Entries Tagged 'Urban family' ↓

Life is speeding by when your niece is wearing your clothes (no not the shorts!) – my fav New York t-shirt that became just a little too snug for my liking after it got washed a couple of times.

Emily came to stay for a week while on a conference. Keith arrived later in the week for a night. It was so great to see them. We don’t know Emily very well but Keith is a long-time friend so we offered for her to treat us like a hotel while she was in town for her conference. She arrived on the doorstep with a kilo of Supreme beans – we welcomed her with open arms!

When Keith arrived I showed him some good coffee – we hung out at Blue Bottle Mint for a while and got to watch the full siphon process a couple of times. Funny watching all the tourists in there. Emily organised a tour of Lucasfilm for us – The Mister was particularly excited to see posters and backing images for a lot of the films we’ve seen and to get up close to a stormtrooper and R2D2.

We had a great dinner at The Presido Social Club – a cool wooden-floored space in what could’ve been an old lawn bowling club with tables for 4 along the window. We had a bottle of champagne and I had macaroni cheese.

We dropped the off at the bus on Friday night to continue their trip through the States.

Had a great weekend, well, barely 24 hours with Sara and Lucy staying on their way back through to Melbourne. The Mister was away in Kansas on a work trip which left me to meet them off the plane, get them into town, tour them around, organise a dinner, show them the coffee highlights, take them to the shops and generally hostess them all on my own. Had a great time and I didn’t get lost taking them on a well planned loop including a stop in at the office and a 45 minute wait for a coffee at Blue Bottle Mint. The apartment worked out well for visitors although having no iron meant I had to live through every housewife’s nightmare of having guests sleeping on unironed pillow cases – horror! It’s bad enough I have to sleep on the crinkles let alone guests!

It was so great to catch up and here’s a favourite memory – Blue Bottle coffee on the orange chairs in the Mint.

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re all well. We are. We arrive safely in San Francisco almost a week ago – last Saturday morning. As you can imagine, moving ourselves to another country has kept us fairly busy this week, and we didn’t take time off work, probably should have, so in between starting a new life here we’ve also been working in the gaps. A few late nights as we get used to the time difference between here and New Zealand.

The flight over was fine, neither of us got much sleep – the flight wasn’t turbulent really, perhaps just anticipation of us and our 7 bags arriving to live here. Having said that, I wasn’t too sad getting on the plane, I think because we’ve had a couple of trips over here the last 6 months, it kind of felt like another work trip. I didn’t burst into tears when the plane took off and must admit felt a little pang of excitement when we landed here. We had a few hurried goodbyes in person and on the phone at Wellington and Auckland airports which was nice.

We’d arranged to meet the broker who helped us find our apartment here on Saturday morning to get the keys so that we could move into the apartment right away – no use getting Xero to pay for a hotel if the apartment was ready. It was just a great as we remembered it – walking in and seeing the majestic Bay Bridge out the window really is fantastic.

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After the Birthday Pie farewell with my family last weekend it was onto our Wellington family this week – rather humbling the people who’ll miss us.

A special morning tea was held at Xero on Wednesday – they’d organised mini date scones (and cheese scones) by the guys at Nikau and mini orange-themed passion fruit cupcakes from Cupcakes. Man I was on a sugar high that day!

The final Wednesday Dinner Club with SDF – one of the rare ones at her place (no she didn’t cook) but she arranged hokey pokey ice-cream as a New Zealand treat. We’ve been dinner clubbing for many many years now – she wrote about it with more pictures on her blog.

Of course we went to Capitol last night – glasses of bubbles, a special tasting of beetroot soup in tulip cups (man it was good, never will I be dubious of beetroot soup again although it did look like a berry smoothy!) and ravioli.

Last day in Wellington today and last Saturday breakfast at Nikau for a while. My orange cup is going up onto the shelf to wait for our next visit. Our urban family joined us and we spent most of the morning there – then it was almost straight to the airport so we didn’t have much time to ponder what we were about to do!

Farewell all

Had a great visit from my family last weekend – our last weekend in Wellington before we go to San Francisco and also some of the coldest weather on Wellington’s record! God it was freezing. Also howling rain and wind, not so good for people from rural communities who are used to driving into town – we spent a lot of time crouching under verandas and running through the rain.

It was Orange Sister’s birthday while they were here and seeing as they always miss out on Thanksgiving apple pie I decided to make one.

Then we all camped on the couch and watched the very funny and rather endearing Love Birds about a man who makes friends with a duck.

Just had our last weekend in Blenheim for a while, complete with a tearful farewell – those guys might live in a different town but we’re definitely a close foursome (speaking on the adults dynamic of course!)

The Mister is still the favourite with Aidan and in fact The Mister was requested at several nappy changing times much to his horror … Dean made up some story suitable to get him out of it! Aidan wanted to help on the computer, and have The Mister help him with his painting. He looks very grown up with his short hair now.

Meanwhile, The Mister was interested in playing favourites elsewhere – desperate to get Butterball Brown to sit on his knee he sidled into him while he was asleep on a chair and got a ‘cuddle’ as he calls it – don’t think the cat had much choice really but made it look like it was his idea!

Time for another hair cut today! He looks so different – almost like a school boy – and he even came to the phone to tell me that they had a picture to send me.

San Francisco Day 1 – not really San Francisco but out in the East Bay in Pleasant Hill where Bev & Dan live. After a pretty turbulent flight neither of us got much sleep so hanging in the sun, going to the market and having an early dinner before early to bed should hopefully set us up for the week.

Bev & Dan’s new place is really nice – lovely sunny back yard, man shed and an awesome orange notice board that I wrote on immediately.

Off for some San Francisco exploring now that we’re installed in our hotel (that’s got orange ‘accents’ and a really scary magnifying mirror) – it’s raining today (Monday) but should be fine the rest of the week – first stop the bank and AT&T.

P.S. 2 great coffees so far from near where Bev & Dan live – Pacific Bay in Walnut Creek that we’ve visited before when we stayed with them – they have a ’special’ order – 8oz lattes – staff well trained!

Growing up very fast – in the last couple of weeks he’s:

• Started going to kindy by himself a few afternoons a week, giving a kiss & a cuddle & a wave – no drama
• Talked to us on Skype – still not talking on the phone but hey he’s a kid of the modern age – I guess seeing us on screen talking and waving to him made more sense
• Got a hair cut! And no tears from him or his mother!