for our main attraction and reason for coming - Black water rafting through the caves. We got suited up in wetsuits (cause it was chilly!) and each got a black inner-tube. Then with our group of 12 we entered the cave and tubed down, over waterfalls, through black water rapids and through amazing glow water caves. It was really cool. High lights included debi managing to fully bail out of her tube - in flat water! That's right not rapids, waterfalls or waves of any sort. Classic.


Roadtrip!!! We headed home along the very curvy highway 4. It was crazy driving at times. The views were amazing but it was a little hairy.
Incredi-bull! We love this town. Bulls, New Zealand. We stopped there on the way there and back (told you we love this town) We made sure to find the towns main attraction - the big bull, after all it is world famous in new zealand.