Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Well, this is my first time away from home at Thanksgiving and I am so sad to be missing out on all the family, fun and festivities. (and not to mention all of Betty's pilgrim and turkey decor). Thanksgiving is always one of my favorites... So, I was not about to let New Zealand get in the way!!!

Last Sunday, we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at Aaron's brother's (Damon) house and invited the whole Cooper clan. Now, the most spectacular thing about the whole idea was not that we were having Thanksgiving in NZ, but that I, yes me, would be cooking. And anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a horrible cook. But their family put their faith into me and prayed that it would turn out okay. Which, I would like to add, it did.

Aaron and Damon were in charge of the hot ham (which is something never cooked here - they only eat ham cold, weird...). Chanel made a yummy potato salad, Ainslie - his mom - made broccoli and asparagus with fattening cheese sauce, his sister made a wonderful pumpkin pie and then I made Deviled Eggs, Dressing, Cranberry Sauce and Corn Casserole.

The dinner was a HIT! What fun to host thanksgiving and what fun it was to cook. And I didn't kill anyone with my cooking! YET!

MoVember

Lord help us all! Aaron and the other 2 million men in New Zealand all have mustaches. No no no, the ship carrying razors wasn't hijacked by somalian pirates... it is MoVember, Prostate Cancer Awareness month. Aaron's grandpa passed away of Prostate Cancer last month and Aaron and Damon are taking part (as they do every year) of MoVember, but this year has an extra special meaning for them.

At the end of the month, the boys find people to "sponsor" them to shave off the Mo. That money is then donated to a Prostate Cancer Research Non-Profit.

So, although my boyfriend looks like a dirty, shady man... in support of Beau Heather (Pop), I will tell Aaron and all the other boys that I love their mustaches.

Whoop and Gig 'Em

I thought this was a great picture of Aaron supporting the good ol' Ags all the way in New Zealand. This was taken on Oct 31st in the Dunedin Harbour. We spent the day drinking beer in the harbour with a couple of friends.  WHOOOP!

A Camping We Will Go....

It was a long weekend for Labor Day, so Aaron and I decided to go a camp'n on Saturday night. We packed up the tent, our sleeping bags, the gas griller, and headed south to the Catlains. We decided to go to Purakaunui Bay - a beautiful campground sitting on the edge of the beach. 

Aaron and I were looking forward to our night away from town, away from cellphone coverage and time walking around the beach and playing cards. 

We get to Purakaunui Bay and the camp ground is packed. Not like us American's would say packed, but as an island of only 1 million people would say packed. There were probably 20 tents.

We set up our tent, cooked some dinner and decided to walk along the beach. About 100 yards away from our tent was a big group of surfer dudes hanging out by a big bonfire. Of COURSE Aaron ended up knowing them.  Aaron stopped by and to say Hi and I went back to the tent and read for a bit. Aaron comes back in half an hour and tells me that we are invited to go over there.  I knew right then that my romantic weekend away where my boyfriend has nothing else to do but to spend time with me was never going to happen. Ha!

We headed for the bonfire with our nice Amisfield Pinot and hung around for a couple of hours, but snuck away early around 10:30.  

The next morning we woke up fresh, made egg sandwiches and packed up the tent and headed back to Dunedin. 

I think I just might be a camping girl... but damn it, I want to play cards and hang out with JUST my boyfriend next time!  :)

Urban Living

So the big thing to do over here is have a veggie garden. Everyone has a veg garden and everyone talks about how their garden is doing. You ask someone what they plan to do this weekend and never fail the answer is, "work on my veg garden." Usually followed with, "Whew, it is over grown with weeds." or "It has been so neglected." Nobody ever says their garden looks good, when everyone knows it probably is perfect. 

So, Aaron and I felt really left out of the whole veggie patch thing and since we live in a crap apartment downtown, we had to get creative. The middle of September when we thought spring was about to peak thru, we decided to make our own (pathetic) veggie garden. We took Aaron's fish bins from work - used to carry nasty dead fish around - and planted tomato and lettuce plants. Not long after the planting a big freeze of like 2 weeks completely killed our tomato plants, but I have to say the lettuce love urban living. (Notice how I am too lazy to pull out the dead tomato plants.)

Kiwi pride

Last night Aaron and I rented Wolverine which was filmed here in Dunedin and around Queenstown.  Aaron - who hates sci-fi - was unusually alert in this movie. The whole way thru the movie, he would say. "Brookie, those are the mountains behind Stacy's house." "Brookie, Ken worked as security on this set." " Brookily, that is right by 3 mile hill." "That's Queenstown." "That's Dunedin." All this while bouncing up and down on the couch. 

You have to say one thing about those Kiwi. They love their country and love it when it gets a bit of an International "shout-out",

Wanaka the Wonderful

Aaron and I spent the weekend away with our friends Sam & Becs and headed to Wanaka. The son of the preacher who married Chris & Haley (where/when Aaron and I met) is living in Wanaka and we have become friends while living in New Zealand. Steven works at one of the best wineries in Central Otago so he promised to take us around, show us the town and give us a tour of the Rippon Vineyard.

Wanaka is a beautiful, sleepy (but not too sleepy) town 3.5 hours inland from Dunedin. Beautiful mountains and clear lakes... it is not a bad place to call home.

We started early on Saturday morning with a couple of beers outside and people watched - Wanaka Spring Festival was going on... but it wasn't really "going on" if you know what I mean. After watching crazy kids in crazy costumes volunteer to jump into Lake Wanaka as part of the Spring Fest (Pole Jumping), we headed out to Steven's office - Rippon Winery.

The winery is breath-taking. Beautiful. Unbelieveable. The vines cover a large area of rolling hills overlooking Lake Wanaka with the backdrop of snowy mountains. Simply amazing.

Steven gave us a short tour of the winery and shared his newly acquired knowledge about the business of wine-making. He's been working at Rippon for 7 or so months, but with his enthusiasm and love of the work, he sounds as if he's been working there forever.

After the tour, we sat down for a nice wine-tasting of about 7 different wines. An hour later and feeling quite nice, we decided to buy a bottle and sit up on the hill and just enjoy life. And that we did. What a treasure of a spot. What an amazing opportunity. What good friends.

We had a wonderful weekend in Wanaka with fun bars, great food, and beautiful scenery, but by far the highlight of our weekend was the 4 hours we spent in a nearly deserted winery with great company and a not-too-shabby bottle of wine.

If you are interested, check out the website for Rippon... http://www.rippon.co.nz/index.cfm/HOME