Weekend update ..

Another week flies by, followed closely by another equally hectic weekend. Its good to get back on a nice schedule and see the kids get comfortable with their surroundings and consider this their new home :)

Mari and the kids went to the Friday market at Founders primarily to get some delicous bread and baked goods from the awesome Founders bakery. The market is worth a visit just for the delicious ciabatta, whole wheat loaf and canale. Saturday morning, mari took off a bit early to go biking while I fed the kids and got them ready for the day. We met mari later on at Morrison Cafe and headed to the Saturday Market for our weekly produce / fruit / meat shopping. We really enjoy the market and are starting to build a good relationship with some of the suppliers. I also realized that our egg supplier also supplies free range chicken (but does not have a sign for that, since she has limited quantity!). We also frequent a great crepe place for crepes (Kaffey's). Some of our other favorite stalls include the my pie lady, the mussel man, the organic salmon lady and the cheese folks.

The saturday market includes quite a few craft stalls. We bought a very cute drawing table of the right size with two chairs from a local craftsman called Bruce Monro (s_bmonro at hyper dot net dot nz). Maya and PJ have been doing a lot of chalk drawing on it outside while we cook in the kitchen (and can keep them in the corner of our eye)

On Sunday we went to the Brightwater Wine, Food and Music festival. It was definitely the happening place in Nelson that day and drew a large crowd. It was a bit like the Saturday market with wineries in a much larger space. The music was quite good, and there were a few activities for the kids (bouncy tent, face painting, tractor ride, ice cream). We spent a good three hours there before heading home to rest and get ready for the week ahead

I made a pretty awesome chicken adobo and brown rice for dinner Sunday nite. The kids loved it and chowed down quite a bit. I put in a few lobo modification (fried onions and potatoes to improve on the recipe. We also used a few things that mari's mom puts in here adobo (star anise, brown sugar). Monday nite, i attempted to make, picnic fried chicken and was not too happy with the results. Not sure if i'll attempt that dish again or what went wrong :(