More adventures in NZ with visitors ...

On Friday evening, I picked Jill, Marley and Lynn from Nelson airport. They came in via Queenstown -> Christchurch -> Nelson. PJ and Maya were quite excited and awaited the arrival of their neighbour and friend Marley. We were waiting from the window of the house for their plane to land. Its so convenient to have the airport literally at your doorstep (a 5 min ride). We had a leftover dinner that night which includes some lamb, chicken adobo and rice.

The next day we went to the Nelson Saturday market and had our regular crepe breakfast from Kaffeys (8/10) along with Divine Coffee. Joonsuk, Julie and Devin arrived earlier in the morning from San Francisco, so I biked over to pick them up and get them to the market. It was so good to see and talk to familiar faces. We spent some time at Riverside playground, before walking down to Morrison Cafe for a late lunch. Morrison Cafe has so far met and exceeded expectations and has been a hit with all our visitors. We decided to cook a big meal at home that night. Jill made a fabulous moroccan lamb stew, Mari made a great big tray of veggie lasagna with yummy portabello mushrooms, Lynn made vanilla and honey icecream, while my contribution was yummy brown rice :) (actually Joonsuk and I took the kids to the playground for an hour to give the cooks some peace and quiet).

The next day we went to Motueka farmers market on our way to Kaiteriteri beach. Jill and Lynn took the scenic route and went half way to Murchison before turning back and coming to Motueka via Motueka Valley Road. Jill had some delicious muffins from the Muffin Madness in Motueka, while Joonsuk, Julie and Devin feasted on German sausage. The weather was nice and sunny (in contrast to our visit with JD where it was a bit cold and cloudy). Since we had a good adult / kid ratio ( 6 / 4 ), we decided to take advantage of the numbers and rented two double kayaks from Kaiteriteri Kayaks and kayaked a bit of Abel Tasman. Since Mari got her exercise doing some laps in Tasman Bay, I got to go on the kayak trip. Joonsuk and me were in one double, while Jill and Lynn were in the other double kayak. We headed towards Marahau Bay and it was good to be out paddling. Been quite a few years since I did it, and I suspect we'll want to do more of it, now that the kids are getting older. We had a good time in the water and headed back to the beach and the kids. Maya and PJ met some friends from school at the beach. The older kids found a couple of dead crabs and decided to hold a funeral and memorial service for the crabs. PJ and Marley were quite serious and grave faced at the service, while Maya was happy doing her own thing.

Since it was pretty late, we decided to have a fish and chips dinner and took the group to the Haven Fish and Chips place. We got an assortment of fish (Blue Cod, Blue Nose, Tarakihi, fish kebab, scallops, mussels, crab sticks) and chips. We also ventured into dessert this time and got fried bananas. Mari reprimanded me for not including this in our previous dinners. The weather was quite nice, so it was a good treat to be eating newspaper fish and chips overlooking tasman bay.

The next day Joonsuk and Julie drove to Havelock. They had the mussell platter at Slip Inn and also took the Green Mussell Cruise from Havelock.It was a good trip since they got to see a fair amount of Marlborough sounds and did not have to drive all the way into Picton. We offered to babysit Devin that night while they went and spent some quality time at a restaurant, but they were a bit too stuffed from the mussell trip. We had another good feast that night. We made Lamb tikka masala, rig fish in teriyaki sauce, and stir fried pumpkin and sweet onions (which were delicious). Lynn topped off the meal by making lavender icecream. We bid farewell to Joon and Julie and will meet them in 10 days in Russell (Northland)