Hey, it's Friday! We still haven't found someone to take over our lease, but we will survive this. And we are still very excited about the new house.

It is a beautiful sunny day here in Wellington and I am hoping to take the dog to the beach when I get out of the office. He loves it so much and gets so few good walks these days.

One change I want us to make after we move is to give him two walks every day. Perhaps I can take him in the morning and Celeste can take him when we get home. I think he will be a much happier and better adjusted dog if he gets some good regular exercise.

I thought I was all healthy when I posted last but then I got sick again, still very sinusy and coughing up all sorts of unfortunate things. YUCK!

Work is good, school visits have mellowed but we have quite a few visitors and campus tours as well as planning our year end events for younger high school students. That is a bit of fun because we work with people all across campus to make it happen.

Who is reading this these days? I know penguindevil continues to hang out, any others around?

It's a sunny Sunday in Wellington. I think I shall take the dog to the beach. Hopefully Liam and Let will join in the trip. We're still waking up and we have a very messy house to deal with. Hmmm. Definitely need to go beaching though.

Last night we went to Stokes Valley (aka Stokes Vegas) for dinner with some friends. Three little boys of different ages, Liam at 7 months, Jos at 1 year and Olivier coming up on 3 years. It is fun to see the differences and realise what we have to look forward to. Besides that we got to eat a gourmet meal cooked by an Englishman (whose wife is French and doesn't cook, doesn't drink much and does NOT like CHEESE!!!). Yes, a strange family indeed :-)

We went unconditional on the house Friday. Yes, I am a homeowner now. It is very exciting. We will move in after the 10th of October. We both can't stop thinking about the house and what we'll do to it over time. First we just have to get all of our possessions from point A to point B, for the first time in my life I think we'll hire someone else to do the moving for us. I think the time has come, we have too much stuff to bother friends with.

Now we desperately need to find some nice people to take over our lease in the house we live in currently. Less than a month to get that all sorted...eeeeek.

Life is good down under!

Hey, we've moved. House is big. Central heating is a wonderful thing. I hope it is efficient. We are quite happy there so far but are barely using half the space! one room has sat completely empty while two others are pretty much just storage for the moment. We really love our kitchen and new fridge.

Samson loves running around the house and the back yard. Of course he has already found the weaknesses in the fencing and is no longer confined to the property if he does not want to be.

We have had to do much shopping for the place. We got some great bargains from our friends Ange and Daniel who are moving back to Australia. We bought a bunch of stuff from them for only $65, and that's NZ dollars to even less US. That includes a nice set of dishes, iron and ironing board, toaster, welcome mat and many other items.

We also bought a nice new set of silverware. It was on big discount so we've really been doing well, spending a lot but only on needs and usually with significant discounts. We are still waiting for our lounge set to arrive (sofa and loveseat). Hopefully get it before June is over.

The transfer of phone and power/gas went smoothly, but apparently our broadband will take another week to catch up to us. Yet another example of why the internet is having some troubles really penetrating the market in NZ, sometimes they do not make things simple. Not such a big deal for me, but a little frustrating not to be able to just call and have service transferred within a day or so.

Oh, instead of moving house, here it is called shifting house. I like that.