Zoe would like to say that we have been enjoying some great weather here in Christchurch. The last few months have been beautiful- plenty of sun and warm weather- much different from our first NZ summer. I am really glad that we cleared some of the old veggie garden and planted some seedlings back in December. The garden was/is filled with Twitch Grass, which is a terrible weed; the tiniest bit of root will sprout and start growing. The above ground part is miniscule in comparison to the miles of roots threading through the soil. I wish that I have counted the hours of abstracting these roots from the soil, because it would be shocking. I have been given encouragement by the lovely neighbours that see how we are fixing up the place, especially from the few who were here when the original owners were before everything got out of control. Besides the twitch grass, we have had heaps of silverbeet (swiss chard), potatoes and pumpkins sprouting up voluntarily in every garden that we clear.

Besides the veggie garden, we have built a raised bed, weeded and mulched the perimeter gardens and around the edge of the house, removed/moved trees and shrubs, taken 5 huge trailer loads of green waste to the dump, sanded-painted-covered-planted the greenhouse. (I have spent almost every weekend in the gardens and there is still heaps to do!) At least we are starting to see some serious improvements. I am a bit late planting my winter garden, I plan on doing it tomorrow (finally filled the new raised bed with soil today). Hopefully the weather will stay warm for the plants to get established. I will be growing broccoli, peas, beets, spinach… and silverbeet of course (I can’t help it, it comes up everywhere!)

Other than working away in the garden, we have taken a few trips over to Banks Peninsula, just south of Christchurch (check out the monument camping trip photos), we refinished half of the wood floors in the house, Darrel started a new job as principle designer and manager of ArchitectureDM Christchurch, I have started biking to my job in Kaiapoi (it is 18 kms) and we have been playing weekly with our band DYDIMO. Please check our Myspace page…

Well that pretty much sums up the last few months, hope you enjoy the pictures!

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!!!