Happy Halloween! (Belated)

Apologies, I had meant to post this over a week ago, but things got away from me... It has been an amazing two weeks. So much to share…

We attended WoW, actually photographed the Aurora Australis, attended a screening of Disney’s Brave with the director at the local theatre, I attended the NZGDC conference as part of a workshop and spent a full day hearing lectures, catching up with colleagues and networking.

Eric ran two D&D games and we enjoyed the usual catchups with friends.

World of Wearable arts (WoW) was amazing. If you don’t know, it is sort of a mashup of Cirque du Soleil and a fashion show - every costume is a work of art. It is quite remarkable. 

The following evening a bunch of us headed out to try and catch the Aurora. And we were successful!  It was still difficult to see with the naked eye, but the cameras could certainly see it. I am still learning a lot about my new mirrorless camera, and shooting at night adds additional challenges. But for a first time, I was quite happy with capturing it as I did. Eric also got some good images. 

These are two of my coworkers at PikPok and 2 of the other 3 that did the workshop at NZGDC.

Needless to say, with all that going on we have not done much more on the house, hung a few more items and some more outdoor tidy up. 

Additionally, the last game I worked on at SimplyFun has just been released. It is great to finally see Plundering Times.

                            Game designed by Dr. (pirate) Reiner Knizia
 

And still more fun ahead with the Skullduggery art show opening next week!

Wishing everyone a very Happy Halloween! Boo!

The following blog will catch us up on the latest two weeks. Stay tuned!

A Whole Year!

 

A whole year! Really? I swear we just got here…

Indeed, we have now been in Wellington, New Zealand for a full year. And we have been in our new house for 6 months! It does not seem possible…where did the time go?

While there are still many house projects left, and we will no doubt be woking on the house for several years to come, it is definitely starting to feel like “home”! More boxes are getting unpacked, and more of our collectibles(personality) are being added around the place. We still need to build some custom shelving for some of the larger collectibles and we have two cabinets on order scheduled to be delivered mid November. We are looking forward to enjoying the holidays and our first summer in the house.

New challenge - attempting to determine how big (or small) a turkey we can fit in our tiny little NZ oven. Interior dims = 42cm wide x 28cm deep and only 22cm tall. For those still stuck in the imperial paradigm…that is about  16.5” x 11” x 8.5”

We continue to be busy. Eric’s 3 weeks of work has extended out to now 5 weeks and there may be more. Yay! He is enjoying it, although it has stalled the house painting for now. I am happy for the break and have been using the time to work on other smaller tasks around the house.

Spring is here and with it the typical mix of weather - all the seasons at once - sun, wind, clouds and rain. Flowers are continuing to bloom, I even planted a few bulbs 🤞🏻 and we trimmed back some of the branches overhanging the roof. Similar to Seattle, everything comes alive and start to grow very quickly.

Piled at our neighbors place as they are able to grind it into mulch. 

We took a quick trip up to Auckland to visit some friends, checked out the aquarium and did a Costco run - LoL! We restocked our salsa supply, and picked up some of our favorite potato chips (crisps), peanut butter, maple syrup, and got some cheaper AAA batteries. All in all a good haul. It will be great if/ when they open a store in Wellington. Fingers crossed.

We have also had a few earthquakes. They are very common here and mostly ignored unless they start to get up to 4.5 or higher. Last Sunday we were woken up at 5:00am with a 5.8 shaker. It was a good one but it didn’t last all that long. Just enough to wake us up. We did not hear any crashes or thuds… so we both rolled over and went back to sleep. Later that morning I walked around the house to see what and if anything moved. Only a few books tipped over on their shelves, a few small plastic toys tipped over and that was it. Nothing broken. And everything we had set up in the glass curio cabinet (and quake-waxed into place) was just where they were supposed to be.

Work is going well for me. And next week we have NZGDC (Game Developers Conference) here in Wellington. I will be attending several industry related lectures and helping out with a workshop.

The rest of the month is very busy -packed with lots of fun stuff. Our usual gatherings with friends plus we are attending a showing of WoW -World of Wearable Art. www.worldofwearableart.com Then for our Anniversary we will have a nice dinner out and be seeing a comedy show  - Eric Idle (one of the Monty Python team). As we near Halloween once again Eric and I are assisting with the Skullduggery Art Show that will open on October 28th and run through to Nov. 3rd.

Wishing everyone a fun and spooky Halloween! 

(Speaking of scary…yes, we have voted!)

Spring is Here!

Spring is here!!!- well…sort of. 

Some early blooms, and there are many Calla Lilies on our hillside and they are rather large.

Spring in Wellington is more of a mixed season. 

We get lots of wind and rain. With beautiful sunny days interspersed…and sometimes all in the same day. We have also had several days of serious wind. If you were not aware, Wellington is the windiest metropolitan region on the planet. With average winds at 15 knots. 

October is usually the windiest month with winds averaging 20-30 knots.

With gusts regularly reaching a crazy 72 knots (85 mph)What’s truly amazing is that our power stays on. Unlike the Seattle area where we were accustomed to power outages regularly. 

New doors and paint! We finally have the new side door installed and painted along with our front door. We have wanted to have a purple front door for a long time and now we have one! 

Now that the workers are done and gone, Eric has painted our back hallway. We are looking forward to getting more stuff hung on the walls. Maybe by the next blog post. 

Eric is now taking a break from the house painting as he is enjoying working on a project at Scale Studios for about the next 3 weeks. 

Meanwhile all is well here…we continue to enjoy New Zealand life and gatherings with our friends.

More progress

 It’s been a relatively mellow few weeks. And I mean that in a good way.  Stuff continues to progress, but at a more casual pace. 

The side door only just got installed this week. That “lovely” shade of green is the primer (how it comes) and should be getting painted next week- weather depending... Interior white, exterior dark purple. 

Eric tackled our bedroom closet and it is great! We are now able to put twice the amount of clothing in it. Which helped clear more space in our other closets. 

The electrician came back to install the dragon lights we brought from the US. They needed a transformer and 24v bulbs. We are starting to be able to hang and place some of the things that make this house our home. These lights have been with us a long time and it feels good to see them guarding this house. 

We have also had some amazing volunteers working to clear some very invasive/non-native plants from our property. We will be planting more native plants as soon as we can.

We have also had a few storms blow through. Cold, windy and rainy, in between some nicer days. Spring is certainly trying to make its presence known. It seems strange to realize that as of next month we will have been back in NZ a full year! Wow. 

Continuing to move along…

 

We wasted no time as we hit the ground back in Wellington. 

We had tried to get our side door replaced before we left, but it got pushed out to the Monday after we returned.

The project was partnered with what started as a simple post replacement on our front retaining wall. That snowballed into replacing all the posts and then into rebuilding the entire wall 🤣

There will be some replanting in the spring for sure.

Definitely how NOT build a retaining wall!!!

There was not even any drainage 😆

And the door is still not completed…

The wrong size door was delivered and we’re waiting for the correct one. 

But the plasterer patched the kitchen and the gib we added by the side door.

And the electrician installed the extraction fan in our bathroom and ran wires for our dragon lights. The extraction fan works a bit too well! It not only sucks all the water vapor out, but it also pulls out all the warmth from the heater. Doh!

And I have finally been able to start unpacking a bunch of our fragile stuff and filling our new (used) glass cabinet!

Meanwhile, winter has arrived with a vengeance. We have had some very cold, wet and windy weeks. I shouldn’t complain as we did get to skip winter last year. With the timing of our move we went from US spring and summer to NZ spring and summer, before getting to this winter. 

We saw the new Deadpool film. Lots of fun. Warning- super violent!

Watched Star Wars -The Acolyte - and did not care very much for the story. 

San Diego Comic Con was last week and it felt very odd not being there. 

Maybe next year…

Not much planned for August and September. We will continue to work on organizing the house - another closet build out and likely more painting. Hoping to begin some picture hanging. The walls feel very bare, and we are itching to get our art collection up. 

Cheers for now... 😁

Two weeks goes by fast!

 

It was a nice trip back to the states. 

Great to see family and friends. 

And we definitely ate waaaay too much! 

We started in Seattle…

Enjoyed visiting with family. Dad even made his famous (artery clogging) French toast! Mmmmm. 

And caught up with many friends.

The 5 days included

Italian pasta dinner

Home-cooked Brisket & potatoes

Home-cooked BBQ ribs, corn, and potatoes plus brownies for dessert
Mexican lunch
Italian pasta again
and Mexican again

Then on to Los Angeles…

We spent the 4th of July with family and celebrated my brothers (and my) birthdays. The family bbq also known to some as the Buffet of Gluttony!

Followed the next few days with…
Burgers
more Mexican
A wonderful Bday Brunch with my brother and Erika
Then afternoon chips & guacamole and topped off with a Surf & Turf dinner with salad at a delicious steakhouse treated by Eric’s Uncle Rich.

Finishing up in San Diego…
On our drive down we finally got our first In n Out burger

Followed by a second In n Out burger later for dinner

The next few days were
Japanese/Sushi
Mexican again

And we squeezed in my favorite frozen yogurt!

Steak, potatoes and salad as a second bday celebration with Sheila, Eric’s sister.

AND…One last In N Out for the road…on our way to the airport. 

Sorry if we missed you this trip. It was a challenge fitting everything in.

Not yet sure when the next trip back will be. 

We are happy to be back in NZ and continuing to work on the house. 

Stay tuned for more photos of the mayhem…