Christmas!!!

Old huge creepy Santa in the city center......it winks and his finger moves!
Christmas Tree I bought and decorated for the apt....with the ornament that Spesh got me underneath!

My favorite street in the city......Vulcan Lane

Fruit Mince Pies that Kelly and Bradshaw made for dessert.....so good!

Really dark Christmas eve photo

Aaron loving his Santa Sack!

Toasting some bubbly!
Jimbo showing off the fruit platter
Christmas Roo!

Kellie showing the Kiwi Santa ornaments that the family got for us
Aaron ready to pass out the pressies

Sunset from our apartment

Rangitoto

View of Auckland from the top!
The foothills of the volcano

A random guy on the trail sporting PURDUE!
A picture of inside a lava cave that I walked through.....darker than this because the flash was on when I took it ........SCARY

Hello all.... It's been awhile since I last posted! Since Thanksgiving we have had some visitors, celebrated Christmas, rang in the new year, and I also got to see the pretty side of Auckland! Kellie and I had a two friends from camp visit. Homer, from California, is doing an around the world tour and his first stop was Auckland. It was great seeing him! He did some touristy stuff here and then traveled around the south island before heading to Australia. We also got a visit from our Auckland native friend..Maca! She's from Auckland but has been living in Sydney the past couple of years. It was so good seeing old friends!

After their visit we celebrated Christmas with Blake's family. On Christmas eve we did the usual...... had some wine, ate some great food, and had a dance party. We had an early night though so we could get up early to open gifts! On Christmas morning they did a lot of traditional things that my family has done....so that was fabulous since we couldn't spend it with our families back home. We started the morning by watching Blake's younger brother, Aaron, open his Santa sack (Stocking) and then toasted to Christmas with some bubbly! Then we headed to the lounge room to open presents. Aaron passed out the presents and we all opened them one at a time. They got Kellie and I some nice gifts...and we both had presents to open from family back home as well. After opening all the gifts we had a big brunch of fruit, eggs, bacon, mushrooms, and tomatoes all cooked on the grill. It was such a nice morning and day!

After Christmas I had to go back to work for the next day.....but I then had four days off for New Years. For New Years Blake picked me up and drove me to Omaha (where their holiday "batch" house is) to meet up with everyone. I don't have the pictures right now...but will post them later. It was such a nice time to lay out, relax, and do a lot of nothing! New Year's eve was also a good night......will post the pictures and more about it later.

This past weekend I hiked the dormant volcano in Auckland's harbor...Rangitoto. It was a nice day and really good to get out of the city. IT was also really nice to hike on a volcano! Here's some pictures from that.

More posts later! xxx