Christmas in Auckland - on the beach!

Christmas morning we got up early and drove out to Ponsonby to Vanessa's friends, Nicky and Merv's, house.  On the way, we passed a sign that was just too true:

At Nicky and Merv's, we skyped with the parental and grand-parental units while Todd made tortillas and streaky bacon.  Christmas breakfast was GREAT.  Unfortunately, Lorena liked the tortillas so we had to share with her.  Graham also made a genius move and used tortillas to make bacon butties.  So yum.

tortillas and streaky bacon!

After breakfast we opened presents.  We nominated Vanessa to play Santa.  Lorena and I came away NZ twins with (practically) matching NZ change purses, bags and jewelry.  Todd got a cricket game that he was most excited to try out.  Laura got her pounamu (a jade necklace carved into the Maori Triple Twist symbolizing the bonding of two people for eternity).  Vanessa got the promise of an afghan from me and Graham got some models to make.  Then I wrapped up Nicky and Merv's kitty Murray.  He didn't seem to mind too much.

After presents, we explored the nearby beach...

And then we found a playground with an awesome rope thing to climb.  I've been to many playgrounds in the states and around the world (well, pretty much just in the Tiergarten, but that still counts as an international playground) and this one was super cool!!  They've got things that we just don't have in the states - or at least, I haven't seen them.  There are mini zip lines, and this rope course thing, and the ground wasn't hard gravel but rubbery stuff!  Did I mention I'm simple?  Regardless, cool play things.  I was in a skirt so the climbing up high presented a brief dilemma.... however, I had an extra hair elastic so I fashioned myself some oh-so-sexy baggy shorts out of my skirt and scooted up to the top!  Project Runway... here I come.

that's me at the top, in the middle :)

Graham's missing piece

Back from the beach, we gorged ourselves (even more!) on a ginormous lunch that Vanessa and Graham had been cooking the day before.  Lorena exercised her hand at sketching Merv's new concrete sculpture and Todd and I tried out the cricket set to make sure it worked.  Lorena was the boundary of the cricket field.  If the ball hit her leg: 4 runs.  If it hit her head: 6 runs.  

Before we all passed out napping after lunch, we decided we'd better truly break in the new cricket set.  So, back to the beach!  We played backyard/beach cricket rules.  If you want details, send me a message, otherwise just know it was fun and I would have won if Graham had broken a leg; sadly maiming other players isn't allowed.

We were all taking turns batting and bowling.  Laura was up to bat and this group of 5 Samoan teenagers walked by, started laughing at Laura's cricket playing, kept walking.... and then turned around and asked to play with us.  Laura, never one to back down from stupid boys' mocking, proceeded to mock them back and then batted some great balls that their limbs and fingers got in the way of... But after the first few tense minutes, the guys stopped being quite so annoying, and started batting and bowling as well.. and they were crap!!!  One of the guys was wearing a hat that actually make him look like Bruno Mars, so the rest of the Samoans (and some of the Americans :) ) started singing "Just The Way You Are" to him.  It was pretty classic.  

We watched the Samoans play cricket (we casually fielded - they monopolized the game pretty thoroughly while we watched and laughed at their singing and crap batting) and when they finally took off, we finished our game and headed home.  

On our way back to the backpackers, we drove down Franklin Road.  It's a famous street in Auckland where a large number of the houses are decorated with (supposedly) an obscene amount of Christmas lights and decor, drawing huge crowds over the Christmas season.  ...there were lights on the houses... but if people want to see true decoration excess, they need to visit the States.  However they did achieve the distinction of creating the first real traffic we've hit in New Zealand!  It took us 10 minutes to turn onto the street!  Usually traffic is 3 cars in front of you at a rotary.  But I did see some cool lights set up like a spiderweb.  Not exactly Christmas themed, but cool nonetheless.