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Hello everyone!

This week was a little difficult. The computer is acting up - so Patrick gets angry when he can't play his game and is constantly startling me. You figure I'd have gotten used to his outbursts by now, but I haven't. The hair on my head prickles and my eyes fly open every time. I've been quite an emotional wreck as well. Patrick's saying that the decision to stay is up to me now. See, if we stay, he's said that he wants to work at Weta (I don't know how to spell it), some animation company in Wellington. I love it here, in Auckland, I love my job, I love the kids I work with and I love the staff as well. He had suggested that I stay in Vancouver in December. I think he's confused. I do want to stay in Auckland, but after he'd told me it was up to me, I broke down. I couldn't even go to work the first day . . . I tried to go to work the second day, but I broke down as soon as I walked in the door . . . and went home. I'm not sure what to do . . . I hate that it's on my shoulders. He's so stressed out now - and he doesn't know why. It was really hard to come home over the holidays and come back here - to find it relieving to come back here and that we missed NZ while we were gone for that short period of time. It was wonderful to see the boys again - and hard. I miss them so much.

I tried really hard to find a place for the upcoming ceremony and reception in December. Impossible - everyone has their Christmas Functions, and their old clients come first. :P I asked Patrick for a helping hand in giving one particular place a call. My sister is already trying to making plans for where to stay in Vancouver when she comes in from England with her family. It'd help if we knew where we were having it first. I feel overwhelmed that I can't even find us a place to have it. I'm frustrated and tired. I think I'm getting too much sun. The tops of my feet and shoulders were sunburned in Sydney. Now my knees are burned just from the six hour car ride to and then six hours back from Napier this weekend. I did most of the driving because Patrick was tired. He must feel that he's perfect for "backseat driving" because he tried to keep telling me what to do. The best thing I found to counter that is to slow down - get in the slow lane - keep two car lengths distance from the car in front of you - and turn on the radio. Doing eighty on the highway isn't hurting anybody when the speed limit is one hundred km/h - but it drives him round the bend.

I'm a little tired of guarding all of my emails since they are now sent to both my friends/family and Patrick's. Patrick's side is just going to have to deal. So now you get all the emotional little outburst I usually generate from time to time - not all the time. . . But a few of my friends refer to me as the Drama Queen.

This first picture is all over the place before you reach the lovely pebble/rock beach in Napier (which looks onto the pacific ocean). The waves don't look anything like Muriwai or Bethel's, but I guess they're dangerous.

I don't understand Patrick. He says he doesn't like going to the beach, but he's always willing to walk down to the water when we reach a beach.

All of the evergreens here are farmed. They grow em to cut em down for just about anything. They are in perfect rows and they are all roughly the same height. I don't know if you can make them out in the distance, but there they are.

Here are some of the new trees they're planting on this tree farm. There was a sign on a light post on Queen Street saying something about tree farming and some upcoming even lobbying against tree farming. I meant to go back and take a picture, but I haven't. Those signs come down pretty quickly.

On the way to Napier we passed through grapevine country (Hawkes Bay) and it was gorgeous. This weekend, one of the wineries was having a little shindig where you dress up in your thirties classics and taste wine under the canopy. We saw sheep amongst some of the vines as well. When we first got into the heart of Napier we saw this lovely place with those palm trees. We found out that it was "Tin Town" after a giant earthquake (7.something) knocked down most of the town in February 1931. Tin Town was where some of the shops (by lottery) could re open for a time while the city of Napier was being rebuilt. Insurance wouldn't cover anything because it was "an act of god" so everyone in town was SOL and probably had two mortgages during the time of the great depression.

The entire city is done in Art Deco. It's very cool. There are no tram lines, all of the power and telephone lines are underground, and all of the buildings are made of reinforced concrete. Fire had done more damage to the city than the earthquake did - only three buildings in the downtown core were still standing after the fires and quake.

They are pretty big on bells in Napier. While we were there, the church bells went off at four thirty and didn't stop until four forty. It was gorgeous. These bells go off every half hour between eleven thirty and two pm. The city brings out the bell from the HMS Veronica on special occasions and hang it in a square by the beach.

With all of the Art Deco there are lead lights windows in a number of shops. Most of them are done in the Art Deco way, with sunbursts etc, but this one was my favorite. It was right around the corner from the motel we managed to get a room in. It's a long weekend for the southern half of the north island. Our long weekend is next weekend.

Patrick loved this fire escape.

He really loved this building too.

I totally loved this painting with the real light, I thought that was awesome. I commented on it to one of the girls in our tour group (we did a walking tour to get more info on the buildings and earthquake) and she was just looking for the loo . . .

We stopped at the Info Centre first. Patrick took off to use the facilities and I found this stuffed sheep that you can really sit on. The Info Centre lady managed to find us a room for the night. After six hours of driving, we weren't about to turn around and drive back home.

We looked at the museum and walked to the NZ aquarium and got to pet a skink. It was mostly a lot of driving. We had a nice quiet dinner at a pub. I'm exhausted. I think it's from too much sun.

much love, the web site has been updated

April Mom

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