Workin' on my Fitness

Ohmygoodness...

I came home from school today after eating relatively healthy and have done nothing but cram food into my mouth from the moment I stepped through the door. I mean it's pretty "healthy' food (maybe not all of it) but...food that I'm not even hungry for! And I wanted to go work out today but I was too sore from my boxing class yesterday! Sidenote-I had the day off of work yesterday so I managed to go to a workout class at 12:15! Wonderful! I'm working my way around all the free memberships at all the gyms in Auckland trying to find my favorite. The one I'm at right now I really like but after my 30 days runs out, it's pretty pricey :/ I'm going to try one next that is pretty close to where I work and it has an Olympic sized pool! Doesn't swimming after a long day of work sound relaxing? And it's a heated pool :)

Anyway, back to my binge eating. I'm going to do this...

...during all the commercial breaks while I watch New Girl and How I Met Your Mother...now I just hope they're new episodes! Now I get to watch my fave shows AND workout :) My kinda Tuesday night...

Gotta go put my workout clothes on :)

I thought of a witty title...and then I took a nap...

This is my absolute last post about Halloween! We went to a Halloween party at my friend, Karmia's, house so we actually got a chance to dress up! I wish I had a picture of Ben's whole costume but I didn't get one :( It was hilarious! Here are a couple pictures from the night...

(Sorry for the crappy iphone quality)

So, I was a jellyfish...can you tell?? Ben was Moss from "The IT Crowd" or, more generally, a nerd. Here is a little bit better picture but you still can't see the high water pants and sneakers :)

I was so proud of him for dressing up for the first time since I've known him!!!

And here's a close up or my super awesome new necklace...

Love it? Me too :)

In honor of it being less than three weeks until Thanksgiving, I am thankful for technology that allows me to keep up with my friends and family in the States! It also lets me share all of our adventures on this lovely blog! :) 

Happy November!

Love, The Webers

It's Book Review Time!

A couple weeks ago, I posted a list of books that are on my "to read" list. Well, I finished one of them! I was so excited to read this book because it was on several "must read" book lists that I've found, one in particular labeled "Books Every Girl in Here 20s Must Read"! So, I got hubby to find it online and download it to my Kindle so I could read on my morning/afternoon bus rides.  

I would like to be able to say that I loved it and would recommend it to everyone...but I can't :( It was a quick read, entertaining for my bus rides, and relatable but it didn't make me think and it definitely didn't make me want to go out and buy all of Jennifer Close's other books (unlike all my other faves :) The story was about a group of girl friend's as they travel through their lives from college to marriage, kids, etc. The plot was a little jumpy, each chapter started or continued the story of a girl, and the many characters were hard to remember. It's hard to get into a story if you are continually looking back to try and remember what happened previously with this chapter's particular character. There were three reoccurring "main" characters that I definitely wanted to continue reading to see what became of them but everyone else just kind of blurred together. 

The biggest thing that I disliked about this book was the girl's descriptions of their significant others. They made it sound like you need to "settle" for a man the older you get. They end up with men simply because they are tired of looking and they can stand being around this or that particular person. One of the characters, Isabella, even goes so far as to state that she "hates" her boyfriend but she'll move with him to Boston because she would rather be around him than without him. I feel like this is a very sad way of looking at relationships and I definitely wouldn't want to endorse this with "Every Girl in Her 20s." 

Final Note: Don't read it. There are so many better books out there. 

Next on my list is "Novel About My Wife" by Emily Perkins. I'm reading this one for book club this month but I was in charge of picking so I am excited to see how it turns out! 

PS-I just realized that both of these books covers look similar. Weird. 

Adios!

Happy Halloween!

I know it's officially November at this point but I wanted to show off our pumpkin carving and tell you about our first Halloween in Auckland! We had some friends over to carve pumpkins (they had never done it before!!) on Sunday. I can see why they've never done it because it was hard enough to find pumpkins that were big enough to carve! After about four fruit and vege stores, we finally found ones big enough! Here's the "before" picture...

It's a little green and, yes, we are using table knives! No special carving utensils for us!

And, the finished products!

Here is mine and Ben's! Classic...

Karmia's pumpkin!

Karmia's boyfriend, Caleb's, pumpkin! It's a taniwha, a creature from Maori mythology. We agreed it kind of looked like Dog the Bounty Hunter :)

Halloween is not a huge deal here in New Zealand so I didn't see a whole lot of costumes and we had no trick-or-treaters. We do live in the city, so that might have been why! One day, we will have our very own house with our very own trick-or-treaters! We will not have our very own house in New Zealand though :( They require non-residents to put 50% down, and I just spent my $250,000 on something else... I was a little sad when I heard that news. But oh well!

I attempted to make dinner in my new crock pot (yay!!) and it didn't turn out as well as one would have hoped...I know one pin that will be deleted from my boards...don't worry, I still love my crock pot. I made some potato soup the other day that was delicious!! Recipe here...

We are going to a Halloween party on Saturday so be on the lookout for a post about my costume...I'm actually pretty proud of it :) I've gotta find the final details tomorrow and put it all together but I'm almost done!

Happy November! :)

Birthday Boy Ben!

Can I just brag about how awesome my husband is? Who else gets hot tea and chocolate mocha banana crepes in bed??

And they were delicious! So, I just laid in bed and watched One Tree Hill while I was waited on hand and foot! It was the wonderful start to a Sunday.

Anyway, back to celebrating Ben's birthday...it's not all about me! Saturday we went paddle boarding! It is something Ben and I have wanted to do for a while and the weather was PERFECT! It is finally starting to warm up here....I actually wore shorts and a tank top! You still need a jacket in the morning and at night, but I will take what I can get! Back to paddle boarding....while the weather was warm, the water was not...and I fell in quite a bit! :) Paddle boarding is hard work and you don't get anywhere very quickly. Obviously, I couldn't get any pictures in the act but I did get one of my cute hubby afterwards!

You can see in the picture all the boats moored in the background so while we were paddling around, we went "boat shopping": Ben's favorite activity :)

For those who aren't sure what paddle boarding is, it should look a little something like this.... 

(this is obviously not us...)

After a nice hot shower, we had a wonderful dinner overlooking the Harbour! 

Sadly, I have a meeting at school tomorrow night (Ben's actual birthday) so we won't be able to celebrate much tomorrow :( I do have the late shift at school so I get to be home to cook him breakfast in bed! Lucky Ben...

Happy Early Halloween :)

Love, the Webers

PS-I'm starting to see Christmas ads, music, decorations, etc. and I LOVE it! :)

Beach Time!

Welp, Ben and I are sick again :( Or maybe just still sick from the last time...I felt better for a couple days but Ben's has been pretty constant. Despite the sickness, we wanted to take advantage of the 3 day weekend (Happy Labour Day!) so we finally made it to the beach! It was such a pretty day and it almost felt warm! It helped that the sun was out and shining and we were sitting so that the wind was blocked! Here's some pictures from our day :)

From the beach, you can see Rangitoto Island which we took a ferry to a couple weeks ago!

Beautiful blue water and blue sky!

Aren't these rocks cool how their layers are sidewards! It was like that with all the rocks on the beach so there must have been some crazy plate tectonics going on!

If you want to look at ALL the pictures from our beach excursion, check them out on our SmugMug!

Before we took the ferry over to Devonport, we got a chance to watch part of the World Champion Triathalon that has been going on all weekend in Auckland! I'm so impressed with athletes who can swim, bike 40 kilometers, and then go and run 10K! We got there just in time to watch the end of the Under 23 Women's finals.

The Finish Line

All the way down at the end you can see where they start off the blue platform. There were 2 buoys behind me that that they had to swim around. Sadly, we didn't see any swimming though :(

Today has been rainy ALL day so I'm glad we went to the beach yesterday! We've only made it outside the apartment to go to the pharmacy (more medicine) and the grocery store (we had absolutely no food). It's actually been a pretty relaxing day...we made fresh bread, Skyped with both sets of parents, and listened to the rain outside :) Now, I'm watching a ridiculous movie on TV while Ben makes me dinner! Perfection :)

I would like to start feeling better so I can actually work out without dying. Walking up the hill from the grocery store was an effort :( So, I'm gonna go rest some more...ta ta!

A little bit of this...a little bit of that...

I finally made a pumpkin recipe that I'm ready to share! I made some pumpkin muffins (recipe here) and they were delicious! I added walnuts (because I like them) and then sprinkled chocolate chips on top of mine only because Ben despises chocolate in any sort of bread. Really he despises chocolate in general (crazy, I know!) but that's a whole other post! So, go make them. Now. If you'd like to copy me, I made my pumpkin puree from scratch! It's really not that difficult and, for me, cheaper too! I paid $1.56 for half a pumpkin (medium size), roasted it, and got enough puree for 2 recipes! I also froze it so it would last longer and it didn't seem to affect how my muffins turned out. Because they were delicious. Did I tell you that? 

Since I've gotta balance out making pumpkin, chocolate chip muffins, here is the workout I just did:

I looked like her doing it too...

It was simple and to the point, didn't require any equipment, and I didn't even have to leave my apartment! Which I didn't want to do... I also did some ab and arm exercises since those are my "to work on" areas (almost beach weather!). Took me about 25 minutes all together and with all my bus-walking, I got a mediocre workout in today! The hubs also did some sort of workout as well but I'm not really sure...I didn't see any jumping jacks out of him! On that note, 100 jumping jacks...doesn't sound too bad! It is hard to do 100 jumping jacks!!! I had to do it along to the beat of a song otherwise it would have gone on forever! I also suck at wall sits. 

 

I'll leave you with a picture! 

 

So, as we live in an apartment building in the city, there is an advertisement on the side. Previously, it was a Lexus ad but it was taken down about a week ago. What is frustrating is that they took it down and then left it on our balcony for about 3 days! We live on the second floor so our balcony has a kind of overhang out over the street and, thus, makes an excellent place to leave a HUGE Lexus advertisement for days. I would have stolen it if it wasn't gigantic (think 6 stories tall...and up close, very pixely). And, when they did come to pick it up, they came at 5 in the morning, walking on the tin roof right outside our window, making a ruckus! Anyway, we now have this...

Downton Abbey!

That's where we live :) Ben is ashamed that there in a Denny's in my picture. I don't think he wants people to know we live a block from a Denny's. What's the shame in that?? It just reminds me of Ritchey-Little, wedding morning breakfast :) But anyway, I love my new sign! So much better than a silly Lexus! 

Only two more workdays before a three day weekend! I love Labour Day! :)