Tawnya's NZ Birthday

All I have to say is that it is 22 degrees and sunny on Christmas eve, my birthday!!! I am so confused. First summer birthday for me ever!! Really cool but I have to really concentrate to believe its christmas time and have the christmas CD blasting to help. Other weird and confusing things include Jodi cooking breakfast today, getting a book called "What is your poo telling you," and the fact that we are having Christmas "lunch" tomorrow. We really miss our family and friends but are glad to have people here to spend our holiday time with. Also I get to go out to a New Zealand country pub tonight that is actually open until midnight on xmas eve, and watch a band, and I have also been promised a rendition of "Gloria" substituted with "Tawnya" will be sang to me by a Kiwi named "Nuns." What more could a girl ask for on her 27th birthday!? Pictures that follow are of the sunny view off our balcony taken today. You have to see it to believe it. Hope you are all keeping warm. Happy holidays everyone!!

Christmas around New Zealand

At the mall and the creepy santa on Queen St...


Decorating our tree and stockings, big thanks to Joanne and Melissa!!












NZ's christmas tree, the pohutakawa

Karen and Jenn Arrive

Random pics of the first week with Jennie and Kiwi!!(and the first night in our new place, thanks for helping us move Jenn!)

Karen arrived November 30 and Jenn on December 2

Grey Lynn Festival

So here's some pics of a flat warming party at a girl from work's place November 17. There was a festival on the same day in the park behind her house. Good times.



The girl in the hat is Georgie who we work with and are gonna be with on new years


Her boyfriend lived in Canada for a year so our flag was hanging proudly, and the guy in the other picture is Jesus. Really that was his name.






Drunken boys doing the haka

We Have Car!!

Okay so wrote this post a long time ago but never published as we had no pics, so for all you who are dieing to check out our new ride, here it is...

For all you Steve Martin fans out there... WE HAVE CAR!!

That's right, we have been busy looking at Japanese imports and finally decided on one thursday. This is the big thing here, people import used cars with low kms and then fix them up and sell them. So we hope ours was fixed up properly and as we have been told. We did our research and think we got a pretty good deal. Should do the trick for the rest of our travels, as long as it lasts through so we can sell it. Actually, the road rules over here are quite strict, as every car has to have a warrant of fitness (like an inspection) and pass every 6 months. Our little has just that, and the guy did a few extras too. Although they are strict with that, insurance is not mandatory, go figure.

It is a 1998 Toyota Starlet Reflet F limited edition. Man! And just think, we had to translate all that from Japanese!! Just kidding but the car manual is Japanese and there are random stickers and things in/on the car written in Japanese. Pretty funny.

Here she be!!!

A day in the life of...

Since we havn't done anything too exciting lately, and are kinda just living day to day life here (working all the time, blah), thought y'all might enjoy a little piece of that. Basically there aren't really any other pictures to post, and we have to keep you coming back for something! It kinda looks like an ad to rent our apartment. Anytakers? So here it all is, laugh if you must...


The Flag



The Uniforms



The Tag



The Hospital
(3 buildings at the top of the photo)



The Hospital Sign




The Inside Hospital Sign



The Flat