Happy Pension!

Happy 65th Birthday Dad!

Today my dad reached a huge milestone! Now he gets a Super Gold card!

Tonight we celebrated his 65th by having a family dinner at the our cousins' house. Not too many showed up because some of the relatives had other events to attend, but at least there were still quite a few! We also invited the Tans along.

We had these pizza vouchers we bought not too long ago on one of those one-day deal websites (ten vouchers to be precise) and we had to use them up by the end of the week, so we brought along three pizzas to the dinner!



Once again we all got really bloated at the dinner! There is always so much food and the dessert is so filling! There is even quite a bit left over!

The Tans gave our dad this cool hat that makes him look a little stylish for his age (he should try wear it around the place!).

We waited till we got home to give him our present - an iPad! Our old computer is always dying on him and he's always been talking about the iPad and what it can do, so I thought maybe we should get him one!

Enjoy, dad!

Chopping it Off

Today after music teaching I came home to news that the neighbours were trimming the trees lining our driveway and needed our help, so my brothers went out and helped shift branches and other stuff that had fallen on the driveway.

The neighbours cut the feijoa tree back quite a bit, so much that we were afraid our dad wouldn't be happy as we wouldn't get that many feijoas next season!

We spent a few hours outside raking the leaves and putting everything into one pile ready for collection. I have to admit it's probably the most work I've done outside since I started working full-time!

While we were working, there seemed to be quite a bit more traffic coming down our road, including buses (our road isn't a bus route)! It looked as though the main road was blocked off and traffic had been diverted down our road. No wonder there was a huge queue of cars down our road!

Our driveway did look quite a lot tidier after though!

Late Night McMunchies

We had a very interesting discussion at youth group tonight - sex and relationships. The boys and girls were separated and had our own discussions. We discussed things like our views on sex before marriage, how far is too far, whether there is 'the one', and other questions.

I won't write what was actually said here because what is said in the group should stay in the group!

A few of us stopped by McDonald's on the way home for a quick bite though. My brothers, Grace, Ben and I met up with Wei there, and bumped into Eva and James who were just stopping by to get something to eat. We also bumped into Cleo, which was a nice surprise since we haven't seen her in a while!

It was originally meant to be a quick thing, but we ended up staying for almost an hour (half an hour after midnight) continuing the discussion we had at church! It was quite interesting, with the different setting (more relaxed setting) allowing us to talk about all sorts of other things!

It was my week to lead worship at youth group though, and usually I would get someone to play piano to accompany me, but Aonghas has been busy preparing for exams and I felt bad for asking the others. I also had in my mind that the songs would sound better with a guitar. The only problem is that..I can't play guitar! I had a go at one of our guitars at home and quickly gave up when I just couldn't hack it.

The ukulele hasn't been too difficult to play, but it just sounds too high and tinny to be taken seriously! I discovered that there is such a thing as a baritone ukulele which is a bit bigger and sounds lower, almost like a guitar! The best thing about it? It only has four strings, so it's a lot easier to play than the guitar!

I originally was going to get Aonghas to buy one for me yesterday so I could practise last night, but they said they'd have to order it in and it wouldn't arrive till this afternoon! I guess that was OK. I just had to practise the different chord positions on my small ukulele and then transfer it to the baritone ukulele after work.

Fortunately it wasn't too hard and didn't take too long to pick it up! Hopefully worship sounded OK!

Put in a Pot

Tim invited me to dinner tonight after work which was exciting as I haven't done anything with myself after work ever since sitting my exam and having all this free time! Finally I had something to look forward to!

Tim picked me up after work and we were joined by Andrew, who had just finished his last exam today. We went to Sichuan Restaurant in Newmarket where we had steamboat (that's what I think it's called? Apparently others reckon it's actually called fish-pot or hot-pot?).

My greatest fear with steamboat is not cooking food properly and getting sick a few hours later! However, with Tim and Andrew being pros at this I didn't have anything to fear!

There was both raw and cooked food all on plates/trays along a table and you could just help yourself to whatever you wanted. We grabbed a bit of meat, some little octopuses, tofu, fish balls and crab meat. Some of the cooked food included egg tarts, noodles, rice and other deep-fried food!

There was a boiling pot on a stove in the middle of our table where we put in our raw food to cook. It was split into two halves - one spicy side and one normal side. I put my food in the normal side of course!

We spent the night eating and talking about all sorts of things, like my love life (it seems to be a favourite topic for some!)

By the end of the night I was quite full! We left to go pick up Tim's wife Gabrielle, having to circle around the block a few times before we found her.

I really enjoyed the night out! With no exams to study for...for now, I have a lot more free time, so I'll have to do this a bit more often!

(http://youtu.be/ggEvPsh9j30)

New Zealand's Newest Piecon

Today after church our mum had originally made us lunch to eat, but Winston was keen on trying the new pie KFC are selling. My mum changed her mind and let us walk across the road to KFC to buy one and give it a go.

We used an online coupon to get free regular fries along with our pie so that was a bonus!

The verdict? It was quite yummy. It had chicken inside it, and the filling tasted like potato gravy! If only it was bigger though!

(http://youtu.be/gItyBrUAHJI)