Hooray for birthdays!

Just a quick post tonight to save me from getting too far behind!  I promise, more will soon be forthcoming.  I've been busy at work and my step dad died last week so I haven't been in the best frame of mind for blogging.  Still its not all bad!  You only have to look at some of the pics from birthday weekend away in Kohukohu with Ben to see how good things can really be.

We took a Friday off the weekend before last and made our way up north at a leisurely pace, driving through Dargaville and up through the Waipoua Forest.  I saw Tane Mahuta for the first time - that's one big ass tree right there! We also went to Rawene for lunch and had fish and chips on the wharf while we waited for the car ferry.

After that it was just a quick drive to Kohukohu, quite possibly one of the smallest, prettiest towns in NZ (in my opinion).  We stayed in an old cafe building that sat right out over the water. It was mainly just one large room with a wrap around deck and it was perfect. Ben tried his luck fishing, but didn't get anywhere and he also taught me how to play chess, which I kinda sucked at but enjoyed nonetheless.

We had dinner both nights at the local pub and had great coffee from the cafe and Ben had an epic meat pie too. We also drove out to Mitimiti on the Saturday, which is a remote, wild west coast beach totally worth a visit (again, in my opinion).

On the Sunday we made our way back to Auckland again taking a scenic route, this time through Langs Beach, Waipu Cove and Mangawhai.  We had lunch at Bennetts in Mangawhai and then bought some delicious chocolates from their store, some for us and some for the girls.  It was a pretty sweet weekend all round, it's gotta be said.

More soon, I promise!

As ever, a shout out to Ben for the mad photo skills.

A catch up post (again)- week sixteen and seventeen

Once again, I'm playing catch up!

Quite a bit has been happening over the last couple of weeks, I started my new job with Auckland Libraries last Monday, which has been pretty time consuming and exhausting. I honestly come home so tired, I feel drained of energy. But, I figure that once I learn the systems things will be come a bit more normal and i'll stop being so goddam sleepy!

Last Friday Ben and I went out to celebrate the end of my first week, which was fun. We went to The Cav on College Hill, then Bonita in Ponsonby for a drink and finally stopped in for dinner at Mekong Baby, which was super delicious and I can't recommend highly enough.

The previous weekend was fairly low key...the girls were with Anton and Ben and I hung around the house and went up to his parents for Father's Day dinner on the Sunday. On Monday, after school, the girls gave Ben his 'step-father's day' present, which was a pie magic- kind of a present for all of us really... We made bacon and egg pies, which featured the silverbeet Bug had grown in our vege plot.  They were pretty tasty.  We have also been eating a lot of the broccoli out of our garden, so we are achieving to an exceptionally high gardening level.

I've got quite a lot to love at present, though my positive thoughts vibe is clearly a little skewed as I somehow managed to incur two speeding tickets within an hour of each other on the first day of my week off. Furthermore, that entire work-free week I carried around an annoying head cold that wouldn't quit and I ended up on the couch watching telly for half the time.

Ah well, you can't win them all I guess :) Thankfully, there were some highs to celebrate among the lows.

To start; I checked out Kim Gordon's autobiography Girl in a band  and I'm really enjoying it so far, she's an awesome writer.  Also, we went to the museum with the girls on the weekend and I hadn't been for ages. It was cool, I liked the special Auckland exhibit currently on as well as old favourites like Wild Child and Auckland 1866 (the old school town set up with the apothecary and whatnot).

A couple of weeks ago I went out for lunch with Viv, Luca and Liz at the new Scratch Bakery in Milford, and Viv and I did a spot of shopping afterwards.  I got myself some new pants from Topshop and a couple of of plain tees from Glassons.  I always love getting new clothes! I also went out for lunch with Ben and his mum on my week off (I've been lunching a lot of late) and I got some new dinner plates from Deco to Retro as well as two second-hand Elton John records- score!

I'm also loving my new coffee spot Elsie on Mayoral Drive, the novelty of using public transport for the first time in ages, working with a bunch of cat mad women, watching Bug throw herself into her swimming lessons (finally), catching up with my pals at a baby shower, getting to goo and gah over little people and lastly I'm loving the anticipation of the long weekend that lies ahead in honour of my upcoming birthday....hurrah!