This past weekend brought the first Lucia performances. Isabella speaks Swedish better than anybody else in the household, and it’s great to see that she’s so enthusiastic about joining every year. There are at least two more performances, before the crowns of candles can be put away.
Much back and forth on the rebuilding, but there’s a chance that the family room will done later than expected, and that we’ll instead focus on the kitchen. We’re still talking to the city, looking at drawings while trying to find out which cabinets and stove we should go with. As of now they estimate mid-January before anything is torn down.
That puts us past New Zealand, and we did get those bookings done and confirmed, although that took a lot of time, energy, and correspondence. Not many hotels/motels had online booking tools, so send them an e-mail and wait for 24 hours. Then an answer that they’re fully booked. Oh well, it’s done and we’re looking forward to it. We’ll start in Dunedin watching penguins, and zig zag all the way to Bay of Islands before flying to Sydney for New Years.
Friday’s photo shoot at Adobe was a great success and we raised close to ~$1,000. Took all Sunday to sort through the 700 shots, pick winners, and burn CDs. But it’ll feel good to hand the pictures to the guests and even better to hand the Food Bank the money. As an added bonus we had a chance to capture the image below.
John’s off to Denmark on Wednesday evening for just a couple of days. Business and pleasure. Have to leave for San Francisco 48 hours after landing to catch Isabella’s Sunday Lucia performance in the Swedish Hall in the city. Adobe is turning 25 the following week, and much is planned to celebrate. It’ll be time for New Zealand before we know it.
