Anniversarys

Kit and I celebrated our three year wedding anniversary on October 13th. We were planning on renting a cabin or bach for a night, but decided to take a day trip instead. We drove about 30 miles north to a town called Karitane. Karitane is a coastal town with great views and beautiful cliffs. Along the way we also stopped at some of the other beaches we have heard about. The weather was very crazy that day. When we left Dunedin we almost put shorts on, (which in Dunedin means it was probably around 65, which is a warm day), however we decided maybe it was a little chilly for shorts. We grabbed jackets since we didn't know what the weather would be like there or for how long we would stay. We were so happy to have those jackets about 10 miles from Dunedin. A huge cloud bank was hanging over some of the beaches were were visiting and it got cold. By the time we made our way to Karitane, it was still cloudy so we decided to have our picnic in the car. It was a beautiful place, on a cliff over looking the ocean.  The sun came out and we enjoyed exploring the town of Karitane.

We drove back to Dunedin and went out for a nice dinner at a lovely Indian place. We talked about how three years ago we never thought we would be celebrating our anniversary in New Zealand. We also had another anniversary to celebrate which was being here for one year! Amazing One year.  We are so thankful for our adventures here in New Zealand and the friends we have made. We have had an amazing year here and we will be sad to leave. It seems crazy to think in March we will be moving to another country and starting another adventure in England.  New Zealand will always hold a special place in our hearts and we hope that some day we will be able to come back and visit the places we never got too.

Doctor's point

Great cave

 So many daffodils.

Enjoying our picnic lunch. Yummy bread, cheese, avocado, tuna, olives and wine

 Our view from the car

Karitane use to be a whaling village.

baby geese

beautiful beaches

Searching for shells that didn't have a inhabitant in them

there use to be a maori village in Karitane, now it is just a hike with signs to tell there story

Our hike

Kit pondering life

me dancing

I had to put some flowers in my hair

the lovely yellow gorse on our drive home. 

Thank you again New Zealand for showing us new amazing places to explore everyday.

Mothra Film Festival

Our friends Kate and Justin are great film makers. They have made many films together and separate. They actually met at a film week in Montreal. So when they decided to make a film for the Mothra Film Festival here in Duendin and needed an actor, Kit and I jumped at the idea. Kit was the actor for the film, there was no talking, but he still did a great job. I was the grip or helper, doing odd errands, hanging out, bring Kit his coat between takes. We spent about 5-6 hours filming the movie and then Justin spent around a week editing it. He did a great job and it was amazing to see how 5 hours of filming can be put together in a 4 minute movie. The day we filmed was probably the most windy day we have had in Dunedin and we decided to film most of the movie on top of the biggest hill in Dunedin Mt. Cargill. It was very windy, but that really added to the ambiance of the film. On our drive down Mt. Cargill, we saw huge tree branches down and small trees that had been blown over by the wind. We knew it was bad, but not that bad. We still had a great time filming and I know Kit would love to be in film again.

Kate and Justin entered the film, Departure, into the Mothra Film Festival and it was nominated for 3 awards: Best New Comer, Best Art House and Best Special Effects. We went to the award ceremony, which was Hollywood themed, and had a blast. They also won, two out of the three awards! Best New Comer and Best Art House. The whole ceremony was like a smaller version of the Oscars. They had presenters, showed clips of each film that was nominated and the winners gave thank you speeches. We also had dinner with champagne, and wine.
It was a wonderful experience and we hope that one day we will get to be apart of a film again.

Kate and I

Kate with her two awards

Director and actor. (for some reason we have no pictures of Justin that night)

The wonders of Cheese

A couple of weekends ago, we went to a cheese making course with some of our friends. We learned how to make a Farmhouse, blue, feta and ricotta cheese.  We learned a lot about making cheeses and had a good time. It is actually quite easy to make. All you need is some milk (high quality milk) and some rennet, and of course some time and patience. The whole process of actually making the cheese is around four hours, then you need to let it sit and drain for at least a couple of hours if not over night and then you age your cheese. Depending on the cheese aging can talk anywhere from 5 weeks to 8 months or longer. Of course there is more that goes into than what I explained, but that's the basics of it.  We didn't actually get to make any of our own cheeses that day, but we helped out our teacher making hers.

Cheese curds

Justin and Kate enjoying the lesson

Me looking at more cheese recipes. yummy

 Burt always has a great time!

A Farm house getting ready to age

The draining off the whey

Farmhouse

Feta

Ricotta, which you should always make when making cheese because you get to use all of the extra whey. otherwise it is just going to waste. And who doesn't love a ricotta cheese??

 Hopefully we will make some cheese in the near future! Mozzarella is suppose to only take around 1 hour for everything- yummy!

The 1930's hit 2010

For my 30th birthday, I decided I wanted to have a 1930's party. Everyone got dressed up to the nines, looking like the cat's pajamas! Besides knowing what the theme was and my outfit, the rest was a surprise to me. Kit did a great job finding a venue for the party and organizing the whole thing. We took a taxi to the bar that he had rented out and I had my eyes closed the whole time. It ended up being a this great bar that Kit and I happened to walk by and check out in December. The places is called "The Cellars", which is fitting since our favorite bar in Carbondale was the The Cellar. Everyone hid and jumped out and yelled surprise to me, which I wasn't expecting at all! Kit and some friends had decorated the places with balloons, stars, streamers and it look fantastic! There was in a photo booth room with mustaches, beards and masks for people to wear. We had a such an amazing time and I was so thankful to all of my friends that braved the rain, snow, sleet to come out that night. I want to thank my wonderful husband, who made my 30th birthday perfect! You are a rockstar and I love you!!!

Friends hiding, waiting for me to come in.

 The star couple. We looked fab!

 

 A birthday isn't complete with out candles and a cake (or cupcakes)

 

 Photo booth time-

 Great friends!

 The gang! Thanks again everyone :)

 One of my surprises was a dance that some of my friends did for me. A mixture of "The Haka" a traditional maori dance and some new moves! Cheers to Justin for choreographing the dance and teaching it!

 Girl Time

 Kit loves to dance and he looked great!

 All of us dancing the night away!

 Thanks again Kit, it was the best birthday!!!