Pictures

Today is labor day in New Zealand. Brandon has the NZ holidays off and was able to choose one US holiday to add to their long list. He chose the 4th of July. We figured we can have Thanksgiving in the evening. We have gone to the Warehouse to pick up some house hold items and there was Halloween things out. They also sell signs that say "no trick or treating" for those people who do not like the Americanized version of Halloween.
Anyway, this is a short one with lots of pictures :) Enjoy!!

Market Shopping

So today is Sunday... market day :P
This is our third week going shopping at the market in orewa. We first hit the veggies, fruit, and bread at the farmers market. There is a guy who sells these amazing roma tomatoes that are acid free and organically grown... I am new to liking tomatoes so at first I didn't want any, but he gave us a free try. He told us to take one and bite into it... gross for any normal tomato, but we did and it was soooo good. We have gotten them 3 times now, and plan to get them as long as he is selling them. We also get avocados, mandarin oranges, ciabatta bread, and whatever veggies we need for the week. The picture includes lemons, pepper, tomatoes, and oranges from the farmer's market, but the strawberries are from our garden.
Our next stop is the "mad butcher". This is the largest butcher chain in New Zealand, but it still seems pretty small town-ish. We get our chicken there... they said we can special order a turkey for thanksgiving, but it costs about $17/ pound. There is no limit on them if you hunt them though, and there are several areas to do that... Brandon might be embarking on a turkey hunt come November.
Our last stop is the New World market... a mad dash through aisles dodging carts and finding things to make meals of our veggies and chicken. The people are very friendly at these stores, and are quick to make conversation. We have been asked why we are getting certain thing, what we are making, where are we from, and told that you can find the items we are buy elsewhere for cheaper (this by the check out girl!)
Soon we will be eating out of our own back yard! We have already started eating the strawberries, and our bean plants are very healthy. Our tomato plants are getting tall, and our onions have made lots of greenery. The peppers are the only questionable thing, but we are waiting and seeing if they get bigger. You all know that we have been really excited about our lemon tree, so the progress is that it is in bloom. But, the same time it was blooming a tree in our back yard had started blooming as well... it is very similar, but not identical. We think it is another type of lemon or maybe an orange tree. Then I remembered other trees were blooming in our yard a couple of weeks back. So, I checked it and there were fuzzy things growing on it... like peach fuzz. I googled peach trees and it is a dead on match... of course that is to my untrained eye... but how exciting just to find it. We have not one, but three of those trees!! I hope we have peaches!! Some on another tree have started turning peach coloured. (NZ spelling on that one) We also had another blooming tree before that now has little green fruits on it... so we cut it open... googled the tree look and leaves... and, we think it is a granny smith apple tree. It was the only one that the blossom matched and the little green fruits matched... plus the leaves are the same. We can now only wait and see, but I am hoping for lots of pie making this summer :)
I will add pictures so you guys can tell me what you think tomorrow. It is too dark out now.
Love you all!

Back from Trip

So we are back from the states! It was a great visit, too. The wedding we went to was beautiful, and it was so great to meet up with friends and family again. We had to readjust to driving on the other side of the road again since we had gotten so used to the NZ side, but it was a pretty quick change. We went out for a really short visit to the outer banks to visit Brandon's mom, but we are glad we made it out. Hopefully our next trip will allow us to go visit our dads.
We registered when we were back in Charlotte. I will say the scan gun was a ton of fun.
Brandon went off-roading with the guys on Wednesday while I went to stock up on US priced clothes and makeup with mom. It was great :)
Flying back was where the real drama started. Up until we got to LAX it was great, but we were then put on our flight to NZ. After boarding late, we sat down and the in-flight tv was broken. Both of ours were not working, and mine was hanging out of the seat in front of me by a wire, just dangling, until it was taped into place half way through the trip. The pilot announced halfway through that the toilets were not emptied in LA so they were not going to serve anymore food or drinks for the remaining 7 hours in the flight unless it was for medical reasons. The only toilets of the 14 on the plane that were working were the 3 in the back ( right by our seats) so when this was said everyone lined up to use them. So 13 hours of flying later and unable to stop to fix the situation... we landed and waited for our bags. We just kept waiting too until a man announced all the bags were off the airplane, and we had to fill out missing bags reports. So lost luggage, too!
Our bags arrived last night and were delivered to our house. I just will be flying with Air NZ like we normally have instead of trying Quantus again.
That is all for today! I will write about our farmers market day tomorrow :)
Love you all!