Exploring the Land of the Long White Cloud

Ringing in 2015 at the Greenstone Family Farm!

At 10pm on Christmas eve, I finally got the tree and the stockings out! Phew, just in time for Santa.

Here I am on Christmas Eve, sick with an awful cold/flu. So rather than let my self-pity take over completely today at all the things I'm missing, I've peeled myself off the couch, had a shower and went out to our half-done hammock area and will try to focus on the good things of the year, rather than being pathetically sick during a stretch of warm sunny weather, with days off and BBQ's and parties that I could have been enjoying... After some careful umbrella placement, I have managed to avoid the need for sunscreen. I have to say that 2014 felt like a year of unrest. There was no shortage of good things but the underlying themes seemed to be that life was a bit of an unsettling year in many ways and oddly enough in other peoples' lives who are close to us too. So I am looking forward to bidding that adieu - and madly hoping that our renovation situation wasn't the cause of the feeling! Because that's not planned to end for at least another year. Our fi...

It seems like almost everyone has a favourite holiday movie from their childhood. Mine (and luckily Dustin's too) are Home Alone and, its only sequel worth watching, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Although I can't say that I've watched 3, 4 or 5 (yes, I think I saw that there was a 5 now!) you can just tell when the sequels are going to be bad. The year that Home Alone was released, my aunt took my siblings, my cousin and I to watch it. I remember there was a blizzard blizzard-ing snow everywhere so just getting to the theatre was mayhem. We went to Station Square in Metrotown which was a big outing too. I am sure I laughed my 7-year-old head off but I can't say I actually remember much of the movie - it was more about the blizzard. One Christmas my brother even got a Talkboy for Christmas! We had so much fun with that. This is Peter McAllister - the father.... credit card, you got it! Nearly every year since, I have watched it once the holiday season ...

Last weekend we drove home from a friend's house after dark. That meant that we actually got to check out a couple houses all lit up for Christmas! Putting Christmas lights on your house here isn't very common. In fact, the local paper publishes a map not of the best light displays, but simply a list of houses with any lights at all. We didn't have the list with us but en route we saw about 4 different houses full of lighting fun. Because it's early summertime when December rolls around, the sun is setting so late that Christmas lights just seem to have such a short window for viewing that maybe that's why people don't bother. I'm not sure. Anyways, I definitely miss driving around to view the different displays and how involved some people got with their decoration. I also realized there's such a comforting feeling about a quiet house in the evening with just the Christmas tree lit up but no other lights on. There's such a beautiful still silenc...

Within the span of about 5 weeks, not only do we have a work xmas dinner each, a crate day BBQ , building supplier appreciation parties, end of year work shouts/bbq's, a wedding reception (the wedding was in Ireland a wee while back), and new year's but we also recently attended a stag/hens party. Whew. We better make sure we get enough rest during the weeks these days. The stag/hens was for friends of ours that you may recognize from last year's Christmas video. Most people I mentioned it to felt that we got the boys and girls parties reversed, but we've never been much on stereotypes anyways. So the boys stayed in town, played bubble soccer , went bowling and then went out on the town. Complete with the groom dressed as a much-older hooters waitress. Dustin made it home after losing the group but all accounts from the boys Sunday were that they were sore and hungover. Now, the girls loaded up their packs with provisions, went for a hike and stayed overnight in a...

I am sure some of you are wondering what in the world has happened with the bathroom? I have left you hanging with some unfinished images and you must think I'm holding out on you. Nope. We still can't call it complete. We were very close to continuing through but then we had to get the vinyl floor installed. The cost was much more than estimated and it got us thinking and researching a little. The result of that was that we changed our minds! The worst thing you can do partway through a project! We have gone with a different type of flooring that we can install ourselves! After a frustrating shipping incident, we have parked the materials up in the office waiting for us. Because of the change we have to check under the kitchen, hall and dining floors to find out if we need to raise the bathroom floor before we install it. So, days continue to pass as even though our checklist has shrunk, so has our motivation and spare time. All that's left before you get som...

A couple months ago I received a letter from the Ministry of Justice. "Not another speeding ticket" I thought but then remembered that those come from the police. So what was this... a jury summons! At work I would say that when I am absent things have a tendency to get a little disorganized. So initially we tried to work out a letter to request that I be excused but I would have had to be recalled within a year anyways so we figured get it over with. So the week before I was doing double the work to make sure I had covered off anything that needed to be done if I ended up on a jury! Then the jury selection day came and after about 4 hours at the court house, we were released and told to check back after 5:30pm the next day. We were put off the next day and told to check again which then reported that we were off for the rest of the time. There was quite a controversial local case up on the books for this time period and the verdict was released today. The ...

Gosh I've been absent from you lovely people! Many apologies! I will try to sum up the nearly two-month gap since my last post in words and images. Here we go... Ants! Too many ants eating our window sill! The first fumigation I've ever experienced helped fix that though. Bacon beer?! It was sweet and smokey and we ate it with pizza which made them both very much better. Work continues to keep us both very, very busy. Dustin is building 6 houses. I am holding the fort down at the office. Long weekends. Donating blood and subsequent emergency room visit in the wee hours of the night. It was just low blood pressure. Phew. Taranaki did it! Yep, we won the final! Spring time flu :( I was down for 4 whole days with it. I did catch up on my Nashville though. Which is a shame because it means now I have to wait week-to-week instead of binge watching. But that, in turn, has opened up an evening to update the ol' blog :) ...

Aside from work and general life chores, there is a little project that's been taking up all other waking seconds for nigh on 2.5 weeks... somehow "nigh on" felt like the right thing to say but I don't think I've ever seen it in writing and I have to say I don't even know if I used it right. Already getting off topic - this has been life for the last little while and also the reason I haven't had a shower at home in 18 days. It's really becoming much easier in the routine to hit the gym in the morning and put in a whole 20 minutes of effort before hitting the shower. But I will really love it when my morning routine can be completed entirely at home as well. (Now, this - as many renovations seem to go - was not how long it was supposed to take but some extenuating circumstances have contributed to this and all I can say is that all the planning we could have done would not have altered this delay. So the damn universe ...

Last week Dustin spent the day creating a toolbox for Eric. It's not just any toolbox though, it holds bottles of their beloved MF brew. You see, Eric has a beer appreciation club at work and he brings varieties of MF Brew with him when it's available. Now he can do it in style... We were thinking about how to personalize it and Dustin wanted to brand it (like with hot iron) so we might do that if we can figure out how to! And to think that this wood used to be makeshift shelves in our hall closet. This is a much better use! I guess I should have posted a pic with some bottles in it just for the full effect but they were still drying from the stain.

Of course it was the reason we were touring the south anyways so it's only fitting that it was the best part of our time away as well - the wedding of our friends Katie and Mela! It was a three-part event starting with a welcome drinks event on Friday night, the ceremony up Treblecone mountain on Saturday and then the reception Saturday evening at the Edgewater Resort.  The ceremony was beautiful, both the setting, the brides and the words and sentiments. Mela's family did a haka to welcome her up the mountain and then another when Katie arrived too. They were practicing Saturday morning by the lake... Everyone was taken up the mountain in a bus - some of us were on a bus that even rolled backwards as he couldn't get it into gear! That was added excitement. Then we hopped on the chairlift (which felt really weird without snowboards on!) and assembled at the top of the lift where they had groomed an area for everyone to stand. And then we waited for t...