Wellington Adventure! || Part 1

Last month I spent a few days in Wellington visiting Nana while Uncle Bill and Aunty Melissa were away for a few days. Nana lives with them now, so I got to stay in their {flash} house! (Thanks for having me!!) Check out my room:

Aren't those curtains amazing? :D

I flew down late-afternoon Friday (hooray for an amazingly smooth flight and landing!), and Uncle Marty and Aunty Denise picked me up (thank you!). They stayed to have McDonald's with us left some wonderful donuts (anyone know of a Donut King in Auckland? :) )

On Saturday Uncle Marty, Aunty Denise and her sister, and Kurt (my cousin) dropped in for a while, followed by a visit later in the afternoon from one of Nana's cousins. Basically we had an easy day, and wrapped up the day with Ever After. :)

I got a ride to church on Sunday, and the new experience of staying at the church between services! Thankfully the time didn't drag, and soon I was back at Uncle Bill and Aunty Melissa's. Uncle Marty picked us up for dinner at his and Aunty Denise's place (a curry - yum!) and thus my second full-day in Wellington passed quickly.

Sorry about the quality,
I took this on Mum's phone.

On Monday Nana and I got the house in order, and soon Uncle Bill and Aunty Melissa arrived home. Loads of washing resulted from their trip, and I was at the washing line when the rumbling started. Yep, my first time feeling an earthquake. Where we live here in Auckland, the ground shakes slightly when trucks or trains pass us, so initially I thought a truck must be going passed. Only it carried on for longer than normal, and, well, the shed doesn't tend to rock back and forth! No damage to speak of where we were, only a few small things got knocked (er, rocked?) over. Not quite sure how the photo frames in the above pictures didn't fall down though! The 6.2-magnitude quake centred 10km north of Castlepoint, Wairarapa. I'm told we felt it much more strongly than most that hit down there, so it's surprising that we didn't feel any after-shocks!

After picking up Jesse from the kennels and having dinner, Uncle Bill pulled out a couple of his guitars for a jam session. (Why can't I play from memory yet?!) Afterwards we all watched Mt. Zion (That's an NZ movie, has anyone else seen it?).

Eltham - Day 3 - Sunday December 25th

Written December 27th

Uncle Bill's present (from Uncle Mike).
Just as well he loves looking at
Uncle Mike every hour of the day...hehe!

On Sunday morning, I slept in (and yay I wasn’t the only one! lol), missed breakfast (oops..), then grabbed my gifts and camera as it had been decided to do give the Jago presents. I received $10 from Nana (yay I can go shopping now! Lol), a Pandora bracelet (I think that’s what it’s called?) from Uncle Mike and Aunty Sonia, and Uncle Marty and Aunty Denise, and Uncle Bill and Aunty Melissa did family presents. Uncle Marty and Aunty Denise gave us a portable dvd player, and Uncle Bill and Aunty Melissa gave us a chocolate fondue fountain (let’s have another Bible Study breakup shall we?! Lol!), a tub of chalk, and a ‘boyfriend.’ Explanation: ‘Boyfriend’ is the Tupperware© term for a small square piece of rubber, used to open jars and things. =)

Mum thought that would be a good time to listen to a sermon, so we went back to our room, sang, prayed, and played the CD containing the sermon. We didn’t get to finish it though, I think the CD must have been scratched as it stopped before it finished.

Pork, anyone?

Dad then came and announced that the spit was taking longer than had been expected, and the pig wouldn’t be ready for a while longer, so all were having filled rolls to tide them through until lunch was ready, and we should come down and have some too. Kaiser rolls are SO much nicer than the Tom Thumbs we always buy in Auckland! Thanks Uncle Mike and Aunty Sonia =)


I helped prepare some of the desserts before lunch was ready. We then consumed a LOT of food! =) Namely, ham, chicken, multiple salads (thanks Aunty Denise!), breads, and stuffing. Out of the 35 people in attendance, there were comparatively few hands which had not entered the stuffing during the long preparation!




The designated group-meals table



After a very filling lunch, some of the others went down to the creak, and, yes, they came back soaked! I prefer something not quite so wet, however, and I sat down to read a bit more in Ruth: Her story for today by Keith M Watkins, which was a gift to me from our minister, Mr Smith (Officially: Rev. Jett Smith).

Finally everyone was ready for dessert, so we consumed a lot more food, yet, in proportion to the total amount, it really wasn’t that much! After the dishes and stuff were done we just sat around talking.