January

By the time we got back from our Christmas Vacation trip on the 8th, January was nearly a third over. By the time we fully recovered from being away for three weeks (and for over five weeks for me), we were pretty low on energy - but we still managed to get in a few adventures before the month was out.

We were already missing our vacation lifestyle after a week of being back at work, so organised a day trip with some friends up to Puhoi, which is about 30 minutes North of the city. Some of you may recall Puhoi from my birthday post, as that's where the Cheese Factory is located, but we had different plans for this trip. We spent a couple hours picnicking on the beach at Wenderholm Regional Park before kayaking 12km up the Puhoi River to Puhoi. The depth of the river is dependent on the tide, so you only get one shot per day for kayaking. When we first arrived the shallowest parts of the water barely covered my foot, and just a couple hours later it was knee-deep.

One of our friends brought his whole family along, but his wife is very pregnant, so she stayed back at the beach with the 2-year old. I volunteered to share a kayak with him and the 4-year old, H - and we had a great time!  Unfortunately, it was not without incident. We hopped out of the kayak to do some swimming about an hour into the trip, and H and I both managed to slice our feet up pretty badly on some sharp oysters along the riverbanks. I was bleeding the rest of the night and couldn't walk for a couple of days, but am doing much better now!

Top left: The river when we arrived; Bottom left: The river just before taking off - the place where my chair was is completely covered in water!  Bottom right: Some of the leaves were white along the bottom, which made it look like the trees were dusted in snow.

Despite the injuries, it was a great trip and I'd do it again in a heartbeat - but would not recommend getting out of the kayak!

Even though it was less than a month after our three-week break, we had a three-day weekend on the 24th-26th for Auckland Anniversary Day, which is a regional holiday that celebrates the date a white guy from Ireland arrived in the area.  We opted to stay home this year to check out some sales so we could get the two things our hearts most desired in all the world - a dryer and some ceiling fans!!!

As a reminder, we don't have air conditioning OR heat. Fortunately, even when it's really hot during the day it tends to cool down at night, but a fan is still a very welcome addition to any room. Most people here have never even considered putting a ceiling fan in their home, so pickings were slim, but we managed to find something that fit our needs. And then Rob managed to install it himself! Over a month later, they still work and haven't shown any signs of falling down - and they are worth every penny!

The dryer isn't as necessary during the summer - especially one that's been as hot and dry as this one has - but we figured a sale in the middle of summer would be a good time to get a great deal, and we were right!  We got a 2014 model for over 50% off.  We had to pay to have that installed, but again - worth every penny! Being able to do laundry without first checking the weather report is SUCH a luxury.

Hello sexy (I'll leave it to you to decide whether that's directed toward the man or the appliances)

Last but not least, the end of the month brought our very favourite thing in the world - visitors from home!!!  My Uncle J and Aunt P spent a couple of weeks in Sydney and road tripping on the South Island (with just a map - no GPS or cell phone service!) before coming up to Auckland to spend the weekend with us. We took them over to Waiheke Island (of course) to check out Sculpture on the Gulf, which was lovely, but what we did doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that they were here!

Sculpture on the Gulf - we were pretty disappointed to learn that the wine bar in the bottom right was for display purposes only.

Hiking along the gulf.

It was so great to see you both - we're thrilled that you enjoyed this little country we call home as much as we do!