Hello ho ho! Happy Christmas everyone out there. What a great holiday! Thanks to all you family and friends for being so generous! We have been doing pretty well down here in NZ despite all the economic turmoil. Darrel and I have had some big changes lately on the jobs front, I just starteda new one and Darrel is exploring some entreprenurial ideas, including mushroom farming! We have been blessed with some amazing folks for flatmates over the last few months, Jen is off cruisng the north island for her summer holidays and her German friends, Connie and Christian, are staying here in her place. The last few days we have been cooking for each other, it's a great way to experience and share cultures. Better get packing we are heading to do some tramping and camping down south!

Hi there, you may remember our old fence, as seen below from the inside of the yard...

and here is the new one!!!!

and I chopped down the ivy monster!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just thought I'd share a bit about my site visit to a dairy farm, I met up with the ladies on my way.

The door project begins with a new few new tools, some beautifu recycled rimu from the building recycler and an old door

Some shots of my handy work, this project went on for a few weeks, and I had sawdust in my hair the whole entire time.

Darrel rocks the new table saw and makes a sill for the door frame

Ready for install, if only there was a hole in the wall for it to go...

The first step was to take out the window, and the door fits right inside the window cavity, minus a few bricks

Darrel described this tool as a chainsaw with a circular blade, um, I am pretty glad that we had to take it back to the rental place

Now for the fun part!

Zoe immediatly discovered her new favorite spot in the house, and forgave us for another chaotic weekend of moving her bed around, moving her kennel, standing on it and growling at her for barking at the people walking by...

Then we were ready for the deck, Darrel took the Friday off work to start it with his friend Jamie (who just sold his decking company after four years)

This is what they accomplished on day one! They built the frame and letthe concrete set overnight.

The Deck Weekend: End of Day 2

The Deck Weekend: Begining of Day 3

The Deck Weekend: End of Day 3
All done!!!!

Hey there! These pics are from a fabulouse weeken of fun with cousin Sean, he has been strolling around NZ for the past month and we got two days of skiing in while he was visiting. Good spring conditions!

um... yes Darrel tried skiing, and I think he likes it

We visited the Hokitika Gorge on the Westcoast, it was just down the road from the farm we stayed at. Sean worked in California and Hawaii with New Zealanders, so he has heaps of contacts.

The swing bridge over the HokitikaGorge

On the drive to the West Coast from Christchurch