Fireworks go off with a Bang!

Tonight was the annual Waitakere Fireworks display at the Trusts Stadium. It almost didn't happen and was originally postponed, but fortunately it was un-postponed!

It's too expensive for us to pay to go in and watch the fireworks, but we're lucky our church is right across the road, so we can just watch them from there.

We showed up at about 8pm after dinner. We were originally tossing up between going out for dinner to celebrate Hamish's birthday (which is tomorrow), or just to eat in and celebrate it another time. We ended up staying home for dinner.

It was only once the stunt planes flew noisily over our house in formation that we started realising we should really get a move on!

As we drove to church, there were quite a few people sitting on the banks opposite the stadium ready to watch the fireworks for free. There must be a lot of cheap people like us in West Auckland!

When we got to church, the other fellowship was already there playing games. There were a few people from my own fellowship who had already shown up and joined in with them.

They were all sitting in a circle playing this game called Do You Love Your Neighbour? If you say 'yes', everyone has to swap seats, and the last person standing is stuck in the middle. If you say 'no', then only the two people beside you have to swap seats and you have to try swap seats with them without being the last person standing. Sound confusing? It was for me the first few times!

We were about to play this other game which required us to get into several teams. We were then given a few Chinese characters. Each team member would pick one character and call it out right at the same time, and the opposing team would have to guess what Chinese characters had been said and then use them to make a sentence or phrase.

We didn't get too far before the fireworks were about to start and we all rushed outside!

The fireworks started off slow and small, but they started to get bigger and bigger. Once again, car alarms were set off, and despite our car being parked at the far end of the car park, I had the beeper to turn it off every once in a while!

I'll let the photos do the talking though.

(http://youtu.be/h78JJwExQHo)

New Years at the Bay

Last night we got together with a few other families from church to welcome in the New Year at Mission Bay. It was really a last minute decision, and we hadn't really planned it properly!

Originally the plan was to meet up for dinner, then hang out at Mission Bay and watch the Sky Tower fireworks at midnight from there. However, we ended up deciding to have dinner at home, then meet up at 8 and go to Mission Bay.

We ended up getting to Mission Bay by around 9.30pm. By then it was starting to get dark. We got to the park, then realised we didn't really have much to do!

We hung around the fountain for a while, being asked by strangers to help take photos for them.

It was starting to get a little cold, so we decided to do a bit of really show window-shopping, which wasn't really window shopping, considering most of the shops were restaurants! They were quite packed though!

Next thing you know, we were at Kiwiyo. We had a few samples before a few of the guys bought a cup.

I decided not to, as I'm on a tight budget now and wanted to save up for Burger King (I only had pudding for dinner after all!).

We started walking back down the road, towards Burger King when we found out...Burger King had closed early today! Nooooooo!!!

There were still two hours to go till midnight and we didn't have much to do, so we headed back to the beach. Aonghas and I went back to the car to grab a ball and a mat for people to sit on. We were parked further down the road, yet we couldn't see the Sky Tower from where our car was parked. The Sky Tower wasn't visible from the beach either. We were going to have to walk right around the bay to see the skyline.

Really good weather

The rest of the group met with us, and we walked along the road, around the bay and eventually found ourselves along this really long wharf.

By then it was about 20 minutes till midnight. We found a good spot on the wharf and waited in anticipation! It was a little awkward, with a few couples holding each other on either side!

Finally at midnight the fireworks went off and everyone cheered and celebrated!

Happy New Year!

(http://youtu.be/MwkpQ9eyCRw)

Growing the Family

Tonight the Andersons and the Brens all met together again for a big family dinner. There was a special reason for tonight's family dinner though - Martyn was bringing along Bronwyn (his new girlfriend) and her family along to meet all of us!

Martyn and his girlfriend along with her two younger sisters made a surprise visit on the night of the Rugby World Cup Grand Final, seeing our house in all its messy glory!

Anyway, once again we all got bloated eating wonderfully yummy food. I tried to pace myself so I wouldn't get bloated too soon, but after two plates I was already quite full, and there was dessert to come!

I really love dessert. There's always nice cakes, truffles, jelly and ice-cream! I'm just always too full to enjoy it!

We went outside to light...or watch our cousin Graeme light some fireworks.

They were from The Warehouse though so....think little fountain fireworks and those 12 shot fireworks!

We did have fun with the sparklers though, attempting to spell words in photos with them!

It was a great night catching up with the whole family tonight, and we might just be able to add South African to the growing list of nationalities that make up our extended family!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZM6ANaWKq0)

Happy Anniversary Auckland!

Tomorrow is Auckland Anniversary, and so the Auckland Council put on a HUGE fireworks display over the harbour tonight to celebrate!

As usual, we left quite late so that there wasn't any parking around, and the fireworks started while we were still driving around the waterfront! That's when we just decided we'd just drive as close to the wharf as possible, park wherever we were and get out to watch the fireworks. It turns out that many others had the exact same idea! There were all these cars just parked in the middle of the wharf with their occupants getting out to watch the fireworks! Fortunately there was no police around!

From what we could see, the fireworks were quite big and lasted for a few minutes.

Once they were over though, there was a massive car-jam but somehow all the cars managed to leave in a somewhat organised manner!

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Man there is so much to talk about. Yesterday (Friday 31 December) I was invited by my Korean twin friends Hyun and Joon to go to the movies with them. Surprisingly, my mum gave me permission to go! We watched National Treasure (starring Nicholas Cage and Sean Bean). It turned out to be a great movie! Nicholas Cage was good as usual. My brothers came with me and we stayed right to the end, even after the credits had finished, as we wanted to make the most of our $7.50 ticket. Hamish and I bought children’s tickets. Hyun went up to buy one and the person at the counter asked him how old he was. He answered:

“I’m um…….about 12….”

That sounds pretty convincing! Anyway, fortunately they believed him. I can now say that in 2004, I watched ONE movie! Yay!!! On the very last day of the year as well! The last movie I had seen was Looney Tunes in December 2003 with Chen and his cousin Diane.

We spent last night at the First Light 2005 Event at Aotea Square. The main thing that impresses me is the fact that the event is alcohol and drug-free. How do they control this you may ask, especially in today’s world, full of people influenced by such heinous things? They put up a fence right around the whole building and square, with a few guarded entrances. The guards would search your bags for any alcohol, etc. You may think that it would’ve felt like we were trapped within a fence, but you could barely notice it, and the absence of an alcoholic smell was very refreshing. Now if only it could be smokefree…

We watched a few Classical Chinese performances of people playing Chinese instruments. After that, we checked out the stalls and other stages. There was a karaoke stage with this really HORRIBLE singer. However, on the main stage outside there were performances by Deceptikonz, Tadpole, Adeaze and Goodshirt. I was really looking forward to Adeaze because I’m still not sick of their song ‘Getting Stronger’!

I met a really good friend last night as well…Teresa! The last time I met her was when she dressed up as a student from Rutherford College and visited us one day when she had a day off from her real school. Although she pretended to be a student visiting for a day, she sure had the teachers fooled. Last night she was with her boyfriend Steve (I hope I got his name right!), but yeah it was pretty cool catching up and seeing her again.

When the clock struck midnight, fireworks shot out from the Sky Tower in all different directions! It was great. There were many couples all round the place hugging each other as they watched the fireworks, it was really cool. On our way back to the car we witnessed a guy and a girl round a corner beginning to make out!

Anyway, it’s 2am now and I’ve got to get off to bed so I can start off the new year 2005!