Change is good ...

So its coming close to two months since we left our home, friends and family in San Francisco and moved down under to Nelson, NZ. As some of you who've been following this blog a bit too closely know, the first few weeks were a bit rough and unsettled (relatively speaking). However, now that we have settled down and gotten pretty much most things sorted out, Its time to step back and revisit the situation and our thoughts about it.

Mari's brother, Ruben, is famous for his "Things Change" statement made at a family function a few years ago. I'd like add a corollary to that: Change is Good that definitely applies to our current situation.

It has been great for us as a family. We've become even more outdoorsy than we were in San Francisco (yes, hard to believe, but true). We spend a lot more time around the kitchen table during breakfast and dinner having a good chat (with some decent wine most of the time!)

The kids have blossomed and are well on their way to becoming truly certified beach bums. Maya insisted on getting boogie boards for PJ and herself so they could join the other kids and go boogie boarding. They do look quite funny with their swimming goggle's and pulling their boogie boards. We pretty much go to a swimming pool or the beach on a daily basis.

The town is small enough and the traffic quite sparse that the kids can ride their bike and tryke to most places including the playground and swimming pool. Very different from what we used to do in San Francisco (drive to Sausalito with their bikes). I suspect this might change a bit when we move to our place in Tahuna, since its on a fairly steep hill.

We also frequent the library on a weekly basis and get the kids to pick up a few books that they fancy. This seems to be working out quite well as we get to read them different books on a weekly basis. We dont miss the different books we had in san francisco. Maya still has her fascination with books that revolve around hospitals and doctors, and she insists on those being read at least a couple of times a week.

We do a whole lot of cooking and baking to replicate the things we miss from SF. Its been nice to be eating all the yummy treats Mari and Cecile have been baking from the wonderful Tartine cookbook. We've also tried quite a few new dishes in the recent past to add a bit more variety to our repertoire. Last nite we made a pretty awesome mussel marinieres dish with locally grown Havelock mussels (I suspect i'll be making this dish for visitors!)