Homemade Cupcakes and Little Lambs

The adventures continue! Yesterday, Amy and I had such a fun girls day. She took off work because she had an appt for her hand and so when she got back we began to make cupcakes- from scratch! They don’t have very many of the Betty Crocker or Duncan Hinz mixes where you add eggs and oil haha you do everything from scratch, even the icing! J so we baked out cupcakes, vanilla and chocolate. Then we were off to the grocery store! They actually have a lot of American Items, just slightly different. Like the Rice Krispies are called Rice Bubbles! HAH and the Special K with Berries had strawberries AND blackberries! SOO good! (For those of you who know me well, I was SUPER excited to find this!) We stopped at the sushi counter on our way out and Amy made me try some! I normally don’t like sushi, but I am kind of in the mindset of trying anything at the moment and so I went for it! She got some with chicken in it instead of fish and it was actually really good! Michael would be so proud J

Then we were off to Farmosa, where Brett and Amy will be getting married! She had a meeting with her wedding corrdinator and I helped her pick out her colors! They will be a charcoal gray and a kind of vibrant green. Its going to be incredible! Really funny- they will start their ceremony around 3:30, have a TWO HOUR block for pictures (sounds like my kind of wedding!) while the guests are at cocktail hour, and then the reception is from 6-midnight! They know how to party.

After Farmosa, we visited one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen (keep in mind this is literally 20 minutes from their house!) We were at Maraetai Beach. The roads leading up to it were so green and lush with rolling hills and little sheep everywhere, then the beach was in a nice cove, so cozy and calm. I was in photo heaven, snapping away. We snacked on M&M’s the whole time (yep! They do have those too!)

Then back to the house to finish decorating our cupcakes and then to watch Burlesque. Come to find out NZ doesn’t have much of their own Movie industry, they pretty much watch American films, which I thought was interesting. We enjoyed the girl time until Brett got home from work. Then we were out to the “spa” aka the hottub for more girl’s time and some wine. (Poor Brett!) First of all the stars are AMAZING out here! Amy and Brett were pointing out all these interesting constellations we can’t see from North America! Amy and I had a blast talking about all of our different travels (hers much more in quantity and level of exoticism than mine haha) and singing out favorite Disney tunes! Who would have thought little Kiwi’s were growing up watching the same Disney classics we were in the states!

After the spa, in for a quick tortellini dinner and showers to go out for “going away drinks” for one of Brett’s friends who is moving away. We went to a bar called Cock and Bull haha and had a few beers. Unfortunately they do not have ANY of the same beers as the states except for like Budweiser and Corona, neither of which I am crazy for. I had a hard time finding an amber beer I like, but the search is nowhere near over! I might stick to wine, Amy’s favorite, and it seems the favorite of many around here is Sev or (Sava un Blanc or something like that?) and it is fruity and delicious. The drinking age is 18 over here I might add, like everywhere else in the world other than America.

Amy wasn’t feeling to well so we called it a night pretty early. All was well with me because at 9pm it was a mere 5am my time, needless to say after 2 days I am not completely adjusted and I was pretty ready for bed myself.

Michael called at 3am today from Spain! From what I can tell on the world clock on my new Go-phone is that it is about 12 hours behind, which makes the time change conversion pretty simple. It was mid afternoon for him but I was happy to answer all the same. The conversation lasted about 2 minutes because it’s so dang expensive, but it was so worth just hearing his voice and knowing he is in Spain safe and sound. I know he will have a blast in Spain. Can’t wait to share stories of our adventures!

Well, Brett is at work (he works for a company called “Wettie” I think, a wetsuit company) and Amy is down at the nearby beach taking her sailing test. These people are awesome. Amy takes her students out in sailboats, how incredible is that?!

Well, I’m off to change and go to the beach to meet her! That’s all for now!

As a side note, I think I am going to start a running list of all the words that are different between their language and ours, it is a lot more than you would think!