Stuart's birthday

It was Stuart's birthday on Monday. He got up at 0530 and went on aschool trip to look at tertiary institutes in Auckland. His coach broke down on the way home on Tuesday, so we had a birthday meal for him on Wednesday.

Eric made a very nice cake, "sponge" with cream and home grown strawberries on top. "Sponge" because he had forgotten the recipe and made it up. As the lady who sold me the cream said "Cream can hide a lot of mistakes".

Eric has been busy doing exams. Two last week and ywo more this week then he is through. Fingers crossed. These are his NCEA Level One externals. Most of the course is internally assessed.

We have been having some pretty spring weather. Or is it Summer now. It has certainly been pretty hot. Good sunsets too.

We went over to Mike and Rissy's last night for a bbq. I couldn't resist the shot of Chantelle keeping warm and looking like a granny. I will probably be told to remove it. It has to be better than the pictures of Zephyr being chased around the garden by Jimmy.

 

 

 

 

More fishing

Now some people have commented that a lot of the posts on here are about fishing.
Very true ... so here is another one!
We took Chantelle out on Saturday with Merv on his big boat - the Tiare - to go out to sea and to do some fishing.

Merv is a very accommodating skipper. He took us to the Moturoa Islands off the northern tip of the Karikari peninsular. We saw heaps of seabird and caught some cool fish. We sang happy birthday with a cake and candles just before it started to get rough. Then Stuart drove us part of the way home into a 25knot headwind. It was not the smoothest ride, but we all felt very safe. I certainly would not have liked to have been out in a kayak.

Chantelle caught a huge snapper on a handline, and we managed to capture the action on video so take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb2y7SgUfOk&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL&noredirect=1

birthday cake on board vid