Last Blog of 2025

Cheers!

It has been a fun and festive end of year. 

Our holiday gifts to each other were a BBQ and a fire pit, and we have been enjoying the long sunny days out on the deck with friends. 

We hosted Xmas Eve with about 30 friends. 

The kitties got spoiled for the holidays. Eric built them an amazing climbing post and they got several fun play toys. 

We have enjoyed several films and TV shows, including Avatar: Fire and Ash, Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man, and Stranger Things.

I have been reading a book on Scottish legends and myths 

And we are tidying the house in preparation for guests in February. 

I added a backsplash to our little sink. And with the amazing talents of Kim and Pal Tiya, we added some more fun to our front garden. 

Behold the fairy castle!

Wishing you all a very Healthy and Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Stacy & Eric

It’s that time of year again!

 

Holidays are approaching fast and the hustle and bustle of year-end tasks pile up. 

While summer is approaching here, it is still holiday time. 

We have been busy. 

Skullduggery, the horror/halloween art show, that we have helped with over the last few years, was a big success. And great fun. 

We celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary at a really good restaurant that we had not been to before. We will definitely be back. 

For Halloween this year, we had a small dinner party for a dear friend and handed out candy to the 4 trick or treaters. We live on a hill, so don’t really get many. These were our neighbors kids. Then went with a friend to a party the following night. 

We have changed our clocks here forward and already enjoying the longer hours of daylight. 8:30 sunset! We bought a fire pit and have had our first s’mores of the season! Next purchase… a bbq !

The garage project is still not complete- but very close. Things have not gone as smoothly as we would have liked, but we are very happy with the final results. 

The premier of Avatar: Fire & Ash will be here on Saturday. Should be quite the event. We have many friends that have been involved with the films. I think we will avoid the crowds, but we have our tickets for opening night on the 17th. 

We don’t have any big holiday plans this year. Just going to enjoy the down time, visiting with friends, and hopefully some nice weather. We are looking forward to our visitors coming in February. 

The kitties are still amazing, although they are putting a bit of a damper on the holiday decorating!

Everything is still a toy!

Wishing our friends & family in the States a very happy Thanksgiving!

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