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Place 49 – Day 330: Auckland – Ambury Regional Park

We woke up at 10:30 and Kim made some omelettes whilst Curtis made the coffee!

Post breakfast, we got ready and went out for a drive to Ambury Regional Park. This park is a farm which you can just walk around and say hi to all the animals.

When we first got there, we were a little confused as there were no signs saying where to go and where we can go, but we just figured it out.

The first animal we came across was a calf!

After Kim had some cuddles with the calf, we moved onto the goats. Most of the weren’t interested, but one fluffy one with horns was happy to sit there and get a pet or two!

We saw a few sheep but they were a bit scared so we didn’t stick around them too much.

Next to the sheep was a very large horse, so we said hello to that for a while!

After we saw the horse, we attempted to go into the sheep again but they were not interested…even one of them gave us the evils so it was time to leave!

It started to rain, so we drove home.

Once we got home, Curtis watched hockey and Kim went to the shop to get stuff for dinner.

We invited Danielle and Josh for a roast, so Kim made the roast of dreams!

We had all kinds of vegetables, a huge chicken breast each and yorkshire puddings.

Danielle and Josh bought apple crumble for dessert with some salted caramel ice cream and strawberries.

It was great to catch up with Dannielle and Josh again.

Back to work tomorrow…but one week closer to finishing work!

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

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Place 49 – Day 329: Auckland – Eating A Scorpion 🦂

We got up at 08:00 and got showered, Curtis had breakfast and we left the house at around 09:00 and droveto the Botany ice rink.

Curtis had his final time on the ice in New Zealand! Curtis’ former team (the scorpions) had a scrimmage as an end of year ‘goodbye’. The scrimmage was incredibly fun and there was checking allowed, too!

Curtis did have fun at the start of the scrimmage, having to use rental skates as the skates he was borrowing were not there just yet.

Luckily, the skates arrived shortly after starting so Curtis changed into those.

Curtis threw a few good hits but also got hit very well a couple of times.

At the end, Curtis and a teammate did a penguin slide…because why not?

After the scrimmage, we left to go and get some meat and drinks for the end of season BBQ!

The captain of the team hosted it at his house, so we got the food and went there. The Leafs were playing so we had that on in the background whilst we ate and had a laugh or two.

After eating, Curtis had to eat a scorpion! Curtis had to do this as he got the most penalty minutes on the team for the season (34 PIMs in 20 games if the playoffs are included).

The scorpion didn’t actually taste tok bad, but was pretty dry and had an odd texture.

We stayed for a while and then left to come home.

After we were home, we relaxed for a bit and then went shopping. We got a coffee too whilst we shopped, of course!

We got back home and just spent the rest of the evening watching TV and finally finishing Bodyguard which is an excellent series!

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

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Place 49 – Day 328: Auckland – Friday Feeling

Curtis’ Day;

Curtis got to work and really had that Friday feeling, which is usually a good thing but it made Curtis not want to be productive. That being said, he still was!

The morning was a little slow but by 11:00 the day picked up and actually became pretty busy.

Curtis took a phone call towards the end of the day which ended up being a 45 minute call!

Curtis drove home and the traffic was abysmal.

Both of us;

We both got home and did the ‘post work flop’ where you play on your phone after work for an extended period of time! After this, we made dinner. This was a vietnamese chicken noodle salad which was peefect and exactly what we wanted.

We watched the apprentice during dinner and then after we watched two episodes of Bodyguard.

We are up fairly early for a Saturday tomorrow!

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

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Place 49 – Day 327: Auckland – Kim’s French Birthday

Curtis’ Day;

Curtis got to work a bit earlier than normal today and got prepped for going to visit a client. Curtis had to take and setup a monitor arm, monitor and a Surface Laptop.

The client had to rearrange the time from 10:00 to 10:30, so Curtis left at 10:20 for that.

Curtis got to the client and introduced himself before getting everything ready. He had to fight for 45 minutes with the monitor arm as it came without instructions, so that was fun!

After that, the client wanted to use a different monitor arm, so they used that instead.

Curtis, with the help of the client, attached the monitor and then also setup the surface laptop, including transferring data between the old and new device.

Curtis finished here and went back to the office to drop everything off. After this, he started lunch and drove home.

Both of us;

Kim was home all day, as it is her birthday, and pretty much did nothing, which was perfect!

When Kim got home, Kim made him an omelette for lunch. Lunch went too quick and then Curtis had to go into a skype meeting which lasted for 35 minutes.

After this, Curtis wrote up all of the information from the site visit as well as resolved some other issues for the client.

Curtis had another short meeting and then finished off some work until it hit the end of the work day.

After this, we got ready and went out for dinner. We went to So French, which is somewhere we had been for breakfast before and they have now started to do dinner!

As you may guess, so French is an authentic French restaurant. They do a couple of set taster menus, such as a duck menu and a seafood menu.

We chose the duck menu and we can say it was excellent!

To start, we had a couple of bread rolls, baked today, with truffle butter. These were warm so they were amazing!

Along with this, we got a free glass of French bubbly as the owner knew it was Kim’s birthday!

Our first course was a parfait with egg, some other items and a parmesan emulsion.

After this course, our second course was mushroom ravioli with a black forest broth.

The chefs were working incredibly hard in the kitchen! Its an open kitchen so we could see them making the food the whole time which was amazing.

Our pre-main was confit duck leg with ‘mandarin texture’.

We were very full by this point, but we carried on!

For our main, we had duck breast with a blackberry and beetroot tart!

And finally, for dessert, we had a chocolate souffle with salted caramel ice cream. Kim got a sparkler in hers, too, as it is her birthday!

We had an amazing time and got to speak with the owner a lot who was a wonderful man.

If you’d like to see more about So French in Takapuna, Auckland, click this link to take you to their facebook page.

We waddled back to the car, drove home and that was our night. We ate so much we cannot move!

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

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Place 49 – Day 326: Auckland – Homemade KFC

Curtis’ Day;

It’s finally finished! Curtis was, finally, able to complete the development work he has been working on for last few days, which was a great feeling.

That being said, Curtis still had a lot of work to do and a few cases had built up over the time he’d been doing the other work.

Along with that, he also helped his new colleague with some work and before he knew it, it was home time.

The traffic on the way home was awful today, but Curtis still got home at a decent time.

Both of us;

Kim got home and neither of us were hungry so we chilled out and s tatted a new TV series. We starting working Bodyguard as we had heard it was a good show. We can’t say we’re disappointed yet!

We finally had some food around 19:00. Kim made KFC style chicken wraps with some kumara fries on the side. These were incredibly flavoursome.

We sat and chatted with Nicola for a while before vacating to the bedroom and watching another episode of Bodyguard.

It’s Kim’s birthday tomorrow!

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

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Place 49 – Day 325: Auckland – So Much Development

Curtis’ Day;

Curtis had some follow on development work to do from yesterday, which he started but then had a few cases come in that he had to sort, which he showed his new colleague how to do, too.

Curtis got fuel at lunch and then after lunch he had to deal with a tricky case which took up quite a lot of time but was also quite interesting.

Both of us;

We were both very tired when we got home, but also very hungry! Curtis put on some rice and we had the remaining leftovers from yesterday for dinner.

After dinner, we wanted to go for a walk but it took us nearly an hour to eventually move and go outside.

We went for a walk in the park nearby and Kim got to see a few dogs and also ride the zipwire!

We got back home and Curtis ironed whilst Kim showered and then we watched a couple of TV shows before sleeping.

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale