Hello, my lovely readers 🙂  I hope that your week is off to a good start.  I know that many of you have been cold in the States, but it is hot-hot-hot here in New Zealand!  Parts of the South Island made the news for reaching 40.3C {104.5F} over the weekend!  It hasn’t been quite that hot here, but it’s still too warm for this 23 weeks’ pregnant lady.

Weather in Auckland from Feb. 7th – Feb. 8th via weather.com

This was actually a cool day.  It was much more warm and humid yesterday.  And keep in mind – very few apartments, homes, and buildings have air conditioning in New Zealand.  Steamy!  I kept cool yesterday by eating 3 popsicles, drinking large quantities of diet Sprite {called diet lemonade over here}, and stopping at Giapo Gelato on the way home from church.  Chris and I split a scoop of yummy organic dark chocolate and dulce de leche on the walk back home.  Mmm-mmm!

Things are going well with baby boy.  He’s still movin’ and groovin’.  It’s pretty funny to see my Kindle bounce up and down while propped up on my tummy 🙂  I like to take my Kindle over to the library to read.  It’s nice and air-conditioned there, and the bathrooms are just a few steps away.  Now if only they would allow us to have drinks in the building…

Photo of our local library taken while out on a rainy-day walk last winter

It’s so crazy for me to think that there are only 17 weeks remaining in this pregnancy.  I’ve decided that I’m going to request to be off the night shift starting my 3rd trimester.  It’s getting too warm and sticky to try to sleep during the middle of the day in an apartment without air-conditioning.  I don’t foresee my manager having a problem with this.  Yet another way in which New Zealand culture is so supportive of expectant mums.

And speaking of expectant mums… this expectant mum has definitely not reached the stage where I feel the need to eat-eat-eat all the time.  People keep asking me if I’m always hungry or have any weird cravings, and all I can think is that I’d be perfectly happy eating one good-sized meal a day.  Tonight, Chris and I went out to dinner at a local tapas bar: El Faro.

image via

We decided to go there because I won a gift voucher!  I love winning stuff!  Thank you to the people at Big Little City for hosting the giveaway and for choosing me to win the $50 voucher.  It was pretty yum.  Chris got a {strongly} alcoholic beverage – seriously, he was still feeling the effects over an hour and a half later – and we ordered 5 tapas plates to split: bread + olive oil, patatas + aioli, mushrooms broiled with a sherry sauce, baked avocado with a tomato and kiwifruit relish, and some weird beef dish that Chris wanted to try.  Needless to say, the beef dish wasn’t a fave of mine.  The rest, however, was delicious.  They were small plates but filling.  We love to try a variety of dishes when we’re out at restaurants, so this was perfect.

We finished off the night by walking to the library, selecting a DVD, and then getting takeaway desserts.  I’m so thankful for dates with my husband {especially when they’re free!}, for good food, weather that cools off in the evening, a well-stocked public library, and a healthy baby boy.  It was a very good day 🙂