Starlight Symphony

Auckland puts on so many great events during the summer.  Every weekend there is free music in a park somewhere - at the very least.  This weekend was 'Starlight Symphony' in the Park.  It was sublime.  There were spotty showers throughout the day, which may have kept a lot of people away and explain our sweetas (awesome) parking situation, but it turned out to be a perfect evening.  We went with our family, Josh, Amy and Ryan, and Sean and Jess.  Awesome dudes.  The babies were perfect, even though it was past their bed time.

We took our little blanket and some food.


Brook Frasier is a Kiwi gospel singer who is making it big in pop music - she sounds a lot like Sara McLaughlin - I was really impressed by her performance.

There was a totally cool fireworks/laser light show at the end accompanied by the 1812 Overture.
I keep playing that Bryan Adams song in my head...'the best days of my life...'...back in the summer of '09.

Duck Day at the Domain

Ducklings everywhere! Chloe had the pleasure of feeding them, though she would not feed them the bread. She kept that for herself and tried to give them large tree seeds that had fallen to the ground. They lined up for it anyhow.

AK '07

Auckland Festival '07 opened in style, if you ask me. The festival is 2 weeks of music, film, art and theater. Smashing. Kim, Chloe and I went with Krystal and Mirko and James and met up with some new friends who went to the Domain (park) early and got a choice (good) bit of lawn for us to occupy. It was a beautiful afternoon - we chilled out w/ a bit if wine/cheese&crackers/sour worms, etc. Don McGlashan, a kiwi folk music dude was the headliner - I had heard one of his songs which I'm not partial to 'stand in the river' which is from this kiwi movie, No.2, which I'm also not partial to- but I really dug the rest of his songs. I look forward to catching one of his gigs later on in the festival.

The main event was this pyrotechnics display by this french group, Group F. This was the absolutely most amazing fireworks display I've ever conceived of. It was good.








These last two photos are of the grande finale. There were some serious fireworks going off and at the very end there was a flash that was approximately as bright as the sun. It was oresome (awesome). Otherwise, things are going fine, I'm turning in this big grant on Friday which will cover my salary in my current lab for the next 1.5 years. It's a pretty good grant, they'd be crazy to turn it down.

Christmas in the Park

What started out as a sunny day with clouds only threatening to dampen things, soon became a downpour! But, this was followed by resumed sunshine. Chloe definitely had the dryest seat in the house with her pram covered with a rain guard! We met up with Mirko & Krystal, Corinne & Markus, & Pablo's daughter, Rene, for an evening of carols. We did head home about half time and watched the fireworks above from our balcony!