Sandy's Baby Shower

On Saturday night I went to my friend Sandy's baby shower, while Al went out with Scott (Sandy's husband) and the other lads. The party was great fun, it was pot luck dinner so i brought two cheese and meats board, the food there was yummy Liane made her spring rolls and i pigged out big time, they are so good and very very morish! Someone also made the best lemon meringue pie ever, there was a stage with blood might be shed for pieces of it! We played Buzz and singstar aswell as watch Sandy unwrap her presents.

My birthday weekend!

What a weekend it was too! My actual birthday was on Saturday but we went out to celebrate on Friday night. Myself, Al, Kirsten, John, Jase, Nat, Stu, Liane, Alan, Jade, Jeni, Pagona and Jason all went out for dinner to this beautiful wine room called Arbitrageur, the food was just so good not even yummy would be good enough to describe it! We had a great night with plenty of food and wine! :)

I got spolit for my birthday too, from Kirsten, John, Jase, Stu and Nat I got bought a cheetah encounter at Wellington Zoo, which means i get to hang out with cheetah's including patting them and you learn all about them too, now how cool is that for a present? I was totally floored when i got it, i still cant beleive it. I think i am going to wait till Kirsten comes back off honeymoon in cause she wants to see me do it or part of it, but you can rest assure I will be blogging about it.

From Pagona and Lydia i got a voucher for a day spa here in Wellington, there is so many things to do there i am finding it hard to pick! From Liane, Alan and Jade i got a lipstick holder and Lush products so i am now smelling pretty good! Jeni sent me flowers to work and my Mum sent me money so i could buy photo frames. My sister Theresa gave me a black top and an ornament, my other sister's birthday is next weekend so we decided not to exchange this year because with postage etc it can be silly.

From Al and his family i am getting a hall table, if we can find one, we have been looking but I have not found something i totally love yet. Al has also spent the whole weekend spoiling me rotten, cooking me delicious breakfast paying for me on Friday night and generally being very attentive. So you can see why i say i have been spolit this weekend!

I am all movied out!

This weekend we had a very relaxed one where we watched 5 movies and ate loads of home cooked lasagne and drank plenty of red wine. So what where the five movies, well the first we watched was Hostel, its a Quentin T movie and its was awesome, very very gruesome, loads of horrific blood scenes and if you loved Saw or Saw 2 then you will love Hostel, I dont want to tell you the plot and i recommend you dont read the back of the DVD it will spoil the plot.The next was the Weather Man with Nicholas Cage and i think even his wife would find it hard to like this movie, please unless you have no will to live do not watch it!

After that we watched Derailed, with Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston it is about these two married people was have an affair and they get attacked and Jennifer gets raped (she really played her most unlike Rachel from friends role the whole way through the movie) but they cant go to the police because of their affair. The attacker then blackmails them for money etc It was a pretty good movie to be honest, dont expect to much and you will enjoy it.

Next up was Transamerica with Felecity Hoffman, this is the one where my favourite desperate housewife got an oscar nomination for. She plays a man trying to become a woman and she finds out she has a 17 year old son one week before her gender change operation, and she cant get the operation signed off unless she deals with her son issue. I was so impressed by FH in this she was fantastic and the whole movie is very heartwarming, i would recommend giving it a watch.

I finally gave into temptation and went to see Johnny Depp in Pirates 2, well if i am honest i'd say that if it wasnt for Johnny Depp with movie would be crap and not much to look at! It is the kind of movie you have to see at the cinema for the effects etc, but if you have missing your chance dont worry the DVD wont lack that much. Even though i didnt really enjoy this movie i find myself waiting for the third one, maybe so i get to find out what happens as this movie is left in suspence and i wont have this big question mark hanging over me! Who knows?

Ha ha ha

As you all know i am a toastmaster and every year the toastmasters organisation runs contests, this morning our club ran the club level contest for humurous speech and i won. What this means is that I go on to respresent our club at the area level contest and whoever wins that will compete in the district level and the winners of that compete at National level.

Last year i won the club level and area level but i was overseas at the time of the district level i didnt compete, so fingers crossed this year i get another chance!

My speech was about the things that happen when you babysit, and i told of two of my experiences when i was younger and babysitting my two cousins Stephen and Maria. Its a 5 to 7 min speech so its to much for me to blog about but i promise if i win National level i will blog it all! :)

I am no cannibal but i love having friends over for dinner!

On Sunday night we had our friends Kirsten and Jason over for dinner, nothing flash just a good old fashioned chicken roast. Anyhow on Sunday we decided we would cook some duck breasts Kim gave us during the week; that night turned out to be Tuesday.

Kirsten looked for a nice recipe and between us both we pulled the ingredients together. We decided on duck cooked with with shallots, garlic, herbs and pistashio nuts, served with stir fry red cabbage with sliced almonds and mashed kumara. It was yummy! If i am honest Kirsten cooked the duck and i was the sliced, dicer and veg cooker! :) All washed down with some delicious red wine, it was superub!

What a fantastic day for a ride

Sunday was just the most perfect day for a weekend ride on the Harley, although it was shall we say fresh out the sun was bright and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We met up with about 30 other bikes and with the majority of them two up, there was about 45-50 people so great fun! We headed out of town and up state highway 1 as if we were heading towards Kim and Susan place, our destination was Shannon a town that is a few km inland and about 90mins from Wellington, some people were wanting to just hang out and do some bird watching thing up there but myself and Al weren’t up for that, on a beautiful day like it was the last thing you want to be doing is not being on the bike, so we decided to go for our own tour and we took the back roads to a seaside town called Foxton and then followed the coast back to Wellington. It was just what we needed to blow out any cobwebs that had developed since the ride we had the weekend before!

Scallops and Duck

On Saturday we went to one of the partners at Al’s work house for what can only be described as a gourmet dinner! Roger the host together with his partner and hostess Arti served us up home made pate and bread/crackers and various other canap‚s to get our appetites flowing, we then sat down to some yummy scallops and bubbles for starters, for main course we had this delicious duck with veg and mashed kumara and the sauce they served with it was just so divine! For dessert Arti made a chocolate mousse, now I don’t like chocolate mousse in fact I don’t like any chocolate thing that is not a pure square of chocolate, but my mind was changed with this dessert, heavenly, divine, yummy and totally delectable are only a few words that I could use to describe it.

All of this food was of course washed down with plenty of red wine, bubbles, dessert wine and port although I was driving so I only had two glasses of wine, Al sure did make up for me J As did the other guests Adam and his partner Karen, it was a great night but I am now officially to scared to invite them to our house for dinner, not unless two minute noddles is their kind of thing!

Our Anniversary

On Friday myself and Al celebrated our anniversary, we have been together 4 years now, cant believe its been that long as I still get butterflies when I see him sometimes, but that said I often feel like driving a screwdriver through his head sometimes too he he only messing! Its been an amazing four years full of all the good and bad things about life but most importantly full of love and laughter. We went to this fantastic restaurant not far from our place in Newtown, it’s a really cosy French place which has an open fire etc, Al had obviously charmed the waitress there as we got the table by the fire! We have been there before, as that is where we went to celebrate Kirsten’s birthday, they have changed the menu since and the choices and the food was as good as they had been the last time. So we had a great night, we ate loads, drank loads and laughed heaps, which is basically what I like to call a perfect night!

Boo Hoo he's gone!

Yes folks my friend Darren headed off on his big overesas adventure OE, this is a photo of him on his last day in work here with his colleague Josh and his boss and my friend Lydia.

We had his leaving party in town on Saturday night at a really nice restaurant, and we had a nice few glasses of wine. He was leaving Wellington the next day to head to Auckland for a few nights so he coudl catch up with his sister, her husband and his twin niece and nephew. A few of us including Lydia went to the airport to wish him off, and i must say because i was so happy for him to be going off into the big bad world and excited for all the adventures he would have ahead i didnt think i would be emotional...................doh! as if! As soon as he was giving me a hug goodbye tears start to form in my eyes and they trickled down for a few minutes as we watched him clear security and board the plane.

I knew i was going to miss him as we hung out heaps together but i didnt think i would miss him so quickly as the next day in work was so weird and quite because he wasnt there :( and now 4 days later its not getting easier but i dont notice it as much.

I have heard from him and he is enjoying it so far now bare in mind he has only spent one night in Syndey and the rest has been in Auckland. He will spend another 6 nights in Sydney before he heads to Dubai for 3 nights and then on to the big smoke itself LONDON! Thankfully his brother and his partner live there so he will have someone to look after him and show him around!

Mandy's wedding

I know of you would like to know how Mandy's wedding went so i am going to cheat here and copy paste what she wrote to me!



We were then called to go downstairs at 4pm, walked down with dad and the bridesmaids behind me started to walk into the ceremony room to the intsrumental version of Bittersweet Symphony by the Verve. Was so happy but burst into tears half way down. Got to Luke and he said I looked beautiful and held my hands as I kept shaking and twitching my arms with nerves. Smiled and cried all the way through our vows and my cousin Sharon's reading "On your wedding day". Nearly said "Awful Husband"
instead of "Lawful Husband and think most people noticed the pause when I said it so they knew was I was thinking. Signed trhe register, had some more photos taken then walked out with Luke to Flowers in the Window by Travis.
Walked into the Marquee and everyone said how great it was and how happy we looked. Had a glass of champagne handed to me by one of the Ushers and had lots of pictures taken in the area outside but didnt feel like the time was all taken by pictures and got to talk to lots of people too. The table was decorated beautifully and our table arrangement had to be removed as it was so big. Had the meal about 5.30pm which was yummy. Started with Goats cheese in filo pastry, then Beef Fillet with black pudding and crunchy veggies then our chocolate wedding cake with raspberries. Gave out gifts of an England Team Signed Football shirt to the best man, cufflinks to the
2 ushers, Tiffany Jewellrey to the bridesmaids, Huge lovely bouquets to the
2 mums, Champagne to my cousin who did the reading and a box of nice wines to my aunt who made the bridesmaids dresses. The speeches were amazing and again I cried lots although think the best man speech had Luke shrinking in his chair - will have to bring the dvd of it when we visit.
The evening came and the Ceilidh Band (Irish & Scottish Dancing) started playing, Luke & I both got up and I kept going the wrong way, bumping into Luke but had a good laugh, think mostly everyone had a go though. Kept feeling sick due to nerves so stayed on water till the DJ arrived at 10pm then had a few vodkas. As we didnt have a 1st dance due to it being a Ceilidh we had a last dance to U2 "Even Better than the real Thing which was brilliant and everyone was clapping around us. Finished at 12pm and everyone headed into the main bar (apparently carrying on until 4am) but I went to our room at 1am.

Its been very busy

I know its been a month since i last blogged as my friend Scott has reminded me, or more to the point teased me. In the past month so much has happened its the busiest time in work as its year end and of course we had Kirsten and John's wedding and various other events/parties and of course hangovers. So i am not going to go into detail of any of them apart from the wedding.

The lads got married in Martinborough about 1hour from Wellington in this beutiful country retreat, where each of the bedrooms/cottages had real log fires! It was a lovely location, and even though its winter here the weather held up for the day.

When Kirsten was getting ready i kept getting butterflies in my tummy becuase i was so excited for her and for John of course, and when she walked into the room and walked up to John i was taking photos and thankfully i was because it meant i coudlnt cry, and during the cermony when i thought i was going to cry i would take more photos............................i took over 400 photos on the day!

Her dress was just uniquely stunning, as you can see from the photo it was green but what you cant see was these beautiful pink and white flowers that were on the back, her Mum made the dress and i can tell you she would give Tom Ford a run for his money thats for sure! I know its cliche to say the bride looked lovely etc but i have to say i have seen Kirsten in her PJ's, dressed in work clothes, dressed up for a night out and she is very pretty and looks great in general but man alive she looked amazing on her wedding day, she really did and to think she did her own hair and make-up (well with her Mum's help)!. I also have to say that John looked very dashing in his suit which his sister in law made (great job Susan).

The food was great, the atmosphere was fun and happy, everyone really enjoyed themselves but most importanly two people who love each very much got married and I was there to see it!

Ode to Mandy

My Scottish twin is getting married on the 30^th June and I wont be there to celebrate there big day, which might be a good thing as the picture of a bride vomiting and dancing like a mad woman which is what would happen if I was there is not necessarily a good thing! Anyhow, how better to recognise this day than to take an awesome piece of music by Barry Manilow (!!???!!!??) and give it a twist!

I don’t remember any of that night
Vodka shots as cold as ice
Shadows of a fake tan
My face puffed like a pillow
From vomitin' in the night
The night goes into

Drinkin', just another day
We will be vomiting all the way
Puckin up to my eyes
I see a martini
I now realize
How drunk you made me, oh Mandy

Well you came and you gave some of your space bakin'
I ate it straight away, oh Mandy
Well, you got pissed and didn’t stop me from pukin'
And I need you today, oh Mandy

Standin' with a vodka and lime
Talked about wines so fine
Caught up in a world of shots to timin’

With being sick on my mind
But at least this is rhymin', oh Mandy

Well you came and you gave some of your space bakin'
I ate it straight away, oh Mandy
Well, you got pissed and didn’t stop me from pukin'
And I need you today, oh Mandy

Last night's a dream
We face the mornin'
Cryin' because of too many bacardi breeze
The pain is callin', oh Mandy

Well you came and you gave some of your space bakin'
I scoffed it straight away, oh Mandy
Well, you got pissed and didn’t stop me from shakin'
And I need you today, oh Mandy

My favourite hen!

The weekend I had been waiting for about 18 months was finally here last weekend, what weekend could I be talking about? Well quite simply Kirsten’s hen weekend!

It was going to be a great one, we were having it at our house and Al was send to him parents for the weekend too as it was hens only and no c*cks allowed he he. The theme was quite simply and basic pyjama party with loads of booze! Everyone arrived about 6ish and we got stuck in straight away and everyone brought some food to share around too (its called pot-luck dinner or bring a plate here in New Zealand). All dressed in our PJ’s we played some games, the first one being the Hand Bag Game, where you start with each person taking 3 items from their handbag and placing them in separate paper bags. Then I opened them up and everyone had to guess who they belong to.

Then we played Soap Stars everyone must talk in the style of a well-known character from a popular soap such as Coronation Street etc. At the same time, everyone had to guess the soap characters that the others where imitating. .

We then played one of my favourite games where we made a wedding dress for Kirsten using newspaper and Sellotape, it was so funny we gave her the most hideous dress we could think off, puffy sleeves, big bows you name it we had it!

Two other games we played where the Hat and chocolate game, where you need a bar of chocolate, a knife, a fork, gloves, a hat, a scarf and a single die. If you roll a six you have to put on hat, gloves, scarf pick up the knife and fork and start to cut up the chocolate, whilst everyone carries on rolling. The object is to eat as much chocolate, a piece at a time before someone else rolls a six! And the sculpting game with some plasticine and then everyone had to try to mould different things, which I had already decided what it was going to be and of course some of them were rude he he

We then played the playstation 2 game Buzz, which was a real hoot and we started to play it again when we got up in the morning until the early afternoon he he must be done it’s a great game!

I made a special cocktail for that night too called a Kirstentini and it was made with vodka, cointreau and cloudy apple juice, shake them in a shaker with ice and pour into a martini glass this drink is just to nice to say “oh no I couldn’t possibly have another too” its just so yummy so please whatever you do this summer/winter you must try a Kirstentini!

We did have a very sick hen the next day which is to be expected and wanted no offence Kirsten honey but we got to get you wasted on your hen night it’s the law!

There was also a few other sore heads etc around the next morning and I didn’t really feel like drinking again until at least Monday he he

Latest movie reviews

Posideon………great movie I haven’t seen the original but the original doesn’t have Josh Lucas in it so who cares about the originals! I would give it a 7 out of 10

Brokeback Mountain…………………………I think the only reason this movie got such ravings was because it was controversial rather than it being an awesome movie that said I did enjoy it and I would give it a 6 out of 10.

Jarhead………………………………..This was the kind of movie that showed you the other side to war and the waiting around etc that goes on, so I quite enjoyed it for that reason I like movies that give you a different view, I would give it a 6 out of 10.

Walk the Line…………………………oh my god wasn’t Reece Weatherspoon amazing! I kept saying *snaps* for June (those of you sad enough to have seen Legally Blonde will know what I mean), I really enjoyed this movie and I think his life not that I knew to much about it was portrayed very well, I would give it 7 out of 10.

Palindrome……………………….not the kind of movie I thought it was going to be but I must admit I really enjoyed it although I was disturbed at times but I think that was the good thing about this movie it made you realise that this wasn’t just a movie but actual life for some people, I would give it a 7 out of 10 and that is nothing to do with my religion at all.

State Property………………………….a street gang violent kind of movie which I watched on Sunday morning so I cant feel I can comment objectively on this, so I wont.

The long weekend……………………………..he he how sad am I, I wouldn’t recommend this movie even if you are suffering from temporary amnesia

The Devils Rejects……………………a follow up to the house of a 1000 corpse, I must admit I do something worry is my brain desensitised from horror because it was more disgusted my the wallpaper on some of the walls than I was about the movie, so if you like being scared etc this movie is for you and I would give it a 4 out of 10.

Ode to Al by Eye and Kirsten

For Al's birthday we wanted to make him something orginal and creative so Kirsten and myself emailed each other the next line of this poem so between us both we wrote a wonderful piece!


Happy Birthday to you
You may be 36
But you can teach an old dog new tricks
Sit, stay, lay down are just a few
That shoes are not a thing to chew
And the carpet's not the place to poo

Happy Birthday to you
You’re a shining example of what not to do
Don't give children candy, stop hanging around the zoo
You will look really dodgy and you will make the kids very podgy
And their Mum's will sue

Happy Birthday to you
Your not a splinter in the banister of life
IN fact you're soon to have a wife
Who is never drab and always fab, you’re very lucky
A life without her would truly be very sucky

Happy Birthday to you
Wow how cool Special K is one of your best mates
She even took you to a party in the states
Where you are crispy crèmes the donuts made of dreams

Happy Birthday to Al!!!!

It was Al’s birthday the other weekend so as usual in our house that means we celebrate with friends, food and loads of booze! His actual birthday was on the Friday so I took him out for lunch, that night we went out with the other 6 usual suspects to a go-karting place and have a blast whizzing around the track and crashing! Jase was the fastest with Al coming in second, and then everyone came back to ours for pizza and booze. The next day I took Al away for the weekend to Napier (it was a long weekend too yippee), we did the usual stuff you do up there like visiting some vineyards and eating at very nice restaurants but this time we did something neither of us had done before………………………………….swim with a dolphin! It was a common dolphin and she was as quite as anything and loved to play with you, as she would aim straight for you and when you scream she veers off (she only does it to hear you scream) and she got so close that at one stage I moved my foot so my flipper wouldn’t hit her! Al said it was the bestest present so I was very pleased with myself, it does make me want to swim with the hector dolphins (smallest in the world) big time though. On our last day in Napier we caught up with Stu and Nat at Stu’s parents new house and we went sprint car racing, I was in the car with Al when we spun out and he steered us into a big muddy puddle but guess who got covered in wet mud and guess who couldn’t stop laughing at it! Yes that’s right I was covered but thankfully as we were on hols I had a change of clothes with me, it was funny though!

Lights, Camera, Action

Now before you think I am going to launch into my movie critic mode I’m not what I am going to do is tell you about the movie I made with some friends and some of their friends at the weekend. In NZ there is a thing called 48hours movie festival check out www.48hours.co.nz and basically you are given a genre at 7pm on Friday and you have 48 hours to write, shoot and produce a movie. The movie is 5-7 mins long and you can’t plagiarise. We got Sci-Fi, we were hoping for a mafia type movie but Josh our script writer worked really well with it.

Our movie is basically about a guy called Robin Slade who works as a janitor in a place called body corp, body cprp is a place where human organs are genetically enhanced and synthetically modified he he and Robin needs a liver for his dying Mum. He breaches the security and enters a banned area of body corp, when he gets there he gets into a few fights like all heroes do and he finds out that the organs are in fact harvested from humans and not made at all, he manages to get the liver by killing two robots and they all live happily ever after etc.

The role I played was the face of body corp which means I opened up the movie with an introduction to body corp and what we do etc, I was also the receptionist and the body that was being carved up. I have attached a few photos of me doing these roles.

We all had a great time making the movie and believe you me it was a very long weekend and we were tried afterwards esp some of the production team who nearly worked for the 48 hours solid. The film was shown for the first time the thurs after filming at the cinema in town, so along with the rest of the cast and crew Al, Kirsten and Jason came to see me on the big screen. We didn’t win the contest but we had an absolute ball making the film. I cant wait for next years comp!