Poached Eggs for Breakfast

Mom, you may want to skip this entry. I know soft cooked eggs aren't for everyone.

This was my breakfast one day last week. Those are poached eggs on slices of toasted sourdough bread. Tom made the bread, I made the eggs using some silicone cooking cups.

I've heard that serving runny eggs is outlawed in New York City.

NZ doesn't have salmonella, so we can eat these eggs with the toast soaking up all that yolk!

Grapenuts and Dunkin Donuts

Two breakfast foods that I have missed are Post Grapenuts cereal and Dunkin Donuts. I saw a box of Grapenuts at Ontrays, an import shop in Petone. It was a bit pricey at over $8 for the box. However, I have enjoyed eating it with yogurt. I ate it with passion fruit yogurt--not what I would do in the States, but delicious.

The Auckland airport has a Dunkin Donuts. We told a dear kiwi friend about missing some of our favorite donuts. He called Tom one night from Auckland asking what kind of donuts we liked. Then a few hours later when he landed in Wellington, he called and said a special delivery was coming. Next morning, we gobbled up those yummy filled and frosted creations.

Easter Buns and Nutty Kid

Yes, Dennis can be just as nutty as in the photo.

Tom isn't the only one in the family who can bake. I made Easter buns using the hot cross bun recipe but omitting the crosses (which look great but don't add any flavor).

A new thing we did--we attended roller derby on 7 May. A friend from church is training and into roller derby so we thought we'd check it out. Wellington will have three more roller derby events, so we'll see how many we can go to.

Fencing and Other Activities

Another wonderful opportunity for the home-educated kids was fencing. The kids got a 2 hour introductory class on Tuesday, 12 April.

Dennis is the shortest one in this photo with his face towards us.

Back in March we had tae kwon do testing. Dennis aced his poomsae or patterns.

The Capital E Children's Theatre had a special two weeks with all sorts of plays at various venues in Wellington. We got a good deal on tickets for two plays and then we got free tickets for another two plays through Dennis' drama class.

Soccer season began on 2 April. Dennis' team is called Zoom. They have been winning their games so they will be paired up with more challenging teams soon.

The school holidays were the week before and after Easter. Dennis did 3 1/2 days of gymnastics over the two weeks. It was good I scheduled him for Tues and Thurs since he needed a day off afterwards.

On Saturday, 23 April, I was introduced to the board game Settlers of Catan. I did okay for a beginner.

Dennis' 11th Birthday

Dennis turned 11 on 27 May.

I ordered a gift for him that we had to pick up at the post shop. Once Dennis saw the box, his jaw dropped. The lady at the counter asked if it was his birthday. So what was in the box? A new Wavestick two wheeled skateboard (aka ripstick). It will take quite a bit of practice to get the hang of it.

This year we had a small party. I took Dennis and two friends go karting and bowling. I joined them for the bowling.

Clay and Dennis zoomed around the course pretty well. Clay was the fastest. Three times he got stuck on the tires. Hannes had some trouble keeping his kart going so the attendant helped him out. I lost count of how many times they went around. They could have gone longer than 10 minutes.

We all did all right with the bowling. We started out without the bumpers. Dennis decided he didn't like gutter balls so he asked for the bumpers to go up. We could still get a gutter ball, but at the very end right before the pins. All of us got better scores the second game.

Here in NZ what we did is called Ten Pin Bowling since outdoor lawn bowling is also popular.

We came to our house for homemade pizza, the movie "Narnia The Dawn Treader," cake and presents. The pizza was delicious. The cake was homemade chocolate. I bought a cake decorating kit. Dennis and I made yellow, green and blue icing. He squeezed it out all over the cake and then topped it off with some sprinkles (hundreds and thousands). It was certainly colorful and festive! At 8:00 p.m. the party was over.

Now Dennis has two new Nerf guns, new Lego sets: airplane and aquashark, four new Lego Bionicle figures, and four new comic books. It's Saturday morning and Dennis is shooting his Bionicles with Lego darts.

Whales Exhibition in Chicago

Dear Chicago friends,

Our Wellington museum Te Papa has a whale exhibition that is being loaned to and displayed in Chicago at Field Museum from 20 May 2011 until 16 January 2012.

We would love to hear about it.

http://whales.fieldmuseum.org/

Horse Riding

On Wednesday, 9 March, Dennis and other home-educated kids got to go horse riding. The stables were in Wainuiomata, a valley about 40 minutes drive from Wellington. The owner/operators got the kids involved in saddling and harnessing the horses as well. It was probably the first time Dennis has ridden in an English saddle. The kids had a positive experience with horses on a warm, sunny day.

Jousting Tournament

On Saturday, 19 February we went to a Jousting Tournament in Upper Hutt. All the participants are enthusiastic medieval reenacters.

We saw fights on horseback and also groups on foot. Dennis liked the foot soldiers.

We talked to Richard and had our photo taken with him. Then we routed for him in the melees.

The weather was fantastic and we enjoyed the late summer day out.

Croissants - without a picture

I will have to get a picture posted soon. But for now let me say that I am making some very very good croissants.

I took them into a local gourmet food shop, one that does not sell any croissants. The owner Steve doesn't sell croissants because he can't find one in Wellington that he is willing to sell. He knows of baker one over the mountain who makes a worthy croissant but no one locally.

My goal is to make croissants that he will sell. Everyone has to have a goal.

Steven gave me a few pointers told me what is lacking from his perspective, and told me that what I have made is as good as any as he has tasted in this little southern hemisphere city.

I will make another batch this weekend.

Southerly

I just went outside. (After sitting in my office for the past two hours on the phone with various airlines trying to arrange our vacation in America for later this year, early next year. That is a topic of another post.) The southerly just kicked in!

What that means is all that cold air from the south pole has worked its way up North to Wellington after having been warmed by the glaciers on the Southern Alps. It is dropping quickly here and will get down to about 40F shortly.

Now 40F in a cold damp climate is not the same as 40F in Chicago. This is cold, and our house is getting colder, which is a slight problem as our wood pile is getting smaller. But we still have some time before we run out of wood so I am not quite worried.

We have been pretty fortunate as the Northerly was in for over a week. That mean quite warm days running around with a t-shirts or, in my case, flinging my suit jacket over my shoulder around the CBD. Alas back to the southerly.

This house is quite well sealed and well built so it is not going to get cold soon. However ... it is a lock wood (think modern log cabin with 2" thick walls.) Which means no insulation but the wood retains the heat well. The trick here will be to keep the wood warm, to run that fire place, to bake more bread ...

So the race is on to keep a warm lounge and kitchen. I have given up hope on the master bedroom and office (both on the south end of the house, they will just get cold.)

Breakfast

I am sitting down at the dining room table eating my breakfast. There are more windows than walls in this house and I can see over to Wadestown through the lounge. It is an overcast misty day. We are basically in the clouds up here at 420 feet or so. I am sure it will be raining in Wellington which will be proven out in 45 minutes when the train drops me off downtown.

Breakfast is a few slices of sourdough bread I baked yesterday and a cup of coffee. A kiwi flat white, which is something you have to experience once, even if it is just my poor rendition of it.

I received a kick in the pants by a friend back in Chicago about the lack of updates on the Blog these days. Im just being lazy. It makes me wonder if my great adventure has turned into the mundane.

Regardless of the motivation, or lack of, to update this blog I will get going again. Communicate with my friends around the world who are following us here.

Thanks for reading!