Tis the Season!

It is right around the corner, not sure how it got here already and feels like it will be the new year in a blink of an eye!

We will likely not come up for air before the new year so we will consider this our last post of 2024. I really have no idea where this year went. But what an amazing year it has been. We bought and moved into our new home. I started a new job. We returned to the US for a quick visit. We saw the Aurora Australis and spent much time working on house projects and hanging with good friends.

As for Thanksgiving, there is certainly lots to be thankful for! We did indeed celebrate here, just a few days later with some dear friends and other ex-pats. I can’t believe we did not take a photo of the group, but we were so busy eating and having fun that we forgot. The meal was delicious with everyone chipping in.

In addition, more yard work and weeding has occurred. Eric spent a good part of last Sunday with our neighbor trimming back a bunch of trees and dead branches. We have not yet done much planting. But the Hydrangeas are looking great and the Dalias and calla lilies I stuck in the ground a few month back are doing well. I am looking forward to more planting next season.

  

Eric has spent most of the last few weeks building some shelving and they are looking great! Hoping to have them installed before Christmas.

The days have gotten long, which we love. Daylight til 9:00pm. We are enjoying walking in the evenings and watching the beautiful late sunsets.



We have decorated some of the house for the holidays and will be hosting a small gathering here on the 24th. I also continued the tradition of “elf toes”. It is more fun here when it’s warm and you can wear open toed shoes, as opposed to Seattle when it’s cold and rainy.

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season and we will continue our adventures in the new year!

Catch-up Time

 Where we left off…

The Skullduggery art show was a big success. We had a great time. There were many amazing pieces of art. We love being a part of this amazingly talented art community. 

Work is going well. PikPok released the new Into the Dead:Our Darkest Days Demo on Steam. If any of you are interested in a fun Zombie game give it a try! And then post a great review. 

We have gotten back to working on the house. Trying to get a bunch more painting and stuff done over the next several weeks and then plan to take some time off to enjoy the holidays. 

The dining room and lounge 

And getting some more shelving built. 

The election- we are sad and angry and baffled, really???? We will say no more here. We are very thankful to be in NZ.

We had a yard service come for a full day to start the clean up on the lower portion of our property. There were 3 people for 8 hours. And two full truck loads pulled out of the yard. They were amazing ! A bumblebee nest, and some odd rubbish including two dinner plates were found beneath the organic debris. And a birds nest up in one of our trees was discovered. 

We also took a nice weekend getaway to the Wairarapa to visit some friends. Always fun to take a break and just relax. 

Wishing all our US friends and family a very Happy Thanksgiving. 

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.