Christmas holidays are here

The weather is getting very nice down here and Christmas decorations are going up and the parties are happening. It is customary for work to hold Christmas parties for customers and staff. John and I have been to a couple parties for vendors that we work with. My office Christmas party was last weekend at the race track. This time of year there are a number of 'race days'. Everyone gets dressed up like what you see at the Kentucky Derby with classy outfits and hats. The best dressed usually make the society page of the paper. John's Christmas party was last night. His work sponsored a harbour dinner cruise and dance. Highlight of the cruise was seeing an orca whale breach in the harbour, though we didn't get to see much of it.

Our work shuts down from Dec 24 to Jan 5. Most people will actually be off until Jan 18 but we don't have vacation to be gone that long. From Dec 24 to Jan 5 we have to take 3 days of vacation and the rest is public holidays so we still get paid. We are jumping in the car and heading south for the holidays. First stop will be National Park for the Tongariro Crossing on Christmas day. This is an all day trek that goes through volcanic areas. From National Park, we are going to Wellington and taking the interisland ferry over to the South Island. It is a 3 1/2 hour crossing in good weather. On the South Island, we are going to check out the Marlborough Sound wine region, tramp in Abel Tasman National Park, do some biking and most likely some boating as well. We are taking the tent and the bikes and planning to rough it for a couple weeks.

In other news, the All Blacks lost the final game of the season today. But, the All Whites (national soccer team) qualified for the World Cup a few weeks back, which was a unexpected accomplishment. I spent the day working on my tan at the beach and John left for Malaysa for a week for work. We also both spent a few days in Wellington for work last week. So, we are raking up the frequent flier miles.... soon to be an Air New Zealand top customer!

Favorite NZ Recipe

I have collected a few NZ recipes since moving down here. Scallops with Spaghetti and Crisp Bacon Crumbs is one of my favorite. I made this for the Iowa group when they were down last week and everyone loved it so I thought I would share. This comes from Dish magazine, which is a NZ produced cooking magazine.

Scallops with Spaghetti and Crisp Bacon Crumbs

500 gram fresh scallops
3 tbl olive oil
knob of butter
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 punnet cherry tomatoes (mix of yellow and red if available)
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2 handfuls baby spinach leaves
1 lemon

Crumbs
1 tbl olive oil
knob of butter
100 grams streaky bacon, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh white breadcrumbs
1 glove garlic, crushed
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
pinch of chili flakes
finely grated zest 1 lemon

To serve
hot, cooked spaghetti

1> Crumbs: Heat the olive oil and butter in a saute pan and cook the bacon until crisp and golden. Add the breadcrumbs, garlic, flat leaf parsley and the chili and cook, stirring constantly, until the breadcrumbs are crisp. Stir in the lemon zest and season. Set aside.

2> Scallops: Heat a saute plan with the olive oil and drop in the butter and garlic. Season the scallops and cook for 1-2 minutes each side. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and cover to keep warm.

Add the tomatoes and stock to the pan and cook over high heat until the tomatoes just start to burst. Add the spinach and a good squeeze of lemon juice and turn to wilt. Season. Add the cooked pasta, half the bacon crumbs and the scallops and gently turn to combine.

Tip into a large serving bowl and sprinkle with the remaining crumbs.

Serves 4

Vacation recovery

More vacation pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/IowaGroupVisitNov2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCIKTyOOq5dGXYA#

We had a group of 9 friends from Iowa with us for two weeks (Matt, Dorenda, Jim, Ron, Beth, Jackie, Anita, Cindy and Trish). We had great fun spending time with everyone. People came and went over the two weeks so the entire group was only together for a few days. Here are highlights from the trip:

* Jim, Ron and Beth ran the Auckland Marathon and Cindy ran the 1/4 Marathon. The spectators had a great time...... Jim, Ron and Beth said it was the hardest marathon they have done. Lesson learned- never run a marathon that doesn't provide an elevation chart.

* We rented a 'Eurotrash' people mover van to get everyone around in. We went from Auckland, north to Cape Reinga, and back down through the Kauri Forrest.

* We chartered a sailboat in the Bay of Islands for one night. We saw dolphins, seals, a whale, fish and lots of bird life. Moby was the boats mascot. Moby was a quite dog until a dolphin, fish or whale came along. He is renowned for jumping on the back of an orca whale one time and bitting his fin! We also celebrated Jackie's birthday on the boat with lots of signing and laughing to a cd of songs we made for her birthday and special lyrics Ron developed for the 'Jeremiah was a bullfrog' song. Jim also brought back a special Jackie shirt that everyone on the Greece trip will know well. And, Jackie continues to spread Joy to the world one person at a time.

* Anita's birthday was celebrated with a private vineyard tour and dinner with a 50's theme. Anita did a great rendition as Marilyn Monroe of the 'Happy Birthday to Me' song. The Pink Ladies also made a presence at the party.

*We took a bus trip to the most northern point in NZ, Cape Reinga. This is the point that the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean meet up. You can actually see a difference in each oceans color and see the turbulence where they come together. We also went 'sand dune surfing' on the 90 Mile Beach.

* We spent one night at a Top 10 Holiday Park in the Kauri Forrest area (where Matt made a great grilled dinner). We took a night nature walk and saw glow worms (Cool Tina!), a carnivore snail, and a weta. We had hoped to also see a kiwi but we were only able to hear their calls.

* We met up with Richard and Pippa from PedalTours for lunch and talked about some bike club trip options. We also had a nice afternoon with Matt, Dorenda and Anita relaxing at a couple vineyards and on a beach.

* We flew to Queenstown and got a new minivan with Jackie, Beth, Trish, Cindy and Ron. We drove south and spent a night in Milford Sound and took the morning cruise on the Sound. In the Sound we saw more dolphins, seals and also a penguin. We also did a very strenuous hike up a mountain to a beautiful lake and had a nice picnic lunch.

* A visit was paid to the Minus 5 Ice Bar where we got dressed up in snow jackets and boots and drank in the cold (could have done that in Iowa!). Afterwards, we visited the fireplace bar next door which had a music video system. Unfortunate for the bar tender, he allowed us to pick the videos for the night. And, there was a poll.........As Beth said the next morning......... "what the hell happened last night?"

* John, Beth and Trish did the Shotover Jet Boats in Queenstown, where they run you up against canyon walls at 100 miles and hour. Afterwards, we spent a relaxing afternoon at Rippon Vineyard in Wanaka sampling the local wine (the most photographed vineyard in NZ).

* Jackie, Cindy and Trish took a helicopter ride around Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers and made an ice landing. John, Trish, Cindy and Beth also did the glacier hike and Beth's "mustache man" paid a visit in Franz Josef.

* Two weeks with only a couple hours of rain!

1 year ago today....

One year ago today John and I stepped on the plane to move to New Zealand. We left Des Moines on Monday Oct 27, 2008. Some of our friends saw us off at the airport that morning (and watched us argue to get all the luggage on the plane) and from there we moved into the next phase of the journey. John and I have had many great experiences in our year down here. We have met a lot of great people, have had new experiences, made new friends and have visited a bunch of wonderful places. While we continue to miss our friends and family, we are overall glad that we made the move. It has been a good experience and one that everyone should try for at least a little while (yes, there is life outside of Iowa). Auckland is starting to feel a little bit more like home every day.

Holidays are Coming....

We have been keeping very busy the last couple weeks with work. John has been on the road a number of days to various places in New Zealand. I have also been doing some traveling for work with a new project in Hamilton. I am currently in Christchurch for a project management conference.

Holidays are coming though. This coming Monday is Labour Day here and is a public holiday. Labour Day is a good sign of summer as the ocean surf rescue patrols start this weekend.


Next Friday friends start to arrive from the US. We will be showing 9 people around the country for 2 weeks. The Auckland Marathon is Sunday Nov 1. Three friends are running the full marathon and one is doing the half. From Auckland, we will be going north to Bay of Islands, Cape Reinga, and the Kauri forest area. We will also be going to Queenstown, Milford Sound, Wanaka and Franz Joeseph glacier on the South Island.

For fun the other night we attended a wine club night. A representative from Duval-Leroy Champagne house was presenting. Four bottles of high end champagne were included in the show, whith one bottle being NZ $214 a bottle! All to pricey for our budget.....

Other big news in NZ is the exchange rate. The NZ dollar is becoming very strong and is up to US $1 = NZ $.76. The exporters are becoming concerned about the rate but the importers are loving it.

Weekend Sailing Races

John here. I thought that some of you may be interested in hearing about my sailing experience here. About every other weekend I crew for a member of the RNZAF Base Auckland Yacht Club during a race.
Stewart has a Whiting, I believe about 28'. The hull is made of Kauri (like LOTS of older sailboats here) and glassed over. Her name is Stinger.
Crew often consists of Stewart's brother in law Gary and I with Stewart at the helm. A typical race is limited to about 3.5 hours. We race rain or shine, as long as there is not a gale warning.
Start and finish is at the club. The channel is fairly narrow there and there are LOTS of moored boats, so the start is usually rather interesting. I'm glad it is not me at the helm.
After the race we her back to the marina a couple blocks from my house, then drive back to the club house to hear the results and tip a couple.

View Typical sailing race in a larger map

Samoa Tsunami

There has been a lot of news in NZ about the Samoa tsunami last week. NZ had a tsunami warning issued for a couple hours last Wednesday morning. There were a number of people waiting for a big wave to hit, but by the time it got here there wasn't anything left in the surge. NZ has a large Somoa population. A lot of people come from the Islands to find jobs in NZ. I heard somewhere there as many people in NZ from Somoa as people living in Somoa. Not sure if that is 100% accurate, but it gives you a sense of the population here. There have been many articles on people in NZ losing large portions of their families to the tsunami. The tv news also had coverage the other night on the difference in assistance between American Somoa and Western Somoa. America Somoa has the US military showing up along with ships and planes, big government funding, and everything they need to recover. Western Somoa has few resources and are relying on international aid to recover. It will be interesting to watch how this aspect plays out in world politics.

It has rained for the last 5 days here and we got a southernly winter blast. The road from Napier to Lake Taupo has been closed for two days due to a late spring snow storm. A couple hundred people got trapped on the road overnight and it has been labeled the worst storm in the area in 25 years. We actually had to start the fireplace last night for the first time in a couple months.