New Zealand - Part 1

I spent last week visiting my granny in New Zealand. Dad, Kylie and I were fortunate to have second cousin Liz and her French husband, Nico, as our hosts in Auckland after we landed. They took us up some of the local volcanoes (yes, volcanoes!) in Auckland. The volcanoes are lush with vegetation and grass and there are even sheep and cows grazing on them! Not to mention a ton of rabbits... felt like Uvic all over again :)

This was the view from the top of One Tree Hill... which is now more like One Obelisk Hill.

Kylie viewing the Obelisk at the top of One Tree Hill.

 

Nico, Dad, Kylie, Liz and Baboosh. Nico is going to give me some contacts of his family in France for our trip in October. Meeting up with locals is the best way to see a country for sure!

A volcano crater in the centre of Auckland. It's deeper than it looks! Of course, I thought about Cam and how he'd love to play around here....

After a brief visit in Auckland, we drove the crazy winding roads north to Whangarei, where most of the immediate family is living.

Dad had booked us this cute little cottage for the week (two weeks for him and Kylie).

Dad and me at the wharf in Whangarei.

And of course we visited Granny... it was her birthday on Tuesday so we brought her some fleurs, though flowers seemed to be overtaking the estate she's living at!

Whangarei falls was just a short walk from our cottage and the estate where Granny lives.

Birthday drinks at a local pub with the whole fam-dam. I loved the NZ beer...

She hasn't changed much over the years! Still gorgeous.

Cousin Bridget, myself, cousin Amy, Kylie.

A candid group shot...

This photo is just for Mum... Kylie and I were shocked how much like Lance looks like Dad when Dad was his age! This was a photo taken before Dad left on his epic Europe & Africa travels.

Granny and her father were very close.

New Zealand - Part 2 will cover our three-day sailing adventure! Sailing is a big part of this side of the family.



T-minus 33 Hours

I don't think I've needed every last hour more than now! There's so much to do and so little time before I jet set across the Pacific in 33 hours. So apologies to moms, dads, brothers, aunts, and third cousins for being out of touch lately...

I'm poppin' vitamins like they're goin out of style because Cam is a sickly guy right now.... you know, horrible cough, night sweats, congestion... I did a big med-shop late last night because we had zero tylonel or cough medicine or neo-citrin in the house. The check out girl at Safeway took my VISA by the tips of her fingers when she saw what I was buying. Ha, I'm not the sick one.... yet!

It's bad timing for Cam to be sick because the shop is having it's big spring sale Thursday - Saturday. There will be lots of folks in the store because the weather's been fantastic (by fantastic I mean 12 degrees. You Yukoners will be impressed; the Californians not so much!)

My sister left yesterday; I'll be meeting my Dad in Vancouver and flying over tomorrow evening. This is specifically where I'll be for the next week: Whangarei, New Zealand... visiting my grandmother who isn't well and my aunt/uncle/cousins. We'll also be heading north to the Bay of Islands for a three-day sailing trip! It'll be nice to be in the homeland again... especially since I can travel on my NZ passport.

This is one fella who doesn't give a damn whether we're busy packing or being sick... he just wants One. Thing. All. The. Time.

He is so not impressed.

Packin' It All In

My sister hooked me up with this great fashion blog, I'm Clothed Much...

Cute eh?? She mixes and matches a lot of her things and I like her mantra of not spending over $20 on an item of clothing (not counting shoes or coats). She also uses her sewing machine to alter clothes to fit better -- this inspires me to get sewing too!

We have a great little consignment store here in town called The Patch.... it's where I spent many Saturdays in my first couple years of university, sifting through racks for cheap deals. I think a visit is in order!

The forecast this weekend: SUNSHINE. What is that?

The sun is great timing. I'm doing a hard week on the bike leading up to the trip to New Zealand (only a week away... holyyyyy), this is so I can take an active-rest week when I'm down under. Thankfully, coach Kylie will be on hand to give me some tips :)

So I'm cramming things in before the big trip. I've got a 76 page play to revise and send off to a competition, stories to edit, a painting to finish for Anthony, training for this thing in May.... but I like being busy!!

Cam has been biking more as well, in order to get fit for the big ride (and because he plans on doing some downhill racing this year). We're going on a mountain bike excursion Monday after work... I've only been out twice. One time good, one time bad (don't ask). I'm going for two out of three on the "good!" 

Still no word yet on a new frame to replace the Cervelo, but Cam says he should hear something by the end of the week.

Cam's Birthday Party

Cam’s 30th birthday is coming up on Monday, but I decided to plan a little surprise party for Saturday night (which is his Friday night). I wanted to keep it a surprise, so the only thing I told him was that we were “going out” on Saturday night.

When he got home from work yesterday, of course he had endless questions, trying to figure out what I had in store. But I didn’t utter a peep! I just told him to drive us to the Canoe Club. I think he might have clued in when the waitress lead us to a table for seven and his friends from work started to show up. Then Gabor and Eva arrived, along with Anthony, Kenyon, Josh, Carey…… So rather than just the seven people I’d originally invited, we had a full table of about fifteen! Everyone was buying Cam drinks and we ordered some good food; is there a better way to welcome in the 30s??

I don’t have photos from last night (we were having too much fun!), so instead, in accordance with the party-theme of this post, I’m posting some long overdue Cancun photos:

The beach at our hotel... comes with pirate ships!

I spy Kylie at the beach bar!

Coco Bongo (on the left) was the awesome club Kylie and I went to Thursday night.

Good tunes + Cirque du Soleil style performers + dancing = happy Tanya!!

Kylie's favourite dress.

Hey, I found my future house & car!

The beautiful Chichen Itza.

When you stand 100 feet back from the temple and clap really loudly, it echoes off the top of the temple and sounds like the call of a certain Mexican bird.

A long wall of stone skulls was how the Mayans kept track of all the heads they chopped off.

There were hundreds and hundreds of stalls all around the temple, selling masks, jewellery, blankets, and figurines.



The night Cam broke the second most expensive thing in the apartment

So I was doing my regular trainer ride, watching some TV, workin' up a sweat. My chain sounded like a bird was caught in it, so Cam brought over some bike lube and a rag. Just like any good mechanic! And, as he's done countless times at work, he started lubing the chain, with me pedalling instead of him having to work the cranks with one hand.

By some fluke, the rag caught in the chain and snarled into the derailleur. The derailleur snapped back and tore off, as they are designed to do when a foreign object gets caught. But instead of tumbling into the wheel as they usually do, where it might bend a couple spokes out of joint, it smashed into my seat stay and snapped the carbon in two places......

Major :(  :(  :(

Such a random thing to have happen, since this is how mechanics usually clean chains. It's times like these we're so thankful he works at a bike shop and can get a significant deal on a new frame. I hope it's here in time for the big ride at the end of May!

Pooooor Cervelo...