Time in Boston

It's been a while since we have posted a blog, and for all of our avid followers we are sorry that we haven't posted sooner. The past 10 days have been extremely busy as we travelled back home to Boston. We were very busy during our time at home, but I'll provide a brief summary below. Sorry if I left out certain things as if I put everything down, this entry would be extremely long:

-Arrived home late at night and were greeted by M&D Ciaccia at the airport.
-Got our first glimpse of our nephew John Jacob who was born in January as well as our new niece Mirabella who was just born in November. We also spent a lot of time with Avery and saw Will for the first time in a year.

-Spent some time at PwC Boston speaking with colleagues about my return in May while Erin and her Mom got a massage. At night, we hung out with friends and had some drinks while the snow continued to come down hard. We hung out at JC's place which was great and got a Birthday cake for Erin and 1/2 Birthday cake for me (Thanks Tim/Jackie)
-We also got our teeth cleaned (we don't like the dentist)
-Attended Mirabella's baptism where Erin had the honor of being her Godmother. We continued to battle the snow and partied to celebrate her baptism

-Spent a couple days up in Old Orchard Beach with Erin's Mom, grandmother, sister Julia (boyfriend Mike), and dog Bosley. While there, we did some shopping, lots of eating, and more.
-Hung out in LAX with Erin's Dad and Grandmother who flew down from Northern California to visit with us during our layover.

We wanted to express a special thanks to M&D Ciaccia who allowed us to use their car the whole time we were home, gave us a place to stay, and picked us up and dropped us off at the airport. Also to Erin's Mom (Peggy) who took us in for 2 nights as well.

We're off to travel the south island for the next 10 days with Tim and Jackie who are flying in tomorrow from the US. Stay tuned for updates from those travels as I'm sure we will have some great stories about the adventures that we encounter.

Kiwi 12 Days of Christmas

I realise that here in NZ there are only 8 days until Christmas, but figured that people around the world would like to see the words for the Kiwi 12 Days of Christmas. If you know what all of those things are then you are a TRUE KIWI.

On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
Twelve piupius swinging
Eleven haka lessons
Ten juicy fish heads
Nine sacks of pipis
Eight plants of puha
Seven eels a swimming
Six pois a twirling
Five - big - fat - pigs !
Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumera
And a pukeko in a ponga tree.

Rangitoto

After 2 previous attempts to do our kayak trip to Rangitoto, we were finally blessed with a sun filled sky and very little wind. Rangitoto is an island in Auckland Harbour which was formed 600 years ago through volcanic eruption. Our trip started at 10am in the morning with a safety briefing about the double kayaks that we were able to cross the 5km harbour in. Stephen and Deon (from the US) joined us for the trip as well as about 8 other people and 3 guides. The trip over was about an hour of kayaking, then an hour hike to the top of the island (then 45 mins down), and a little over 1 hour kayaking back. The sun was shinning the whole time which was great.

Yes I'm very sweaty

Click on it to make it bigger and you can see the cityWe practiced our kayaking skills for the 3 days/2 night trip that we will do when Jackie and Tim visit us the end of this month down in Abel Tasman (north part of the south island).

After the kayaking, the 4 of us stopped in Mission Bay and had some fish and chips!

On Sunday, Erin and I did a lot of shopping for Christmas presents. We felt as though we had been doing a lot of shopping over the past weeks, but we spent about 3-4 hours out and about getting stuff today.

Only a few days left until we head back to the cold/snowy Northeast.

Promotion

We have received some good news from Erin's work. She's worked very hard in her new role in establishing the Hudson Career Center here in New Zealand and has been rewarded with a much deserved promotion to Consultant. I spoke with her boss at her work party on Friday and she commented how well deserved this promotion was.


Great job Erin!!!


As a nice husband (I need a little credit) I bought her a very nice arrangement of flowers in celebration. As you can see a wonderfully crafted home-made congratulations card went along with the arrangement.

Kylie Minogue

Last week when one of the partners offered me 4 tickets to see Kylie Minogue at Vector Arena here in Auckland, I wasn't sure how I would like the concert even if I would like it at all. Leading up to today, every person I tell that I'm going to the concert tonight has been very excited and said how she will put on a great show, and the costumes will be spectacular.

Tonight, Erin and I along with one of my clients and his wife headed to the concert and it was GREAT! Our seats were very good and had a nice view of the stage and the performance. There was a lot of dancing, very cool costumes, and of course many different songs that I know. We bought one of her CD's on iTunes yesterday to ensure that we would know here songs and there are a lot from a while back and even more recent ones that are very popular and you would know the songs.

Overall a very fun night.

Spraying confetti over the crowd

James and his wife Caroline

Us enjoying the concert

Party, Soccer, American Footbal, and SUN

We've had a very busy weekend here and we have been very blessed with wonderful sunny days.

On Friday, Erin's Christmas Party (We don't call them Holiday parties here, because people think that we are going on "vacation" or a holiday and wonder where we are going) for Hudson took place at a restaurant called Toto. The whole downstairs was rented out where we had food, drink, and a live band. It was a lot of fun and we did a little bit of dancing on the floor as well.

On Saturday, we walked around the city and did some Christmas shopping. At night, we met up with one of my clients and his wife (James & Caroline) and headed to Mt. Smart Stadium where the LA Galaxy played the Oceania All-Stars. There's been a lot of hype with David Beckham being in town and it was good to see him play. On Friday he did the jump off of the SKY Tower which if you remember I did about a year ago. Here are a few photos from the game:




On Sunday, I ended up playing some American Football with a bunch of people from work. There were about 10 of us that played (3 people from the US), and it was a lot of fun. We then had a BBQ and ate Burgers, Hog Dogs, Sausages, and drank Budweiser!

Not much time left here before we head back to the US for some Christmas celebrations.

Another new picture

We decided to print one of Jeremy's amazing photos onto a large canvas as a way to remember our time here in New Zealand. The photo we chose was from our trip to Queenstown this past July. The print arrived today and we are very pleased with the outcome! It doesn't look very good in the photo, but we wanted to share it anyways - in real life it looks great - you'll just have to visit us in Boston to find out!

Don Quixote

Tonight we joined our Culture Vulture friends for a night out. We started the evening with a delicious dinner at Tanuki's, a Japanese restaurant in town. Some of the group shared a massive 2 litre beer. We then feasted on some ice cream before heading to the theatre to see Don Quixote, the ballet. We had a little mishap during intermission - Jeremy stepped outside for some fresh air and got locked out. The ushers couldn't even figure out how to open the door to let him him. Fortunately, he made it back for the rest of the show (after walking around the whole building). The guys in our group weren't sure how much they were going to enjoy a ballet, but we all thought the performance was outstanding and would highly recommend it!

We also learned a new word/phrase today. The word is bags. It's used when someone wants to call something such as the last cookie, or a special seat in a living room. Someone would say "Bags it" or "Bagsy". Not sure if we'll start saying it, but time will tell. In the definition on Wikipedia it says that it's commonly used in the US but not from what I've heard.