where has February gone?

Well it's nearing the end of the month. Can't believe it's nearly been 2 months already! And I've been in my new job for 6 weeks now! In fact, this weekend, I'm on call for the first time. So far, so good - no calls. But I'm also on call until Friday, so it's early days.

Thought I might do another summary of what I've been up to this month, seeing as I last updated when we had Auckland Anniversary weekend.

Waitangi weekend was the following weekend, but as it was a Tuesday, and I don't have any leave yet, Paula and I drew the short straws to work the Monday in between. I didn't mind really. There weren't many calls coming in as over half the building had the day off. Think our floor had about 5 people out of about 40. I didn't do much during the weekend, just relaxed.

Thursday 15th was Rebecca's baby shower. Becks used to be my senior (almost my boss really) at my old job in Tokoroa. She's due about mid March I think, and Fri 16th was her last day at work. I headed down to Tokoroa and snuck into the IT office to say hello. She didn't know I'd be coming down for it. We were emailing that day, and she did say she wondered why I didn't answer her last message - cause I was halfway to Tok by then! It was great to catch up with people from my old work. I do miss some of the people from down there but I'm slowly making friends with people at my new job.

On 21st Feb I started a new night course - Wedding Photography! I really loved doing the photography course last term so when I saw this one, I thought why not?! It's one of the tutors we had last term. There were a couple of people from the other course attending too. I'm not changing profession, but this course is mainly going to help with taking photos of people (in white dresses or not). It more about lighting and composition. We even have a field trip next week, I think! Not sure if we're going to a wedding or just practicing taking photos of people outdoors.

On the 22nd, Rach, Cam, Jo and I went to one of the shows from the Hamilton Gardens Summer Festival. It was called Game Show with a few out-of-work, exShortland Street actors. It was like a lecture on how to make the most of a game show, how to be a good contestent, etc. It had us in fits of laughter for a solid 1.5 hours. It was very well done. Pam and I went to a show they produced a couple of years ago at the festival. They do something every year.

Oh, last weekend some of us went to Tauranga to Di's place to have a sneaky peak at the new Camp Quality video. She's done a fantastic job of it! I also got all my films developed that I took at camp. If I do say so myself, most of them weren't too bad!! I do prefer taking photos of people than scenery. And seeing all the photos and the video, just makes me excited and I want to go back to camp! I'll just have to wait til 6 May for reunion. Sooooo far away!!

holidays!

well seeing as I've started a new job, I don't have any leave to take days off. So because of this, I'm taking full advantage of long weekends. 26-29 January saw Auckland Anniversary on Monday 29th, therefore making a 3 day weekend.

Cameron, Rachel, Debra and myself headed to Taupo on Friday evening for some relaxation out of the cities (Debra's from Auckland). We stayed in a tiny cabin at the Great Lakes Holiday Park, which is just out of Taupo, on the way to Acacia Bay. It was about 5km from town, so far away enough to be peaceful, but close enough to still get into town.
We got to Taupo at about 7.30pm, and after checking in then finding something for dinner, Friday was written off.

On Saturday we had a nice sleep-in and then headed into town. We decided to cruise and just relax. We went and played mini-putt. Beautiful scenery as it's right on the lake front - good thing really, as we were behind 3 groups of the SLOWEST players EVER! The sun was hot but we were happy to just be enjoying the fine weather. We then got some makings of a picnic lunch and sat by the lakeside. It was beautiful! Now that was holiday mode! In the afternoon we pushed Debra off the cliff. OK OK, she jumped. We managed to convince her to do a bungy jump!! So much easier to talk about than do! There is no way you'll catch me doing that! For the rest of the weekend, Debra was buzzing!!! See her blog site for photos! Saturday night we had a bbq at the camp with a few drinks. It was a nice relaxing evening!

On Sunday we decided to go out to Taupo Adventure Park to see what's out there. Besides a VERY high ropes course, they had an animal farm, buggy kart things and a maze. They all cost the earth except the maze, so we opted for that. Of course I was the last one through it! We all went seperate directions on entering the maze. I wanted to follow my instincts but I thought I should try a different way than everyone else, to be fair. Of course, I would've got out a lot sooner, had I listened to myself!! We had a cruisy afternoon and got dressed up to go out for dinner. We went to a steakhouse. I thought I'd splash out and get a scotch fillet! Dumb idea. Half of it was gristle and fat. Not overlly impressed. Dessert was fantastic though! We wandered the streets for a bit then took a bit of a drive to see the lights and sights of Taupo!

Monday we just headed home and had another sleep!!!! WHAT?! We couldn't sleep-in as we had to check out by 10am!

I really enjoyed the weekend and was just great to hang out with some mates and relax.

Photos from Camp Quality Ball

Here are a couple of photos from our Ties & Tiaras Ball at Camp Quality

Me, Jo and Mum

Me, Jo, Lorraine, Mum, Brigitte
The Mortens are close family friends, who got us involved with Camp Quality!