Seals and The Weather

Seals: I don't know how often this happens... Or if it ever has is Mt Wellington.... (I know a couple were seen in Mangere a month or so ago, but apart from that I have never heard of seals coming down the rivers).

Whilst visiting Mum yesterday someone spotted a seal in the river, so naturally, everyone ran over to the windows to take a look- surely enough, a seal who was eating a fish and then clapping his finns at us! Happily swimming around for a good 20 minutes or so- it looked like it was going to tip a kayaker over at one point!

And the weather. 

I'm pretty sure this is not "normal Auckland weather"...

It has hailed four times in three days so far, and the second lot today did this:

(My car- took about 5 minutes to make the windscreen clear (and the car warm) enough to drive!!)

(You could hear and feel the ice crunching and making the road slippery under the tyres when driving too! Wasn't overly pleasant, and then the melting of the hail caused it to flood a little too).

The roads and cars and everything was covered in hail stones for ages (an hour later it still is a little bit) while it rained and hailed and rained some more! 

It was funny watching people take photos of all the cars covered in it- shows how not normal and rare it is here!

The last time I remember something like his happening was in year 12 (2012) at school lunchtime where people swore it was hail/ sleet/ and some said snow..


Here is a link to the national newspaper story about it too (if your interested)- http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11494851

(There was also a funnel cloud spotted about the North Shore area as well, which people were worrying about becoming a tornado)

SUMMER

I have left my blog alone over the summer, but decided that I would write something today.  Following on from my last post- I completed all my exams from Semester Two, 2014 (passed them all) and then I have also just (yesterday) sat my exam for the summer school paper I talked about doing (Bioscience: Impaired Body Function).

Over the summer period, I worked a little, did quite a lot of study for my paper including spending ALOT of time writing assignments, but I also did some fun things with the family.  These included getting to go swimming heaps at the beach, and in our pool we set up on the lawn, going down the waterslide in the pouring rain, walking up Rangitoto and doing a walk at Wenderholm Regional Park, and I also had all of my wisdom teeth out! It was a rather eventful summer, and I am looking forward to getting back into study again next week as I start back for Semester One on Monday!

Oh, I also did a whole lot of Grey's Anatomy watching... when I could. I bought the first season when I had my break between exams and starting SummerSchool, and then I bought the second season once I was nearly finished the first so I had something to go on with, my plan is to buy the third in the coming weeks, and hopefully watch all Grey's before watching the most recent season which started in NZ last night (which we forgot about and didn't record).

Mangawhai Beach

Volcanic Rock on Rangitoto

Top of Rangitoto!

Going down into one of the caves

Eloise and Anna walking back to catch the ferry back to Auckland

Resting after we had walked back down, everyone was tired!

Waterslide!!! 7pm with rain and thunder (not that it looks like it).

TV Habits.. Told you I would

Yeah, my tv habits are not the best.

I spend maybe two hours infront of the TV some days, none other days.  I record a lot of programs on the TV box to watch later as often I am not home to watch them.  It doesn't help that when i go away for two weeks all the programs set to record get deleted though... Parents that don't know how to work the telle...  That instance I was able to catch up online though, so it wasn't too bad.

Every night I record/ watch Home and Away which is an Australian program that aires over here mon-fri at 5.30pm, and then Shortland Street which is a New Zealand program airing also mon-fri at 7pm.

Then I also watch a couple mindless comedies or just random programs where you don't really have to follow whats going on which means you don't have to think to hard!! Ha.

The one hour weekly shows I watch are Grey's Anatomy (finally caught up on during the last school holidays!!!), Private practice (I haven't yet started watching this season thats been on for a couple months... they are waiting for me...) and when we did have Sky TV I would constantly have Air Crash Investigation on as I have a love for planes and just the mechanics and stories behind it all.  Doesn't scare me off flying either!!

I have a love for documentaries too but we don't exactly get that many any more because we only have freeview and not sky which means that we have the basic TV programs you can get here.

On December 1st the whole country will be digital and that means that you must have a box which you get the TV channels through, for most people (everywhere but Auckland/Northland) are digital already.  Its been in process of happening for the last 2 years or so.

I miss the sky, but I managed to get Mum to buy the freeview box that recorded 2 channels at once while you can watch another.  If we didn't have it, we would be paying a ton in internet usage as I would be streaming it through tvnzondemand or the TV3 one...

How do you write so much about TV your wondering? I have no idea what the answer is to that apart from the fact I like waffling and thats how I managed to pass a Bio test I just did a couple days ago... add in the right term in the right context and waffle your life away... and then pass, more than the pass rate threshold too!! LOL.

Skyping with JUDY!!

I have had a really awesome evening skyping Judy!  All the way over in Germany, and I, well, as always, in little old New Zealand.

We don't talk over skype to often as having to juggle the time differences and school and activities and all but when we do get to skype it is awesome being able to catch up in real time person!!

I first met Judy at school, as she was an international student and hung out with our group of friends at break times, we have since remained close when she left and still talk and write to each other on a regular basis :)

Making connections across the world is so awesome! I now want to go over the Germany, I even have a place to stay ;-)

Sweet Treats

Here are some of the cakes that I have made with my friends over the last six months.

I really enjoy baking, especially when it is for someone else, I just don't like the dishes and cleaning up afterwards.

I have a love of sweet, sweet, and more sweet :).

This is the cake Taylor and I made for mums 51st birthday.

I made this cake for my Uncle for helping me with the construction for my biology experiment.

It must have been the beginning of April for my friend Danielle's 17th birthday we decided to bake a cake together, it wasn't exactly an ordinary cake that you may bake... It was quite different, well to the normal chocolate, vanilla, or banana cakes normally made around my house for birthdays.  This was a PIGGY cake of sorts.

 A couple weeks after we had made that cake, a really good friend, Judy, that I had made at school from Germany was leaving to go back, and so for her last night in New Zealand we had a sleepover at  Taylor's house and made her a "Goodbye Cake", it was the best Vanilla cake I have ever had!!

 Then recently during a study period at school as when we have them period 5 after lunch we are allowed to leave school at lunch time, Taylor and I went over to her house and we made cupcakes which got shared with her family, and her neighbors little girl.

I hope to be making more soon :)