May I suggest the sesame ice-cream?

Tonight we had our first sushi in well over a year at Arashi on Courtenay Place. We were there for a friend's birthday. The sushi was great! The food made me look forward to our upcoming trip to Japan that much more.

For dessert almost all of us decided to try the sesame ice-cream-- it was actually very good! It tasted a bit like oreo cookie ice-cream.

2nd Bach in Ohakune

Stayed in a nice comfy bach (bach=rental holiday house) this weekend with some great people We had a fire roaring all weekend-- it so warm in fact in the house that we had to open some windows. Turned out that it was one of the coldest weekends in Ohakune and that pipes were bursting in other bach's.

We skiied Turoa again on Mt. Ruapehu:

Gorgeous sunshine but awful hard, icy snow. Here's one of our friends trying to get her skiing legs back:

We had to drop off a girl in Masterton, so we took the long, beautiful way home:

On our fridge

I've had the same pictures on our fridge ever since we've moved to NZ:



We now have some recent additions. Words I'm studying for te reo Maori class:


Kiwi-slang fridge magnets given to me as a going away present by the Porirua team:


One evening I noticed Bryce standing at the fridge for along time. Here are a few of his masterpieces:

1st day

Well it was another 1st day of work for me again today. My new team had decorated my desk with an American flag and McDonald's happy meal toy fries and a toy burger. (Ironic since I made us stop for McD's on Sunday on the way home from the mountain).

I observed a teacher for the deaf do a home visit-- it was really interesting. The child had bilateral cochlear implants; I didn't realize that that was done but apparently it is getting more common (at least in NZ, I have no idea one way or the other in the States).

Since we were gone skiing all weekend, Bryce and I had to have a very hungry trip grocery shopping. We bought things we never usually buy, like juice and fish sticks and canned chilli-- here's our creation that we're awfully proud of-- chilli in a bread bowl! Totally hit the spot.

Sunny skiing weekend

On Sunday morning I was feeling the start of a cold so I read in a cafe while everyone else skiied. Wow that was a bad decision! Turns out it was a great day to ride the mountain; and a lift that had broken down a few weeks ago was repaired that afternoon. (One of the towers actually snapped in half.)

All weekend had been bright and sunny. We could easily spot Mt. Taranaki to the west:


I realized half way through the day that it was the 4th of July!! Pretty crazy way to spend it~

1st skiing weekend

We rented a bach with 6 other people this weekend in Ohakune. We skiied on Mt. Ruapehu, at Turoa ski field. (about 4-5 hours drive from home).

While we were up there we met up with a bunch of other friends that were staying at another bach.


After skiing, we celebrated one of the girl's birthdays by going "downtown" to Ohakune, ordering yummy individual pizzas at a pizza place, and then waiting for the pizzas to be delivered to us at a pub next door. We sat in front of a roaring fire; we were all almost half asleep by around 8:30.

Pavlova

My co-worker taught me to make pavlova today. I totally recommend making this dessert-- it's super easy but looks really fancy and tastes yum. Call it a "pav" if you want to sound cool ;-)




We used the oven in the staff room to bake-- you can see why I love working here!