Land of the long white cloud....

Well, winter has arrived. The papers say it has even arrived early. It has been raining for a good week now and has been in the 40's all week. We have been starting a fire every night and getting out the winter clothes. We have also been experiencing a lot of squalls. Around here, a squall is a brief, isolated, heavy rain. Often, it will be raining in a small spot and the sun is out as well. There have been a few times where the sun is blinding you when you are driving but you are still running the windshield wipers. I have seen more rainbows in the last couple weeks then I have seen in my life. There has also been a lot of hail. One beach town a couple hours from here got a couple inches of hail..... it looked liked it had snowed.

Since it has gotten cold and rainy we have been spending our free time working on the house. We painted the family room over the weekend. We are slowly ticking off getting the rooms painted and getting closer to the big projects. We need to totally gut our bathroom and redo all the floors. I have John talked into buying a tv as well.

On Sunday, we went a play at the Auckland Theater called "She Stoops to Conquer". The play was originally written in the late 1700's by William Goldsmith but was updated to 1950's. It was kind of a Shakespearean comedy. It was well done and would be perfect for the Stoner Theater in DSM (better then a couple that we have seen there!).

I also won tickets to see the NZ premier of Angels and Demons with Tom Hanks. The local newspaper ran a contest and my name was drawn. We see the premier tomorrow night. I will have to post a review!