Hello, Here are some recent pictures. I am on holiday for 2 weeks just because its Christmas- so I get the time to bless you all with photos and news of our lives. We have been pretty busy around the house, as usual. Lots of projects sprucing up the yard and getting rid of old school concrete paths. We really needed a home for the crazy grape vines, so our friend Jamie helped us build a pergola. It has become very handy for dining outdoors on the hot, sunny days:

Here is Zoe enjoying one of her Christmas treats in the shade of the grape laden pergola. And yes, we will be able to lay in the hammock and bite grapes off of the vine!

Zoe being protective of her new squirrel!

We wanted to have a christmas tree, but didn't have the heart to cut one down, so we bought a fejoa tree and will be plating in the yard soon. It came complete with decorations (I mean the flowers) Here it is with our new Snowflake Bentley ornament from Jericho, VT (thanks mom!).

Joy and Brian getting ready for stockings!


Zoe, very keen on getting into her stocking.

Brian tending to Christmas dinner, Salmon marinated in soy sauce and maple syrup and grilled on the BBQ. BBQs on Christmas are a Kiwi tradition.


My firs trifle ever! Yum, it was good on christmas and even better the next day.

I hope that your holidays are restful and fun. I have to go weed my veggie patch, then I will post pictures of it! Enjoy the sunshine and/or the snow!

Well it has been so long since I have written a real update, so I will just have to start by thanking everyone who helped me along my way during my travels last August. I got so many rides to and from airports, meals, places to sleep, clothes, coffees and kindness from all of the wonderful people in the world, so THANK YOU!!!!

It was so wonderful to return to New England and see all the beautiful people I know there. It was too short of a visit to stay in one place for more than a few days, but I managed to get some quality time in with friends and family. I was totally pulled in by the lush summer beauty of it all.

And on either end of the voyage, I got to catch up with friends and family in Australia.

I wont bore you with all the details (although I had planned on it, I just don’t have time) Here are some pictures to tell the story for me:

I wish that I could show every part of the voyage, but I lost a lot of great photos along the way. These are some good ones though.

I know it has been a while, so it's time for an update. It would be daunting to write about all of the goings on since I last wrote, so I will just summarize a bit here. I did a world tour, went to 2.5 weddings, Darrel and I both got new jobs and our band had a crazy fun halloween party- oh and we are in a band of architects (I am the only non-architect)!


More to come... I promise!!!

Well, I am on the move again. Just waiting in anticipation for my ride to the airport. I am off to Sydney for a night and then on to NYC/Connecticut, Vermont, then Maine and finally New Hampshire. I am feeling a bit sad leaving my family here (darrel and zoe), but they will be here when I get back. I hope Zoe doesn't think that I am totally abandoning her. She was just rehomed here only 6 weeks ago, I think she is familiar with the packing of bags and general flurry before departure. I think this is the most prepared that I have ever, EVER been for a major trip. I am sitting here relaxing and drinking a cup of tea. This is a good sign, although flying by the seat of my pants has never failed me before! I suppose I could unpack my bag and then pack it again, just to be sure I have a list of all the items that need to be declared at customs and that everything I am taking ACTUALLY needs to come with me, but I am over it. What is packed is going at this point. I am a bit worried about the 20 kg limit for luggage on my first flight, just because I am not really sure how much that is- I just don't think in metric for weight yet. My rides here!

Hello!!! Family and Friends- I must apologize for my absence on the web. We have been in the depths of winter, which is not so motivating- especially since our internet connection is in the hallway- the unheated- uninsulated hallway- I am shivering just thinking about it. Despite all this- I thought it was about time to fill you in on the running commentary going in my head. Yes, I constantly think about updating my blog, but lately the words have not been making to cyber space. Since the days are getting longer and it’s not pitch black when I leave for work in the morning and come home in the evening, I have a bit more spring in my step and a bit more energy to share with you all.

One of the highlights of the last month was when I realized my Keniston baking gene. One of my work mates organized “The Great Choccy Bake-off” between some of the teams in the office. It was a competition to see which team could bring in the best chocolate cake. I stepped up to represent my team. I had just discovered a recipe on http://www.celiac.com for a wheat-free chocolate cake called Black Magic. I was advised that the judges liked dark chocolate; the recipe seemed perfect because one of the ingredients is coffee. Everybody loves coffee- especially Darrel. I actually made two cakes, since Darrel was complaining that I make sweets and then give them away. I made one with Wheat flour for the competition and another one with a rice flour mix for the gluten-free people at work and to keep heaps at home, so Darrel wouldn’t feel left out. Darrel helped by teaching me how to make the frosting. I layered it with raspberry jam. It wasn’t the prettiest cake, but it WON! I got heaps of compliments and my cake got devoured.

For Queen’s birthday weekend, Joy and Brian came to visit. We enjoyed showing them our house and the neighborhood. And, of course, we put them to work! Joy and Brian totally cleared out some nasty ivy that was threatening the grapes and just looking messy all over the back fence. Joy and I checked over the roses and smushed caterpillars from my broccoli plants. Darrel and Brian moved a citrus tree, a rose and another shrub that were all super close to the house. They were all growing in the same place while blocking light in to two rooms of the house.

As you can imagine over the last few weeks most of our free time was spent working on the house. It’s rewarding to see the results, but the cold and lack of sunlight has slowed us down a bit- just not the most motivating conditions. We have made some time to have a little house warming and we went to a “good and evil” party (Darrel went as a “dirt devil” he brought the vacuum hose and wore his VT style- insulated carhart overalls).

Day to day, we are both biking to work- even in the below freezing temps. It usually only gets to freezing at night, but when your house has barely any insulation and the teeniest wood stove- biking to work is quite a feat.

And finally, I was tagged a while back by Karole-Ann. So here are the 7 things that I would like to share about my self.

1. I love to knit.
2. I love the movie Amelie, I have seen it 6 times and could probably see it again and again and again.
3. I am secretly writing a book, well, it is still a secret, because no one on earth knows what it is about- except for me.
4. I am actually enjoying working in an office- who would have guessed?!
5. I want to go to Antartica.
6. I like biking to work, especially when I am going faster than the cars stuck in traffic. It makes me laugh out loud and yell- “see ya suckers!”
7. And the big news is I love spending time with ZOE! We have a new member of the Hannon Family Tree. She is a very well-behave 5 ½ year old dog. A workmate was heading overseas, so we took her in. Can you guess what breed(s) she is?

About the tag: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves.

People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. At the end of your blog, you need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

So, I am tagging:
Danny, Shelby, Bonnie, Richard, Erin, Amanda, James
(most of these folks don't have blogs, so I am using it as an excuse to get them started)

Take Care,
Josie

Hi, so I Darrel and I have been really busy around the house. Here are some pics of the progress we have been making. So far we have really just made a bigger mess of the yard, but I think we are starting to see some results.


This is what the greenhouse looked like before I began to dig it out from the clutches of the grape vines. I did pull the vines out without damaging them too much.

Ta Da! It still needs a bit of work, like removing all the paint, painting the frame, cleaning the glass and then replacing all of it. I was pretty happy to realize how big it is. Instead of aiming for winter greens, I am just going to try to get it ready for spring propagation and a jump start on the veggie garden.

Ah, the grape harvest! This is just a fraction of the full bounty, and of course I can't let anything go to waste, so I squeezed the grapes into juice and froze it in ice cube trays. The cubes go great in mixed drinks!


Free wheel barrow with house! Woohoo! Just needed a bit of oil- check out the metal wheel.

Darrel going down into the crawl space for the first time to start planning the bathroom project. He was not so happy when he came up for fresh air. It is definitely meant for crawling- no basements in NZ.

This is the early days of the bathroom project. It has been going on for a few weeks now, so far we have put in a shower head and replumbed the tub filler, and removed this pedestal sink. After adding the shower, there was not really enough water pressure to have a proper shower (pretty disapointing after all of that work) so Darrel added a pressure reducing valve and cut out the header tank in the roof... and now we have the best shower in the world! Thanks Joy and Brian for all of the plumbing advise!

Here is the sneak preview of the bathroom vanity. We have made the box out of shelves from one of the bedrooms. The wood is Rimu, the floors through out the house are the same wood. We hope to uncover them someday soon.

This is one of the hundred of roses on the property, most are in need of love and attention to restore their glory. There are tons of beautiful plants hidden behind overgrown bushes and under grass.

Darrel has drawn the whole house up on the computer, he even created 3-d movies of the place. These are some sketches that he has drawn to brainstorm ideas.

I hope you enjoyed the show!

Hello!!!!! Well we have been without internet for ages - but we are back online now- in our new house! So much has happened since we moved in, parts of walls have come down and showers have gone up. I have planted winter veggies, saved plants from the clutches of the evil weed twitch grass and cleared the greenhouse from a vigorous grapevine. I saved the vine by untangling it and proping it up, so some day it can wind and twine around a pergola. I am dreaming of the day that I can hang up my hamock and laze away the day with a good book while picking grapes off the vine. (The grapes are very delicous and abundant at the moment) I have pics to share, but I just thought I would write to let you all know that contrary to the rumors, I did not buzz off the Antartica- although it seems to call my name every once in a while- the house is way too cool to leave behind for a cold, dark holiday on the south pole. More soon...

Hi, well I forgot to mention that a few weeks ago we were blessed with a visit from Jessica. Here we are together going for a swim on a crisp evening. She was only here from Sunday morning to Saturday morning, so we made the most of a few evenings together. She was here for a conference with her Grad School advisor from the University of Vermont, Cully. Cully is now at Virginia Tech, so one of his new Grad Student's came for the trip as well, her name is also Jessica and it turns out that we had a class together at Penn State back in 2001. Here are the two Jessicas:

One evening the Jessica's, Darrel and I went to Sumner, were supposed to go for a swim, but some crazy kelp/seaweed stuff was clogging up the shore, we all chickend out and just enjoyed the view.
Super early on Saturday morning, before Jess got on her flight home, we took a trip to the Botanical Gardens in Christchurch. We took these pics of tree ferms. I quite like the blurry one, but to get a better idea of what the picture is off, just look at the pic below it, they are identical, by the second one I used the flash. The brown bit in the middle is a new frond unfurling, just like a fiddlehead, but as big as your fist!

Thanks Jessica for sharing all of your photos with me and my fans, um I mean friends and family!