Hello and Happy Thanksgiving!

It has been a while since I posted. November has been a very busy month.

It began with the launch party for Blood Drive. Our company's (and Activision's) latest game release. Interestingly though, it will not be released here in Austrailia or New Zealand.(too bloody/violent). The party was followed by AnimFX, a small industry conference held here in Wellington for 3 days. I was asked to be a guest speaker and did a 50 minute presentation on "outsourcing art". The conference was great fun and I met a lot of great people, including the director and co-writer of How to Train Your Dragon, Dean DeBlois. I also got to see a great presentation on the making of Avatar.

A few weeks later, I spent 2 days in Auckland with 2 co-workers at a workshop on LEAN processing. (work related practices) I was not sure what to expect, but it turned out to be very inspiring and educational.

This was my first Thanksgiving away from the US and family. It seems odd to be my age and say that. Anyway, it was and interesting week. We got together over the weekend before with some other ex-pat friends to celebrate in a very untraditional manner. We all brought various dishes of food (we brought a 5 layer dip and chips) to share and we watched all 3 Lord of the Rings movies back to back. It was fun. Then early in the week we heard about the snow in Seattle and all I could think about were my friends and family enjoying the snow and getting an extended holiday break (no work all week). Thanksgiving here is not a holiday, so it was business as usual, which did indeed feel odd. But alas, we did not completely let go of the tradition... As you can see we did make an effort to begin a new tradition and have a Thanksgiving meal just the two of us. We picked up a small stuffed chicken because turkey is not available here until closer to Xmas (that's the only time they import them) and I made my sweet potatoes with marshmallows, for the first time from scratch (they are called Kumaras here) and they came out great! Interesting to know...marshmallows here come in bags of white(regular) and pink(strawberry) so we had to sort out the pink ones. AND Eric made a pumpkin pie using fresh pumpkin - no cans here - that also came out delicious! It felt good to have a little Thanksgiving even though we weren't in the US.

Overall work is going well for me. I made the arrangements for talent and spent 2 days at the Weta facility helping with some motion capture for our upcoming Rugby game (www.rugbychallengegame.com). The technology is quite amazing. Eric is still working the Hobbit possibilities and the general consensus is that hiring for that will begin after the New Year.

The other photo above was taken from the gym where Eric and I workout. Quite a view huh? Wellington has just bee named the coolest "little capitol" in the world by Lonely Planet's Best in Travel. The cone shape objects are more wind art. On windy days the cones spin and shift with the wind and at night they also light up.

With the holidays around the corner we have lots to do. It is a very different feeling here with Xmas being in the summer, but we are still trying to get in the spirit.

Cheers to all and we will follow up again soon.

Stacy & Eric

14 years and still going!! - part I

Fourteen years....where does the time go? In 2006 Eric and I celebrated Valentines Day in New Zealand. Specifically visiting Hobbiton and Rotorua. We had no idea then that we would be back in 2010 to celebrate our anniversary. So what did we do? We packed up the car and went exploring more of this amazing country.

Saturday morning we packed up the car (food and cameras) and headed North. Our first stop was a sculpture garden called Efil Doog. (Good Life spelled backwards) It was a beautiful garden with a variety of great sculptures scattered throughout. The Rhododendrons were in bloom, reminding us very much of Seattle. We spent a couple of hours roaming around and photographing and then took out our packed lunches.

From there we continued on toward Martinborough and Featherston. We decided to take a road on a map that said it went to Glendhu Rocks...We drove and drove and drove -to the end of the road -literally. I do not know where we were other than the road on the map but we never really arrived anywhere. It was just beautiful countryside with lots of farms and sheep and cows along the way. There was a dead rabbit in the road that had a great raptor(falcon-like bird) perched upon it eating away. We tried to stop and photograph it, but it just flew away each time we approached. (need a longer lens!)

We eventually drove back to Featherston and had a nice dinner at the Royal Hotel Restaurant and stayed at Benvenuto -a nice little B&B.

It was a great day!

14 years and still going! - part II

...the second day we got back in the car and headed for Stonehenge-Aotearoa.

"Although similar in size and appearance to the original Stonehenge in England, this is not a replica. It is a complete and working structure designed and built for it's precise location in the southern hemisphere." It was quite interesting and according to this our zodiac signs are not what we thought they were. the sun has moved over thousand of years and based on this I am not a Cancer but a Gemini and Eric is not a Capricorn, but a Sagittarius. Huh? Who knew.

But I am keeping my birthstone Darnit!!!! I like rubies - not to fond of pearls.

From there we drove down to Cape Palliser. It was a beautiful drive with great weather.

(on a partial dirt road). The end of the road is the light house along with a seal colony. We did see a few seals, but most of them were out in the water and not sleeping on the beaches.

On our way back we stopped at the Putangirua Pinnacles. We hiked about 40 minutes up to see these amazing 1000 year old rock pillars. These rock formations also served as one of the locations for LotR -Return of the King.

Our timing was perfect we got the most amazing sunset as we drove back towards home.

It was a great Anniversary, and we can't wait to do another road trip again soon.

Thank you to everyone who wished us a Happy Anniversary.

Love to all

Stacy & Eric

Hobbit Stays in New Zealand!

We fought for it and won.....

What a roller coaster ride it has been. Last Monday there were rallies held all over New Zealand supporting Peter Jackson, Weta, and everyone whose livelihood was on the line if the Hobbit filming moved elsewhere. Eric and I joined many of our Weta friends in the Rally.

The Rally was Monday and by Wednesday evening it had been announced that the Hobbit films would stay in New Zealand... And there was much rejoicing!

Now Eric can start to look for work on the film in some capacity. We are keeping our fingers crossed. Filming will start in February 2011.

I have been meaning to get back to the blogging, but have finally hit the point where I could no longer stand living out of boxes. Five month of living with boxes, piles and suitcases is too long. I had to focus my spare time on finishing the move.

And now it is completed!

The last few weekends have flown by. And what have we done?I made a large pot of spaghetti sauce. And learned that not only do these people call "ketchup" "tomato sauce", but that "tomato sauce" when bought in cans is actually "ketchup". Needless to say the spaghetti sauce came out very sweet. I added a LOT of garlic and other seasonings to try to help and it did. Next time we will be buying "tomato puree".

We have enjoyed some nice sunny days walking the neighborhood and sitting out on our deck. And we have made a very nice home for ourselves in our rented flat in Miramar. Spring is here and we are really looking forward to enjoying our weekends exploring the parts of NZ we have not yet seen as well as returning to some of the places we really liked.We are also crossing our fingers that Eric will hopefully find employment on the Hobbit if it finally goes into production here in New Zealand.

Nice day for a walk.

While we spent most of the weekend continuing to unpack boxes and move furniture around, we did get out for a short walk in the sunshine. This is what we can see when we walk across the street and down the hill about 5 minutes. Karaka Bay. The plant life here is amazing too.

French Fry Sandwich?

No joking....This is a "Chip Butty"

So while this apparently is not a delicacy born here in New Zealand, it apparently comes from the UK, but has been adopted.

White bread, butter, french fries or as they call them, "chips" and topped with tomato sauce(or ketchup)

These were served at the office on Friday and yes, I tried one.

Certainly nothing healthy there, but actually doesn't taste half bad.