I hope everyone had a Wonderful Holiday and a Merry Christmas. I am sitting at the kitchen table on a cool night drinking tea and listening to the sounds of Christmas....the kids next door have been screaming and fighting for about 30 minutes. Oh the joys of Christmas. We had a wonderful and quiet Christmas this year. I am happy we were even able to have one. There for a while I really didn't think the kids were going to get more than a stocking. But MDS came through and hired me again for about two weeks to do some odd jobs. Thanks to them, we were able to give our kids some smiles this holiday. As you can guess we have quite a few pictures to show you.

The first set of pictures are from the MDS gift exchange. Everyone drew names out of a hat again and then exchanged fun gifts for under $10.

The Marketing and Academic Directors decided to dress like elves while handing out the gifts. It was an amazing site seeing them both in tights. WOOT.

Liz, the CEO, decided she would take the wrapping paper from her gift and dress David in what Mike called "the kilt of shame". The party was a lot of fun and they even gave me a couple boxes of scorched almonds. Amazingly wonderful chocolate covered almonds. One box was almost gone before we got home.

A couple of days before Christmas we went back downtown to do a harbour tour and walk around. The harbour area is pretty cool. The third picture below is where the NZ Americas Cup team house their boats.

As we walked around the city we came across this restaurant. The name got Mike and I giggling...but the sign in the window just sent us into fits.

Then off to Sky City to get a closer look at the tower. They don't do a whole lot of decorating for the Holidays here in New Zealand. Well, not like in the US....but this area was beautiful. We sat and ate a Christmas lunch. It was the first time I had Christmas Pudding. It was Yum.

The second picture is of some kind of volcano awareness thing that two guys were acting out on Queen Street. If you click on the picture you can see the guy in the protection suit (looks like he is wrapped in aluminum foil) and then the hand of a guy who is popping out of the top of the volcano. He is supposed to be lava (one would assume). We couldn't hear what he was saying in the bull horn, but we stood and watched anyhow.

In the third picture above, you can get some sense of how high the bridge is in the background. When we took the harbour cruise we went under that bridge and was able to watch people bungee jumping. In the first picture you can see the pod that they jump from. The second and third picture you can see the guy taking his leap of faith. Mike missed the water touch, but the jumpers head went into the water. He was yelling "WOOOOOOHOOOOO" all the way down. See, that term is not only used by southerners who are missing teeth. It is a commonly used term all over the world for "Hell Yeah, this is fun!!".

During the harbour tour we went by the Naval Base. See the third picture? That's the entire Naval Fleet for New Zealand.

Christmas gifts!! The kids took both grandparents money and spent it at the mall before the big day. Marty spent all of his money in one place. He bought a gadget that makes all kinds of cool sound effects while he plays his electric guitar. Kelsey went to several stores and bought herself some much needed summer clothes and a cow mug. (Nanny thinks the mug is ugly and teases her about it!!) The kids got movies in their stockings. The Land of the Lost, much funnier than I expected. It did not B(uh)low as I thought it would. Kelsey got Interview with a Vampire. Good Lord that was a horrible movie, but she loved it. They both were given quite a few art gifts, iTunes cards (that are NZ..which means we have to open a new account), and odds and ends. Mike got glue. WOOT.

Both Mike and I will be back next week with our "Year in Review" post.