Rellie visits continue!

Rellies is a Kiwi term for relatives. I noted this humorous sign when we stopped at the store to get some wine, and had to snap a photo of it.

Following on the heels of my Mom and cousin's visit, we have some more guests from the United States! This time it's Stacey's parents, Joan and Ian. Their trip is still in progress, but I wanted to post some photos for those of you back home who want to keep tabs on how they are doing.

Joan and Ian enjoying Wellington's beautiful waterfront

Some of you may know that Ian is actually from New Zealand, having grown up in Nelson on the South Island. He left New Zealand in his early 20's and moved to the United States, where he met Joan and they raised their family. Interestingly, the Dutch play a role in all of this as Stacey's father was of Dutch descent. Their surname, Ferdinands, is Dutch and, incidentally, is botched much less often here in NZ. ("Hello, may I speak with Ms. Ferndandez?") So, Ian is technically a Kiwi and it's for this reason that Stacey was able to obtain her citizenship (as a first-generation descendant of a Kiwi).

Taking a ride up the Terrace on the Wellington Cable Car. At the top, we explored the Cable Car Museum.

Joan and Ian have travelled to New Zealand many times, and I have seen many photos of them in Wellington. In every photo, it appears to be raining and miserable! I am happy to report that Wellington has behaved much better this time out and given them very nice weather. We have toured a lot of the city including the waterfront, Cuba street, the Terrace, the museums and of course Miramar, Lyall Bay and the rest of the South Coast. We're coming to the end of the festival season here, but there have still been a lot of events going on for us to enjoy.

We took Joan and Ian to Yum Cha with some of our friends. The food was yummy (as usual).

It was a hard decision whether to have our visitors spend so much time in Wellington. After all, it's not considered a "must-see destination" for tourists coming to New Zealand. That's because even though it's amazingly pretty here, there are heaps of other places that are even more spectacular. But for us it's just been good to show our parents a bit more of what our life is like here, where we like to go and the sorts of people we've met. So, the extended Wellington visits have been good.

Ian and Joan meet up with old friends Wendy & Robbie

As we speak, Stacey and her parents are off on a tour of the South Island which includes stops in Blenheim (to see Anita) and Nelson. From there, they head further south for a trip around the south coast, through the Catlins, and up to Te Anau for a trip to Doubtful Sound. After that, they head to Dunedin to catch up with rellies from Ian's side of the family, including cousin Andrew and Stacey's Aunt Rosemary (featured in an earlier post!). They return to Wellington next weekend, and will have a few more days to explore the city with us before they head back home.

I leave you with a sunset on the South Coast photo (yes, again...I really never tire of showing you people photos of the coastline in various shades of magnificence)