Things

I had three things to tell you. I was going to do so on Tuesday as they happened on Monday. But here I am and it's Friday. So... without further ado!

1) On Monday I went for a lovely bike ride. Although it was quite cold. But anyway I got back into my office, was just taking my helmet off, and then this big noise started on the roof... and it was rain! Pretty heavy rain at that! So I thought that was pretty clever of me! (For the record Claire told me that was the most boring of my three things, and to put it first).

2) The second thing was at about that very time I heard another loud noise. It was a vigorous buzzing... so I thought "oh no! a bee or fly is caught inside". I listened a bit closer and realised it was coming from inside my shirt! I looked down my shirt and there was a bee in my shirt!!! I quickly pulled the neck down and it flew out. But the puzzling thing to me is how and when that bee got there!

3) Also relating to the bee, once it had been liberated from my clothing the bee then proceeded to continually fly into the window, as they do, so I decided to catch it and put it outside. I grabbed my pen holder cup and caught it, then grabbed my notepad. The problem with the notepad is it was a bit thick for this job, but it was the first thing I had grabbed. Anyway while keeping the cup pressed firmly against the window (lest the bee escape) I was trying to pry the bee off the window into the cup. I must have been pressing too hard though, being too concerned about letting the bee out because I accidentally chopped the bee in half. I was totally devastated. And I still feel guilty about it :(

In other news I had dinner with Charmain, Mike, Rach and Greg last night. It was lovely. Charmain and Mike are here visiting from Italy so it was fantastic to catch up with them. Really nice evening.

Also tonight we have our hip hop dance recital. Hehe it's so funny. Our dance is about 1.5mins long HAHA! We have only been learning for a term so we got tacked on the back of another group (of 8 year olds or something, who are better than us!). Oh well it will be a bit of a laugh!!!!

Have a great weekend all!

:)
Mindy

SNOW!!!

Hey everyone

Guess what- it's snowing! Yes, I know I'm in Canada but snow in Vancouver apparently isn't that common. It is super awesome snow to. A lot more powdery than back home. Ooooo. I just got an email froma Quebecan. He said if it is still snowing this heavily at 3 this arvo we will make maple toffee. I think that is where they use the syrup to make this mixture which they then pour into the snow. Should be cool!

I got up early this morning to try and get photos before the snow got all mucked up but its still pretty messed up from last night. I went down to the beach, it looked really pretty.

So yeah, it is very cool going christmas decoration shopping (as I did yesterday) with it snowing outside. It is very unlikely there will be snow here on Christmas day but I will see snow right before as I'm going skiing at Whistler and then I'm going up a mountain where they do a whole north pole thing with sleigh rides and ice skating on a big lake. I have to get through exams first though!

Hope everyone is well in sunny nz.

(by the way, this is St. John's College- the residence where I live)

Busy and yet not busy

Well I feel like I've been really busy lately. But I haven't. So go figure. I have been busy at work though so that might have something to do with it.

Exciting things that have happened in the last few weeks. We took Jesse to QEII then to sumner for something to eat. Here's a picture of that:


So yeah that was really fun. I like hanging out with Jesse he's cool. And he's very polite. Which makes him all the more cool really.

Also I saw some ducks. They were at my doorstep. So I took some pictures of them. Hehe. Here they are making their way from my doorstep to the stream:






You can actually see them if you click to enlarge the image.

Other than that stuff I've been trying to do a bit of training for the next triathlon. My hip is still acting up which is annoying though. My new bike is fantastic! I ride it to work everyday and every second day I take it out on a ride at lunchtime.

And also I love Kirsty lots!

Sorry there wasn't much more substance to the update but hey.

:)
Mindy

Random Stuff about me

hello everyone
I havent got much news these days as all im doing is school work (E.g photography) and eating and sleeping. i have no where near the exciting news amy and mindy have about their umbrellas and earring holders.

i am currently trying to study for a media studies exam i have 2morro afternoon and a classics exam on tuesday. sadly i find studying for classics easier than for media so i am lagging behind in my media topics.

But i have some exciting news, school has finished for me! just have the external exams and that is it! it was very sad this week at the leavers assembly, everyone was crying. but we still have the lunch in a few weeks so that should be good!

hmm.. any other news i can say...um well someone lit our school on fire with fireworks. it was $30 000 worth of damage. they found out who it was because stupidly the guy taped himself doing it on his phone and sent it to his ex girlfriend who then went to the police. what a dumb bum!

that is all from me!

Sad News

Just over a week ago I bought a very very nice umbrella. It was the one pictured but in bright pink (yes, the boy's have winked but you have nothing to worry about thomas). It was from a shop that sold only umbrellas and I was told it was very very strong. Then last night this storm hit Vancouver bringing lots and lots of rain and as I was walking today this mammoth gust of wind came along and bent the frame. I think I will try and get it repaired as it is so nice but it is very sad.

Walking around campus is depressing today. It is like a cemetary for dead umbrellas. All the rubbish bins are full of them and there are bits of broken and abandoned umbrellas all over the pavement (note EVERYONE has an umbrella here, it is very rainy). At least mine is still fixable. I have that to be thankful for.

A moments silence for all those who werent as lucky as mine would perhaps be appropriate.

Earring Holder

Well I have been exceptionally bored in the evenings these days. This week especially. I think it is also because this week I have been very tired, thus don't have any energy to do anything really exciting in the evenings so end up staying home bored. Last night though I made something. And it was a very satisfying experience, I would highly recommend it and I will endeavour to make something some other time in my life too! Anyone got any ideas? Here it is:


In case you couldn't figure it out it's an earring holder. Now my earring are all neatly organised. Although it's depressing how many single earrings I have. But this won't be a problem anymore now I've got my holder.

In the spirit of making things I was in a shop at lunch when I saw this and just had to buy it:



Isn't it the best screw driver you ever saw! Anyway I always need a screw driver and end up using Darrens. He has so many tools though and I have hardly any so now I've got this. I'm thinking about slipping it into his tool box one day as a joke too.

:)
Mindy

Bike

My bike is here!

I just checked and see that I don't think I actually mentioned here yet that I bought a new bike. Well I bought a new bike! Well a second hand one off trademe, but I got a fantastic deal! It's a proper road bike and it's so cool! And really fast, well hopefully it'll be fast. Here's a picture:


I've ridden it to work twice now, and took it out at lunch time yesterday. I'm getting used to it, though my butt really hurts now. Will have to invest in some padded cycle pants soon!

Got the second triathlon on Sunday. Not sure how it'll go, I feel like I haven't done too much training recently for it, had to stop running for a week or so because of a sore hip. But I think it should be ok. This one is a 200m swim, 15km bike, and 4km run. I'm hoping it won't take me much more than an hour. But we'll see.

Have a great Friday everyone!

Mindy

Happy Halloween!

Hi everyone
Happy Halloween!
This is probably what I was most looking forward to about living in North America. We had a party at St. John's on Friday night. It was pretty cool. I dressed up as Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty, although shame on you if you did not know that). I must say, I looked pretty cool. I think my face suits green. The costumes were pretty cool and it was a lot of fun.

I have just been on a candy run in case I get trick or treaters. Which is unlikely since I live in a student dorm. And I won't be in my room tonight (I am going to see Rocky Horror).

So, last midterm for a little while today. I will probably fail but at least I wrote something for each question! I am looking forward to maybe taking half a day off this weekend and going shopping for some warm clothes (Canada is freeeezzzzzzing!)

I hope everyone is well in NZ. Only 54 days till I will be home! I am looking forward to seeing everyone and giving a certain someone a great big hug :)

Love to all,
Amy

Last day for 5c!

Well today is the last day you can use 5c pieces in NZ. Wow. Hehe. But really everyone remember to use all your old 5c, 10c, 20c and 50c pieces today! Or even better donate them to charity :) Here's another couple of pictures I did in my moleskine in the weekend. Sorry they are dark, I took the pictures with my phone at night so they're not great.


Sorry about the calligraphy on this one for people who know how the strokes are supposed to go, I just copied them from my tattoos so I didn't do them properly. The left one is on my right inner wrist, the right one is on my left inner wrist. Tranquility and life :)


Hope you all have a great day!

:)
M

The Weekend

Hi Everyone!

Well I had a fantastic weekend. It started off well, Darren and I watched the Da Vinci Code on Friday night. I liked it, but I liked the book so I knew I'd probably like the movie. Then Saturday morning I got up and went for a run, I decided to try three times round the block - been a while since I'd done that. So I went round twice, resisted the urge to head home after that, then on my third time round I saw Mum biking so she biked the last lap with me!

Then Saturday just got even better. Uma, Michiko and Rach came over, Uma was down from Wellington. It is always so nice to catch up with those people. I just always feel comfortable with them no matter how long it's been since the last time.

On Saturday night I was feeling sick so I didn't join Darren going to Dan and Jo's flat warming. I was a bit sad to miss it, but Claire came over and we had tea and watched Take the lead. So that turned out nicely.

Sunday I went for a bike ride in the morning. Then we went to QEII. It was so cool! I hadn't been there since it had changed (apart from on the triathlon, but I wasn't paying much attention to it then). And we went in the wave pool and the whirl pool and had an aqua jogging race and went in the sauna and the steam room (neither one I could stand, I felt like it was easier not to breathe as the air was so heavy, then I couldn't really hold my breathe my longer) and the spa pool. There were so many kids there! I think we were the only ones there without kids but never mind!

Ok that's all for now. Thanks to everyone who said they liked my haircut. I like it more now too.

:)
Mindy

New hair cut

Currently my least favourite in the last 5 years. But it'll grow. I tried to smile in the picture anyway.

Well it's been awhile

Sorry to have been away so long. I guess I just couldn't really be bothered writing anything. Also I've been busy at lunch running and biking and what not. Anyway I might start writing again I reckon. I've decided to mark my return with some pictures (then I don't have to write so much):

This is a picture I drew in my moleskine (google moleskine art for more info).

This is Darren and his nephew Jesse at Jesse's 4th birthday on Sunday. (Jesse is holding the rugby ball we gave him, we also gave him the inflatable rugby posts they're standing in front of).

This is a picture of John because he is my hero.

This is a picture of a picture we have up on our wall, it's a print by Stephen Morath and my Uncle Jim gave it to me and I love it lots.

In other news we still haven't got Stargate Season 9! It came out on DVD in August! One day I got a bit motivated and rang every single bookshop games shop and cd shop in the yellow pages that I thought might have it, but none did. Not sure what I'll do as the one advertised on Amazon is in a box that matches all the other Stargate seasons we have, and the one advertised on NZ sites is a different box. So I guess I'll probably end up just getting it from Amazon. Suppose it doesn't matter as most of them came from there anyway.

Ok that's enough for now you greedy little piggies.

Bye!
Mindy

Room Crawl

Hey guys, just a quick note saying hi
I start midterms on thursday. Yucky yuck yuck.
We had a room crawl at St. John's last night. People are in teams of four or five and they decorate a room and have a drink to go with their theme then everyone goes around the rooms in order. It was pretty fun but I don't think Canadians can drink like NZers can (not that I was drinking, I have to study hard you see)! Plus, its hard to have fun without my boy.
Here are some photos I took
1. We had a news year theme with champagne
2. Willy Wonka- this one was cool, they had oompa loompas and everything (can't be bothered flipping the picture sorry)
3. The red light district
In other news, so I don't have to stress about it anymore I ordered my Halloween Costume yesterday. Its being shipped from the states, I won't tell you what it is until Halloween. This will probably be my only halloween so I have to make it a good one.

Hope all are well,
Amy

Room Crawl

Hey guys, just a quick note saying hi
I start midterms on thursday. Yucky yuck yuck.
We had a room crawl at St. John's last night. People are in teams of four or five and they decorate a room and have a drink to go with their theme then everyone goes around the rooms in order. It was pretty fun but I don't think Canadians can drink like NZers can (not that I was drinking, I have to study hard you see)! Plus, its hard to have fun without my boy.
Here are some photos I took
1. We had a news year theme with champagne
2. Willy Wonka- this one was cool, they had oompa loompas and everything (can't be bothered flipping the picture sorry)
3. The red light district
In other news, so I don't have to stress about it anymore I ordered my Halloween Costume yesterday. Its being shipped from the states, I won't tell you what it is until Halloween. This will probably be my only halloween so I have to make it a good one.

Hope all are well,
Amy

I'm back!

Hi!!!!

I'm back.

I don't have much to say. But I thought I should at least let everyone know I am still alive. As I am.

Actually I thought of something to say. I did my first triathlon on Sunday. It was really fun! But also really hard. I was quite surprised. Silly of me eh. Anyway two more to go in this series. What I really want now is a new bike. But I'm not sure whether I can justify spending the money.

Oh in other news I started doing hip hop dancing lessons with Claire and Kirsty. They are so fun. I can't wait till next Monday! I'm going to become a background dancer I think.

It was really hot yesterday, it's going to be even hotter today! Which is nice, but I don't really feel like going for a run at lunch time. Good thing I went this morning!

:)
Mindy

OH! Very importantly check out Adam's site, there is an awesome photo there.

ok here's another one coz adam had already done that one.

Burning rope

There are two lengths of rope.
Each one can burn in exactly one hour.
They are not necessarily of the same length or width as each other.
They also are not of uniform width (may be wider in middle than on the end), thus burning half of the rope is not necessarily 1/2 hour.

By burning the ropes, how do you measure exactly 45 minutes worth of time?

A quick test of intelligence

ok this one is for amy and adam, but anyone can do it. but DONT CHEAT! Because if you do, the test would be no fun.I promise, there are no tricks to the test.
Read the sentence below and count the F's in that sentence.Count them ONLY ONCE. Do not go back and count them again. as soon as you have counted them once, post a comment and tell me how many you say, then ill tell you what it means.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
IC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY!!!!

It's Amy's birthday today! Well actually it was yesterday, but it is today in Canada because they are behind. I am going to watch Stargate to celebrate and so I can feel closer to her (Stargate is filmed in Vancouver where she is). I wonder if she's ever walked past Jason Momoa, he is the most sexy man in the entire world. :)

Ok well anyway HAPPY BIRTHDAY AME!

Love from Mindy

Photos from the weekend

Hehe I always mange to get the horizon on a diagonal when I take photos! I'm not the best photographer in the world. Anyway I went to Church Bay in the weekend and took some photos with my new phone. I love my new phone. It takes photos.

Bye!

Selling Phone

Also I'm selling my cellphone, it's a samsung x609 great for telecom $10 texts, but no camera, but is working very well, no problems at all. If you know anyone who wants one let me know! I've got it advertised on trademe (click the Buy My Stuff link to view) . I might be able to cut someone a deal if referred from a reader of this site :)

Huge Decision

Hello everyone. I made a huge decision this morning. I am going to return to my natural hair colour. Now this is a big commitment. It will mean weeks, months of having horrible regrowth, until the regrowth becomes all there is. This is very big for me. I started dying my hair when I was about 14 I think, and it hasn't been natural since then. So I don't even know what colour it will be! Probably a boring grey brown. Now is a good sensible time to do it though while I'm keeping my hair short. Here's my hair history:

1997: Died it the first time red
1997-2000: Various shades of red and auburn
2001: Almost grew it out, had about 10cm of regrowth before blonde streaks
2002: Blonde streaks and whole head of foils
2003-2005: Totally blonde
2006 March: Even blonder (peroxided)
2006 July: Bright red
2006 August: Auburn
2006 August: Dark brown
2006 August: Auburn

That's all! Bring on the boring brown. I will probably hate it. But I'm so sick of having such dry unhealthy hair I want to let it completely recover, before probably going blonde again. Hehe!

:) :) :) :) :)

I have finally found a reason why Nth America is better than NZ: new episodes of Gilmore Girls! The sixth season finished in NZ the day before I left (how lucky is that) and season seven premiered here last night! It was awesome, you people stuck in NZ will have to wait aaggggeesss for these episodes. Im not going to ruin the suprise Im just gonna say it was great. Yip. Gilmore Girls rocks.

Not much else going on here. Just study and more study. It is my birthday on Sunday but I will be all alone so it is not that exciting. Ooo, maybe I should go check the mail now to see if any of my presents have arrived. I am espcially looking forward to Claire's present. It is going to be awesome ;-)

Hope all are well

puzzle

ok a even harder puzzle!

There are 5 houses in 5 different colours. In each house lives a person of a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. Using the clues below can you determine who owns the fish?

The Brit lives in a red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is on the immediate left of the white house.
The green house owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the house right in the middle drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blend lives next door to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps horses lives next door to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The man who smokes Blend has a neighbour who drinks water.

THIS IS THE MOST EXCITING POST EVER!!!!!!!

well actually not really but we will just pretend. i am having a very very very busy week. i am writing lots of essays about myself for my applications for the various places next year.
anyway i have a picture for u to look at and try find the arrow. (i only found this out a few weeks ago) the 1st person to comment back and say where it is gets a BIG prize! so get looking!

Rain and Spiders

And so it begins. Rainy Vancouver. The unfortunate thing is that I live on the bottom of three floors so I can't here it. I noticed when I opened my window yesterday to let out a spider that it was pouring and I couldn't hear it at all! I have a real spider problem in my room. I think they are daddy long legs but they are annoying as they get caught in my blinds and make lots of noise at night. Any suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

So the BC Lions won. I enjoyed the game but not the sport. Now those who know me will know I would never ever consider myself a rugby fan but even I admit that rugby is infinitely better than football (seriously Dave, what are you thinking?). They play for like 20 sec at a time and they even have different teams which have to switch over all the time as their players aren't good enough to attack and defend. Plus, there is soooooo much advertising that goes on. Every few minutes this red man runs onto the field and everyone has to stop as it means there are ads on tv. Silly. But the atmosphere was cool or at least different and we had warm peanuts. They were very yummy.

Hope all are well and thanks in advance for the help with the spiders
Amy

The answer....

The raccoons would win: http://www.theolympian.com/

I love my new house!

BC Lions

Hey people
I am going to a Canadian Football game tonight. I think it is just like Grid Iron. I guess the team I will be supporting is the BC Lions (I think the opposition is the Montreal team). It is kinda silly that in three weeks of being in Canada I will have been to a football game considering how many rugby games I went to in 21 years in NZ. I am pretty excited about sharing in the Canadian Culture. I will let you know how it goes. Oooooo, I wonder if they do 'nachoes' like on TV or have people yelling out peanuts! Maybe that is just baseball.

The stadium where the game is (if my research is correct, it is most likely not so don't quote me here) is the world's largest air supported dome and will hold the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Awesome.

I wanna go to a Hockey Game. The Vancouver Canucks are playing the Anaheim Ducks (Mighty Ducks for all those Disney fans) in a couple of weeks and there are still tickets (It is very hard (and expensive) to get tickets as Hockey is mega popular). By the time I find someone to go with it will probably be all sold out. Oh well.

Hope everyone is doing well. I am trying to study econometrics. It is not going well. It is so much harder than I thought it would be. I keep thinking I will go down to the beach but it is sunny today and I HAVE NO DESIRE TO SEE NUDE MEN.

Amy

Moving Day!!!`

Ok so the answer to yesterday's question as to who would win in a fight between a carebear and a popple is.... the popple. Yes Kirsty was right. The popple would always win because popple rock. don't you love my highly thought out and logical and rational reasoning? Also popple's have a superior defense mechanism as they can retreat into their pouchs, giving them time to recover and strike back with unbelievable force.


Today's question is a real one, that I actually know the answer to. Who would win in a fight between a raccoon and a house cat? This may be the last in our series victor predictions... for now. Anyway fighting is bad and you shouldn't do it, we should all be more like carebears and sit around in the clouds talking about how rainbows are best. They really are.

Now tomorrow is moving day! Yay! I'm going to cheat though and start moving tonight. I'm so excited. The new house is so nice. And I get my own room, I'm going to make it a music room. And I get a new kitchen and a new bathroom. And I planted my garden last weekend, so it will be easier to water it if I'm living at the same property it is in. WOOT!

:) Mindy

Elephant Seals Rock!

Ok I already alluded to this in my comment yesterday, but for the sake of completeness I will answer it again here. The answer to yesterday's question as to who would win in a fight between an elephant seal and a moose is the elephant seal. Elephant seals can get up to 6 and half metres long and weigh up to 3400kg! Most of their body is fat as well, so their organs are well protected. What is a moose going to do to that? Poke it in the eye? These things eat sharks for goodness sake! And they are fast, faster than the average human when they're traveling on sand dunes. Ok I might be biased but I think the roar alone would scare the moose away. Elephant seals rock!

I'm really sorry but I totally forgot to dress up and fight with Claire. But I have some very good news. I had lost my bike lock ages and ages ago. Now this has been a problem and resulted in many rush through the supermarket trips and really hope no one stole my bike. Today I really really need it as I'm going to get a haircut and that would mean leaving my bike for a long time unlocked. So I had a very thorough search and couldn't find it! So I decided to ring Dad and see if he had any spares, so I was looking for the phone (you may have noticed looking for things seems to be a recurring theme in my life!) and I found my bike lock! It was in a very un-bike-lockish place. But anyway yay!

Ok now for today's question. Who would win in a fight between a carebear and a popple? Submit your answers via comments and my answer will be up tomorrow!

spongebob

i am very exciting 2day as mindy and i are going to watch the spongebob squarepants movie. i have never seen this movie but heard it is funny. the otherday i also watched brother bear 2. that was a good movie but not quite as good as brother bear 1.
my uncle is staying with us at the moment as he just had a heart operation and hes funny now coz he ticks. like a clock!or like the alligator in
peter pan. anyway enough from me

:(

i am not a slacker
no one commented on my blog so i was somewhat disheartened
my blogging debut was a flop
i am most upset
oh well, at least i have a mickey mouse tv
beat that

Moose vs Elephant Seal

Damnit! My plan of inviting more people to update my blog so I wouldn't have to do it so much hasn't worked at all. Which just prooves. My sister's are slackers and I'm the coolest Marshall girl around.

Anyway I really don't have much to say. Oh yeah a meteorite hit Canterbury yesterday and I didn't see or hear it so I'm rather bitter about that. Hear's some interesting information for you:

Meteor: What you see in the sky (doesn't have to hit earch).
Meteoroid: The actual object you can see.
Meteorite: A meteoroid that hits earth.

Anyway I'm on the lookout for aliens now, so if anyone sees any of these wandering around let me know:


Secondly I would like to pose a question to you: Who would win in a fight between a

Moose

And an

Elephant seal

??

Have a nice day!

hello

hello everyone. my name is claire. i am amys little sister, and mindys little little sister. i am now posting a blog because mindy told me to and otherwise i will be left out when mindy and amy name their blog "the marshall girls". i am very boring and unentertaining and i dont like funny people. soooo... to sum it all up. im not a very interesting person. have a good day! :)

Oh hi, EH

oooooo

blogging debut
very exciting

i am writing this quickly before my very kind and generous friends Mel and Michelle take me shopping for a mini fridge which i can then take in their car. i went to ikea this morning, this huge chain they seem to have everywhere expect new zealand. i got some cool crap for cheap so im happy EH.

i would like you all to marvel at the below squirrel picture minnie posted. if you don't believe it was hard ask me to show you my 20 blurry, far away squirrel pictures that were my previous best efforts EH.

canada is nice enough. it smells kinda funny, especially the new bedspread i just bought and i miss my family, thomas and everyone else back in old nz but at least i am not in the usa EH! (sorry, the usa is a lovely country i actually applied to 5 usa schools and only one canadian school, plus the usa has disneyland AND disneyworld EH).

ubc is at the end of the above penninsula. the huge campus is surrounded by a big park with trees and eagles and squirrels and bears (ok, maybe not bears). the buildings you see are the libraries. my residence is right at the waters edge (bar a huge forest and like over 400 steps down a steep cliff of course!). there are so many trees on campus it is pretty cool EH

that is me for now. hope you are all well EH

love amy

(ps, i haven't heard that many EHs but when i do i can't help but laugh)

Big News!

I would like to annouce a very exciting change to this blog. Amy Marshall (my lovely sister) is now going to share the blog with me!!! So we will both be posting. Two Marshalls for the price of one!

If you haven't noticed down the bottom of each post where it says the time the post was published it also says posted by Mindy. We'll try and make it obvious but if you're not sure just check at the bottom of the post and it will say which one of us wrote it!

Let the good times roll!

Amy's Photos

Hi! Well I had a busy weekend. But enough about me. Amy sent some photos so I'm going to post a few.

"The less populated bit of wreck beach, down a different trail. It is a nice beach, the tide is in here. I liked this bit better and you had a better view of the ships going past. If i had the camera moved slightly to the right you may have seen some of the 'locals' ;-) "(Note from Mindy, this is a beach right near where she lives, and actually happens to be a popular nudist beach).

"my pride and joy. it took me so long to take a picture of a squirrel- they move quickly. i took this yesterday in stanley park (google it those of you who don't know what that is). There were heaps around. they have black and grey ones here, the black ones are probably more common and look really evil. They are quite clever. they climb into rubbish bins then jump out at you, giving you a hell of a fright. they use their hands to hold their nuts. it is very cute. i don't think i will be able to send racoon pictures as they are nocturnal and when i see one i won't be sticking around (they are huge and attack with rabies)" (Note from Mindy: to overseas people who don't quite get this picture we don't have squirrels in NZ so they are extremely exciting...)

"at last a picture of me! i know that is what you were all waiting for. this is me in front of the stanley park totem poles. they are pretty cool. a lot for colourful than maori carvings. i haven't been to the museum yet where the world's largest collection is but willl soon hopefully"