Weekend Update

Thought you might like to know what we have been doing for fun (besides attending classes on health care and taxes)-

Richard and Pippa - Everyone from the New Zealand bike tour probably remembers Richard. He is the owner of Pedal Tours and came down to Christchurch to kick off the ride. We met up with Richard and his wife Pippa for dinner Saturday night. You will be interested to know that Richard is developing a tour in India. Could this be the 2010 destination? We also got some good insight into bike routes around Auckland and we got 2 new Pedal Tours bike bottles!

House hunting - We are still looking at houses. We have it narrowed down to 3 options. The top option is going to auction this Saturday (see the next post down about buying a house at auction). If we don't get this house, we will probably make an offer on another one.

Cooking class- There are adult education classes offered around town- similar to what is offered in Des Moines. I signed up for a Saturday morning class called Davine Desserts. The class was more of a demo style then an interactive style like what David used to have. We made Lemon Panna Cotta, Fruit Tarts, and Tiramisu. I have to say that my Tiramisu recipe from Italian class is much better then the one we used. I also learned that I don't like Panna Cotta - it is pretty bland. I also found out there is not a good Italian market around town. Very surprising for a place of 1.5 million people. Graziono's will need to branch out to Auckland.

Farmers Market- Takapuna (which is a couple miles up the road) has a pretty good farmers market on Sunday mornings. There are plenty of fruit and vegge options as well as meat/cheese and trinkets. We rode our bikes up and checked it out.

Job hunt- John's job is going well. He is down visiting their warehouse in South Auckland today. Lisa is still looking but has a few goods leads and is hoping something starts to pan out next week.