It has been a while since our last update, my apologies. We have been laying low in NZ, focusing on getting some school done. For my birthday Zack wanted to take me to Action World. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. Poor Nathalie drove all the way to Opua and we had to then head straight back to Whangarei to go to the indoor pool. That should teach her to keep her cell phone charged. We had a nice day with me again in the hot tub for the majority of the time. The kids spent most of the day on the water slides and everyone had a nice relaxing day.

For my birthday I had signed up for a chocolate class at Kako chocolates in Auckland. Nathalie decided to go with me. We decided to make it a girls weekend and headed down to the big city together. I was driving, which was fine, except through the heart of the city. I have not driven anywhere with actual traffic in over 20 years! It was chaos. Why does everyone drive so fast and why are the lanes so tight? At one point I was sandwiched by two big tractor trailers Nathalie closed her eyes and I think she may have been praying. It was fine and soon we were out of the crowd and on the open highway. We found our exit. I immediately took a wrong turn, which worked out because I turned around in the parking lot of the motel we eventually, 4 hours later, decided to stay in. We got back on track with Nathalie navigating from the directions David had downloaded for us. We did find the chocolate factory. Next we looked around the Glenn Ines area for a cheap motel. There was nothing to be found. We kept looking and found ourselves lost. Nathalie text'd David to tell him we had made it to Auckland safely, as I had promised to do, and that we were looking for a motel and we were sort of lost. Nathalie almost killed me when he returned a text asking why we were navigating with a bad connection on her cell phone instead of using the entire Auckland map that he had downloaded on my iPad. Oops, I had forgotten that little tidbit of info. We checked it out and found a motel, no vacancy. |It was getting late so we decided to go back to our original motel. $110 a night but whatever at this point. We checked in. The room was nice and the shower was amazing!! We walked to the main street and treated ourselves to a nice dinner and a bottle of wine.

The chocolate class was a lot of fun. We learned a few things. We did dipped truffles, a hazelnut raspberry chocolate that we built, cut and dipped, and a molded caramel. It was all hands on. Stu the instructor was very nice, a bit full of himself and kept picking on me because I am a pastry chef. All in good fun. We had done a bit of previous market research a few weeks back. We had bought a bunch of Kako chocolates and eaten them! We had all agreed that they were beautiful but the tastes were a bit overboard. In class we were given samples of a lot of the chocolates. They really are works of art. The flavors were not choices I would have made, like chili- lime, and one with bitters in it. I am more of a traditionalist when it comes to flavors. I was really there to learn technique anyway. On the ride home I almost died when Nathalie gave me her professional opinion. She is an osteopath. She told me she had noticed the way he talked and breathed that he was having a blockage issue and it was affecting his taste. It was hilarious. She had wanted to tell him but had refrained, which was good because I don't think that would have gone over so well!

I came home and David and Zack had cleaned the boat and Zack had made me a welcome home heart. It was nice to be home. The next day we went to Action World. It was a lot of fun, but not like when we went with all of our friends. Or maybe I was just too tired. Zack had his heart set though and would not hear of waiting a few days. Other than that we have been going to the park to play catch and just hanging out. We are starting to make our plans for the next cruising season and starting to provision the boat.