Spring has Sprung

This is a list detailing the arrival of spring!

* Mark and I sat outside, for a whole afternoon, on the deck. We were not rained on once! 

* The sunscreen has been moved in the stores from the lotion department to the seasonal department 

* The flowers are in bloom all over town 

* The sound of lawn mowers and the smell of fresh cut grass 

* The Batista asking you if you want your coffee iced or hot 

* Laundry on the line 

* The need for sunglasses all the time, without the clouds there is nothing stopping those warm rays!

* All the restaurants and cafes have patio sets out and they see more use than the internal seating  

* The sight and sound of the little fantail song birds 

I think both Mark and I agree that having the temperature in the house warming up, the windows open and the sound of birds floating in is a very welcome change to the dreary, rainy days of winter. 

School Holidays: Week Two

'This past week was my second, and last week of holidays. Here's a quick recap of what we got up to in the last week.

The start of the week was truly awful weather to go camping like we had planned. It was raining and pouring pretty much until Friday. We did make use of the weather to get caught up on some things around the house, and to cook some yummy meals that take much longer than we have during the normal work week. 

I spent some time with friends, having coffee at the cutest little cafe up the street, Bolaven. We got the inspection done on the car.  I also worked on getting the Christmas shopping done as we have to mail everything by November 1st for the holiday season. I also did some course work as I am taking two classes through the university of Auckland that just started up for some professional development. Mark worked on his papers/thesis and was at the university a few days for meetings and work. Although I am on holidays, Mark is not. Mark schedule is flexible, but he still has things he has to get done. 

We celebrated my birthday, on Wednesday, by going out to dinner to a Thai place up the street, and then driving out to the country to watch the full lunar eclipse that was happening. Mark and I enjoyed the event and we both commented on how quickly the eclipse itself was to happen, and how quickly it was to fade. The moon was such an amazing red-mist colour. 

Wednesday was also a really important day as my sister had her second son, which means Mark and I now have TWO lovely nephews. 

On Friday we took the day to hike up Mount Eden, and this time we brought the camera- and remembered to charge the battery. We are going to post about Mount Eden on its own. 

Saturday afternoon we spent on the deck since it was so nice. Mark made the cutest wind chime out of shells he's collected from some of the beaches we've been too in the past year. We went to some friends for supper and cards and it was fantastic. We had a lovely finger food spread and played Wizard. We were all laughing so hard we had a hard time catching our breath, and we plan to do it all again next weekend. 

Today, Sunday, Mark is out on the boats for work and I am going to put together the final touches on my lesson for tomorrow. I need to get the homework page finished. I also wanted to catch up on these blogs, and spend some time sitting in the sun working on my latest knit project - a cute geometric baby blanket for a friend who is due in the near future. 

It is so very hard to believe that in 9.5 weeks I will be on summer holidays and we will be welcoming Mark's family to the North Island for a Christmas visit and tour around the island. 

Auckland War Museum

After bragging on facebook no less than two days in a row that I was sitting on the deck enjoying the new found warmer spring temperatures, it turned grey, dark, rainy and cold once more. After a few days of this, Mark and I decided to head off to the museum located here in Auckland. the museum itself is beautiful, and has stunning white marbles steps that lead up to it, a gorgeous bandstand and it is situated in the middle of a large intercity park.

The marble stairs lead up to the front of the building - this is the side set of stairs from the parking lot.

We spent hours there and still did not really take it all in as there was so much to look at, so much information to read and so many interactive displays. The whole first floor was dedicated to the Maori and Pacifica peoples (Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, Cook Islands).  This included artwork from each culture, fishing and hunting gear, jewelry, dress, statues and carvings used in ceremonial events, cooking and daily
household living.

 This photo is the inside of a traditional Maori meeting house being restored by the museum. 

 This is a carving that was to be situated over the door frame of a family home. 

Maori Carvings 

  A second set of Maori carvings 

 Maori jewelry carved from Jade 

A basket woven to protect the Hangi (food) which is cooking over the rocks. This is a traditional way of cooking, and very tasty. The Kapa Haka group at school cooks using this traditional method and the food is sold as a fundraiser on campus. It is always delicious - stuffing, sausage, meat(lamb or chicken), sweet potato and vegetables.

Cook Island jewelry made completely from shells - even the white and blue necklace 

The second floor was the Natural History floor - this included stuffed animals. It was interesting as there were A LOT of stuffed mammals, quite ordinary things until you realize that the only mammals on the islands are things people brought with them, and the people themselves. This makes mammals quite a rare thing to see - if you don't count the sheep and cats - so people go to the  museum and zoo to see them. It also had a walk of the dinosaurs, some sections on coastal areas, underwater areas, volcanoes and a room called "weird and wacky".

We learned that the majority of the Albatross Species breed and nest here in New Zealand. This is the largest of them. Perhaps we will be lucky enough to see one in during our time here. 

This was by far the highlight for Mark - a whole display dedicated to the different crabs in and near New Zealand. I have to admit, some of them were quite impressive! 

A stuffed Kiwi bird - we still have yet to see a live one here in New Zealand. We are always on the lookout, but I fear that they may be something that is very difficult to cross off our list of things to see and do while we are here. 

There was, as in any museum worth its salt, a dinosaur walk. Mark and I looked at each other before we went in and were conversing about how many of the displays would be from Canada - mostly Alberta is what we thought. The final count was ONE! One display form Canada, one from Chili, two from the US and four from England. Every thing else was from New Zealand itself, or Australia, and they have some remarkable skeletons. 

The natural history section also included some tanks with live animals. This is a common NZ gecko. There were also tanks with cockroaches, fish,  bugs and other lizards.

This is a model of a penguin that one was found here in New Zealand - it's pretty much the same size as me. 

The third floor was dedicated to the wars. It housed  two planes, a roll of honour for each of the wars where New Zealand fought and had casualties, a section on Samoan Independence, a section on the Holocaust and current peace keeping efforts of the Kiwis abroad. We didn't take too many photos here as some of it seemed to sad to photograph, and other bits seemed rude to photograph given the content. 

This is a map of England and it's allies shown in the crests. This was so old, that Newfoundland (the one on the most left) was it's own crest as it was not yet part of Canada. There were crests all along the bottom of the maps too.

One of the two planes, with its engine opened up so you can see what was really driving the plane.

Overall it was a fantastic way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon. We both agreed that we need to go back and spend some more time reading and viewing the pieces as there was so much.