What has everyone done today?

We have been out at Levels today, watching the Trucks, the V8 Utes, and some sidecar bikes too. J came with us, and he was SO good - he actually spent most of the time out there truly watching what was happening. Put the other kids out there to shame - they fought and argued with each other the whole time they were there, and some of them were only there an hour, we were there for 5 hours in total! Makes us realise what a good boy we really have. Is nice to be reminded about that every now and again! Here are some pics from today's action...





This was J's favourite truck out on the track... we got to see them twice today, once for qualifying, and then again for their first race at the end of the day.





Here's J taking in the action....



Believe it or not, Temuera Morrison is drving this one! In this class the drivers all have nicknames on their utes, his (of course) is THE MUSS... Ha ha ha!



This is how NOT to drive your ute.... you don't generally see two vehicles mid-race facing each other on the track!!!!










And here's the safety truck leading the Super Trucks around the track for the rolling start in their first race....




....and the Trucks getting the green light to commence racing after the Safety Truck pulls off the track




And two of my favourites, Troy Wheeler and Malcolm Little hard at it coming into Castol corner - these guys have been doing this for as long as I can remember. Good crowd-pleasing entertainment! :)

More of the same in store tomorrow, except J is going to hang out at Nana and Grandad's place just down the road from the track. He hasn't been there on his own for a while, so he probably needs some Caithness grandparent time. I plan to enjoy just hanging out at the track and taking more photos.... it's back into studying again from tomorrow night.

I figure if I dedicate enough time during the week to studying, I can have the weekends off for the most part. So this week, the study plan falls into place - two nights a week at the library, one or two lunch hours at work studying, and maybe an hour or two at night at home too if required. That should hopefully cover it.... Here's hoping so anyways. Two assessments went in this week for marking, so it will be good to get feedback about how I am doing - it's hard to know what they expect in the way of answers etc until we get some feedback either way. I only hope the feedback is GOOD feedback, not BAD!!!!

Anyhoo, it's time I dragged this butt off to bed, it's now half eleven (although with daylight savings ending tonight I suppose it's really only half ten?). I have a couple of emails to send, then I'm outta here...

If anyone is out at the track tomorrow, look me up - we're in the Talbot Forest Cheese trailer in the middle of Castrol.

Toodles, B x

Buzzy Boy!

Here's a shot of our beautiful Buzzy Boy! We thought we had lost him when we came back from the Sounds... Mum had been feeding him, but he hadn't been seen for a day and a bit by the time we came home. We called and called and called and called, but he just didn't come home. Finally on Monday just before 7am he came in, covered in dirt. I think he must have been shut in someone's garage or basement or something... Anyway, the good news is he came home, phew!

It's been a while since we took pics of him, he has started to turn into a lovely cuddly cat, instead of the naughty little kitten he was :) About time!

Here you go... Photos aplenty!!!!

So, I spose you want to hear all about our trip to the Marlborough Sounds for Mary's wedding? Well, we needed to be in Picton by about midday on the Thursday, which meant up at 4am, and on the road by 4.45am - which tbh is BL**DY early! NOT GREAT! We made it to Picton in good time after only a couple of coffee stops at Rolleston and Kekerengu, although it is still about 6 hours driving to get there - a long way!

Anyways, we got to Picton and headed to the Campbell house. After a quick lunch, we dropped our baggage at the waterfront, then left our ute at Helen & Jim's and walked back to the waterfront to board the ferry to Furneaux. Because it was only wedding guests on that particular trip, they put wedding ribbons on the boat (see below) which was VERY cool!

Boat to Furneaux adorned with wedding ribbons.

D on the ride in...

Looking back towards Picton as we get nearer to Furneaux.

Arriving at Furneaux (we even had a greeting party, including the groom, Tony!)

Chalet #7 - our homebase for the next two nights (and apparently home to some sort of loud snoring animal?! - more about that shortly, ha ha ha!!!)

Looking across to the Furneaux Homestead and the Wedding Marquee from our Chalet

Some of the guests arrived from Queenstown by helicopter (Mary's brother James and his family). Talk about a grand entrance!!!

We arrived and found out where we were meant to be staying, ditched our luggage and met our new roomies - Tudor from Wales and Deb and Anne from York - all extremely hard case people! We had a bit of time to get to know our roomies and chill for a bit before the buffet barbecue for dinner. Dinner was beautiful, was followed by a really cool DVD (put together by Shane) of Mary and Tony each growing up and then meeting each other etc - like a 'story so far' kind of movie - it was awesome. After that we had a couple drinks, then headed to bed because we were pretty tired from our early start! And about that snoring beast in our chalet.... that was TUDOR!!!! Man that guy can SNORE! UNBELIEVABLE!!!! The next morning we didn't wake until about half nine, and read for a bit until we hauled our arses out of bed at about half ten to shower and have brekkie. We walked a little bit of the Queen Charlotte Track for an hour or so, and I took some artsy photos along the way... check it out!

When we got back from our walk, we did a bit more 'recon' around the Furneaux Lodge grounds...

Looking from the Lodge down to the waterfront - the site for the wedding later that day.

From the waters edge looking back up the path to Furneaux Lodge

Then it was time to have lunch and get all fancied up for the wedding - but the weather was getting dodgier by the minute..... By the time we were all ready to go to the bar and await the arrival of the bride, it was heavily drizzling, and the chairs had been brought in from outside. Talk about crap luck, it had been beautiful the day before.

The Chalet #7 'Roomies' - Anne, Tudor, Deb, D and me

The official 'I Do' part...

The smoochy part!

The part where Mary has rose petals stuck down the front of her dress?! Ha ha ha

Mary and D

Me, Mary and D (Oh and that's John in the background - nice smile!)

The happy couple with her parents Helen and Jim

Mary with her siblings - Heather, Fiona, Mary and James

Clan Campbell! Heather, Elizabeth, John, Shane, Fiona, Helen, Mary, Tony, Jim, Lynne, Duncan and James.

Men in skirts - need I say more?! Ha ha ha! Just kidding - don't they look great? And I can confirm that at least ONE of them was not wearing anything under his kilt!

The Thirty-Somethings

Not often we get all gussied up - so here's the money shot!

John blowing some of the wedding bubbles (meanwhile the rest of us were enjoying the REAL bubbles, by the bottleful!)

Anne proudly displaying her glass (we called it a bucket) of red...

Her bucket after we had finished with it. I don't think she actually managed to drink it all though - that would have taken SOME doing!

Us Roomies sharing a private joke - poor Tudor had no idea he was being set up for this one! That'll teach him for snoring like a trooper!

Louise, Anne, me and Deb

The wedding rocked - the ceremony (although unfortunately inside) was lovely. The weather then cleared in time for them to have their photos taken outdoors, which was lucky.

We hung out for a bit outdoors enjoying the Deutz bubbles which were flowing aplenty, then retired to the marquee for a sumptuous dinner - antipasto platters, aoraki salmon, venison and lamb casserole and fillet of beef as well as veges etc. Dessert was chocolate covered profiteroles, fresh fruit and wedding cake (both chocolate and fruitcake).

Our table was a laugh - our roomies Deb and Anne, John (Scottish) and his wife Louise (Irish) and another couple from Auckland, Sheridan and Vince. It was one of those very cool weddings where EVERYONE got up and boogied to the band (Good band too - The Noodles from Wellington).

I think we turned in about half past midnight, we kind of had to cos my feet were about to fall off! Next morning there was a buffet brunch in the marquee - cereal, fruit, croissants, bacon, eggs, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, fruit pastries and coffee to choose from - YUMMO! We hung out in the bar again, and exchanged email addys with some new friends, until it was time to catch the ferry back to Picton.

Once we were back to Picton, we said our goodbyes to Deb and Anne, and John and Louise, and headed off outta town....

First stop, Blenheim. Since we love Allan Scott wines so much, we thought we'd better drop into their vineyard. Talk about an awesome place....

After a bit of wine tasting, we bought a couple of wines, and hit the road again. Just before we got to Kaikoura, we came across the Fur Seal colony. I just had to take some pictures to show J, there were even baby seals playing in little pools in the rocks... too cute!

When we got into Kaikoura, we stopped off for a Hot Chocolate at this cool place called Sonic...

On the way to Amberley, there was an really awesome sunset too...

We rocked into Amberley at about half eight on Saturday night, a little shattered from the drive. The place we were booked into was cool... it has only been open 5 months, so everything is very clean and new. We asked the owner about where to get a feed, and she sent us to Brew Moon, a gourmet brewery on the edge of town.

Teviot View Apartments, Amberley

Brew Moon, where we had a gourmet pizza for dinner the night before.

The next morning, we headed into the Waipara Valley to grab some breakfast. We decided to check out the Mud House Winery and Cafe, and had a hot chocolate and a muffin each for brekkie :)

The Mud House Winery and Cafe

The awards on the wall in the foyer - very impressive!

After checking out the Vineyard, we hit the road home - stopped off in Christchurch at the Riccarton Mall for some lunch, then off again to get home! We arrived at home about 3pm, absolutely shattered. Jake was very pleased to see us home again, and it was nice to hear that he had been really good for Ma and Pa while we were away. He is a good boy really!

Oh well, that's the official commentary on our trip to the Sounds, and that's about it from me for now. Toodles peoples, B x