It was Sunni and Ashton's birthday thing at the Kilbirnie Bowls club yesterday. Gloriously hot summer's day (rare for Wellington) but not without the strong gusts of wind that still persisted today. In any case, the sun was so enjoyable that I forgot about sunscreen and now I'm sporting some rather red arms and a pink forehead. Sigh.

Last week on Friday, we had the end-of-year homegroup get-together at Strawberry Fare (third time in November for me) and on Saturday, we had a Wine and Cheese night at the Treehouse, which was far less civilised than what it sounded like. I guess it doesn't matter what you call it, you know it's a recipe for mayhem when you have several 20-somethings and alcohol. Nevertheless, I had fun playing six-player 500. I was hopeful for Mafia but it didn't eventuate, unfortunately.

The Youth Band played last Sunday and it went pretty well. Still a bit more fine tuning in various places but always good to hear a different sound in church. Following that, Beth, Maxine and I went up to Kapiti Coast for a walk about since it was such a fine day. We had lunch at this Driftwood place, then a stroll along the beach, ice cream at Pukerua Bay and a quick tour of the sea shore fauna. We found these weird purple blob things that look exactly like poison orbs.



Edit: After an enquiry with the Department of Conservation, I've discovered that these are the sea anemone Actinia tenebrosa, or red sea anemone, which retract their tentacles when the tide is low. Fascinating stuff!

Someone on my project team left the company on Friday, so we had a thing for him to celebrate his time at Sidhe. As usual, we had our obligatory company trivia quiz, and since he was from Norway, the inevitable question was "Who created the fjords in Norway?". No, my team didn't get it right. Yes, I'm sorry.

Anyway, here's a photo of some of the events that transpired that night. It was a balloon popping game.



On Saturday, I binged on a $6 bag of sour gummi lollies, including sour apple rings, sour watermelon rings, sour peach rings and sour coke bottles. And two mega snakes. Insert diabetes here.

On Saturday night we went to the other flat for a cultured wine and cheese night. To some people's dismay, there was more cheese than wine, but Bjorn didn't seem to mind. It was a really good night, despite the cacophony that was John and Matt talking in French.

Today I went with Jono to Central Baptist for a proper service, and yeah it was really good. I think I'll stay. I even managed to slip in that I was interested in the piano ¬_¬ And we're looking to join a home group as well. I guess we'll see how that goes.