It has been a little while!

 

Okay…yes it has been too long.

Sometimes life gets away from you. And that’s not always a bad thing.

Mid July was our last blog post, that was three months ago.

No excuses, just enjoying life. So without further ado, here is what has been going on with us here in NZ…

Lots of fun, social time with friends. Movies, we have seen Superman, Jurassic World, Fantastic Four, hosted a LotR one day marathon (3 films extended edition). Saw an anniversary showing of Serenity on the big screen as well as the original Ghostbusters as a fund raiser for Skullduggery - the annual halloween and horror art show we help with each year. Additionally, we have seen Avatar 2 again, in prep for the new one coming out this Dec. , and planning to see Tron: Ares this weekend.

We can’t say that any of them wowed us. But all were enjoyed at some level. 

We got a new Vanity and sink installed in our powder room. That took longer than hoped, but so happy to have it in. Just need to tile the backsplash.

We hosted a friend I worked with at Wizards of the Coast back in the day. He and his partner stayed with us for 5 days to check out Wellington. They had been exploring much of New Zealand on their world travels. 

We also spent another weekend up with friends in the Wairarapa. It is always a nice get away. 

Preparations have started on our new garage. The demolition is completed and the rebuild should be starting next week - weather permitting. 🤞🏻

We are very much looking forward to having a usable garage for the car. Needless to say, the car will be getting a full detail soon. It will survive better being kept sheltered from the harsh weather. 

The big event however, was another amazing trip to Hobbiton!

We had such a fabulous time there in January for Eric’s bday celebration. It was suggested that maybe we should try to plan another event in the Green Dragon - a night of gaming! (D&D)

So we put it together. 

40 gamers at 7 tables 

Complete with the full movie set tour starting at 4:00 and gaming, buffet and drinks til midnight!

We got very lucky with the weather. It had been raining on and off most of the day and poured about 15-20 minutes before the tour began. Then for a glorious 2 hours the rain stayed away. Allowing us a windy but dry tour through the shire. 

It was a great time!

We made a weekend of it. 

Flew onto Auckland on Friday and had a nice dinner out with friends.

We drove to our hotel in Matamata (near Hobbiton) on Saturday and held the event. Then departed on Sunday with a stop at the Auckland CostCo to pick up a few goodies, before heading back to Wellington. We took two local friends with us they had never been in a Costco- they were very overwhelmed. 

We continue to play D&D often. Eric has enough players now to run pretty regularly. And I participate usually once or twice a month. 

Also in the midst of all this activity, in September, we celebrated 2 years back in NZ! The time has gone by so quickly. 😁

Most recently we enjoyed WOW - the World of Wearable Art show. It was a fun evening out with friends and amazing costumes. 

www.worldofwearableart.com

I spent the following few days attending NZGDC - NZ game Developers Conference, and spoke on a panel with 2 coworkers.

I thought the conference was better than last years. I enjoyed sitting in on a few good talks and caught up with many industry friends.

We are continuing to work on the house - more interior painting and and hanging more pictures.

The yard is screaming for attention but the weather is making it difficult. Spring is here (occasionally) and we are trying to enjoy the days or short windows/hours it blesses us with its presence.

We actually had hail the other day!🥶

The kitties, Luna and Embyr, continue to entertain us. They are now one year olds. 

The sad news here has been the announcement that the Chocolate Fish Cafe will be closing on January 31st😢

This is one of my favorite places to enjoy a meal in the sunshine with friends. 

I am hoping they will find a new location and reopen, but understand that these are challenging times.  Finding appropriate coastal (waterside) property that is affordable - good luck. But I’m hoping!

And most recently, we upgraded our cell phones! It has been 4 years(models) since our last upgrades. They are very nice, however we are still working to get all the settings back to where we like them. It’s kind of a pain navigation all the new bells and whistles. I’m still trying to get my music playlists reloaded. 😜

We hope everyone is doing well. And will plan another blog soon. 

Hopefully sooner than 3 months. Haha. 

Cheers for now

Eric & Stacy

What a month!

 

It’s been a month…

So much has gone on. We have just returned to Wellington after 3 weeks back in the states. And we were welcomed back home to Welly with a double rainbow view from our back deck. Although we didn’t see it. Our house sitter shared the photo just as we were landing. 

Sue/mom(Eric’s) passed away peacefully on June 4th after several years with Alzheimer’s. We are very sad, but also relieved that she is no longer suffering. Sheila, Eric’s sister was with her. 

Our original plans had been to travel back to the states to visit family at the end of August. But we promptly re-adjusted our plans.

We were not quite ready to leave Luna and Embyr, the new kitties, for so long. But alas it was necessary…We had friends that offered to house and kitty sit, so they were well loved. 

It would take a few weeks to get all the necessary appointments in San Diego scheduled, so we started our trip in Seattle. It was nice to be able to enjoy some warm sunny weather - a break from the cold wet winter in Wellington. 

It was great to see family and friends. It had been a year since our last visit. My father and step mother had only just moved into a new rental house a few months earlier, so it was nice to be able to see their new place. 

We then went down to LA and saw more family and friends. We enjoyed a family 4th of July bbq which felt very strange given the political climate at the moment. We also celebrated my brother’s and my birthdays. 

For those that are interested, we did not witness any unusual activities at the airports. There were several peaceful protest groups out and about on the 4th. And the MacArthur Park event apparently occurred while we were there. Many of our friends shared stories of the craziness going on. 

We then made our way down to San Diego. It was a very busy week filled with meetings and paperwork. It was also really nice to spend the time all together- Eric, Sheila and I. 

The celebration of life we planned I Sue’s honor was really nice. Over 50 people attended, including family from the east coast. Wonderful stories were shared. She was a remarkable person, strong, intelligent, and a pioneer as the Cheif Deputy City Attorney of San Diego. She touched so many lives. Her mantra “always do the right thing” was echoed by all. 

Tears were shed, but there was also laughter. We will miss her deeply. 

We ate a lot as well - In n Out burgers, Mexican food with guacamole! Italian pasta, ice cream, frozen yogurt, and we discovered a place called the Donut Bar in SD! Huge donuts including the Homer donut. 

We walked some. Mostly down to the beach from our air bnb to watch the sunset. 

The three weeks went by both quickly and slowly. But we are happy to be back home in our own bed and to snuggle with the kitties!

Reminder to cherish those you love. 

And enjoy your times together. 

And it is June!

 May has come and gone -Poof!

Unbelievable…

In addition to our usual fun meals and gatherings with friends;
We saw “The Play that Goes Wrong”. It was very funny and we enjoyed it very much. We saw the Marvel Thunderbolts movie -entertaining, but not outstanding. We absolutely loved the second season of Andor! It was so heartbreaking. And we enjoyed the latest seasons of Daredevil and Dr. Who. 

I gave a 1 hour presentation to Massey University art students about “presentations”. It went well and seemed to be well received. 

And we saw a couple of comedy shows as part of the Wellington Comedy Festival. It was an interesting reminder that humor is different regionally. Both the jokes themselves and the audience make a difference. The comedians we saw were from the UK. They all mentioned how challenging the NZ audience is. There were some funny bits, but I did find them less funny in general from what I have experienced back in the states.

The big news is that Eric (and friends) finished the dining room table!
It is beautiful and we are loving it.

We have done a bit more yard clean up and are trying to enjoy the few remaining sunny days that come our way as we transition into winter here.
It does bring with it some beautiful Fall sunsets and we were just treated to another beautiful Aurora. Eric shot the first image and a friend shot the second image of Eric. I missed this one, as I had work the next morning and chose to get some sleep.

The kitties continue to brighten our lives! Even if they have managed to damage a few of our collectibles and nibble on a few book corners. 

( the collectibles will be repaired ) We’ll  have to live with a few perforated book corners. 

So what’s ahead?

June and July will be relatively quiet months. Hoping to get a few small things done around the house and enjoy the down time. No real big plans for my birthday, but will undoubtable get together with friends to celebrate another year around the sun.

Sending hugs to all!
Stacy & Eric

Autumn has arrived!

 And another month has passed. 

It was not an overly busy month but it was filled with activity.

Going into Easter weekend, it feels good to have 4 days off to take a breath and enjoy some down time. 

We celebrated our first year in the house! It’s hard to believe it’s been a full year. We have done a lot to the house- and still have more we are planning. Mostly more painting and art to hang. And we still have a few boxes left to sort through and unpack. The kitties have had us put a temporary pause (paws-lol) on that. Wanting to let them settle in a bit more before adding chaos. 

Eric and our friend Andrew are still working on the new dining table. 

As promised here are the latest photos. 

Work is going well. I celebrated one year at PikPok too. That also flew by. 

We just launched the “Early Release of our newest zombie game on Steam. Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days. It is being well reviewed. 

Otherwise, we continue to enjoy things here in New Zealand. We don’t have much in the way of plans for the winter months. And Embyr and Luna continue to bring us much joy!!!!

🤗

Time Flies -part 2

 Time flies - I swear it was just New Years…

We are still really enjoying the days of longer sunlight. But alas, Fall is nearing. There are still more weeks to enjoy, but the signs are here. It is darker in the mornings when we are getting up. And we have more rain and more wind along with the sunshine.

The kitties are growing and continue to bring us oodles of joy. 

We escaped for a weekend away to Martinborough. Five of us drove up on Friday and came back on Sunday. We visited a lovely winery, ate lots of good food. Walked the Remutaka Rail Trail (~ 20km - 4 hours)and managed to stay ahead of most of the rain. Eric chose to sit that one out. But he graciously picked us up at the end of the trail. He used the spare time prepping a fun D&D adventure that we played that evening. And we did some OPP(second hand) shopping on our way back on Sunday.

We now have a new closet door! Thanks to the amazing talents of our dear friend Kim Beaton, the boring door to the storage closet in the hall has been transformed. Now people might think we have a proper passage to the dungeon!

Progress continues on the new dining room table…hope to have new photos next time.