Before it disappeared

After Oley and I went to the movies on Monday we stepped out of the movie theater and saw this beautiful rainbow. It was very exciting so we drove around trying to get a better view but it disappeared...

Opononi, New Zealand November 2004

This is one of my favorite pictures and just perfect for my refrigerator door. This view from a lookout in New Zealand was amazing, but this picture actually reminds me of a runaway hubcap! A year after I graduated from college I moved to New Zealand to work. In this extremely laid back country everything just seemed to fall into place. I found a job at an architecture firm in Auckland during an interview for a different job. Then I found a flat the day before I needed to start looking for one when I was talking to a friend of a friend. My year in Auckland was filled with evenings with friends, Bodycombat (the greatest kickboxing class in the world) at Les Mills, Link bus rides and many road trips.

Road trips were full of incredible scenery like this photo that Kari took in Opononi as we explored New Zealand north of Auckland. We drove up to an overlook and just stood there taking in this view. After we got back in the car and I started to drive away, I slammed on the breaks and yelled at Kari to grab our hubcap. All of a sudden I noticed one of our hubcaps was off and rolling away from us. Kari looked at me as if I was completely crazy (because how often does someone yell something like that at you?) but luckily she was quick enough to jump out of the car and run after our hubcap before it got away.

And Then it Rained!

Well, my first craft booth experience was…interesting. The forecast called for rain but Pam and I were very hopefully. It stormed in the early morning and rained when we went to set up. Once we got our tent put together and plastic around for walls to keep us dry we realized we were in the wrong spot. We were close but didn’t think we could stay in the spot we were set up in. Since the booth next to us wasn’t there yet we figured it would be better to move before they got there. Quickly we all worked together to shift our tent and tables over a few feet putting us in the correct assigned spot and we were ready to set up.

Here is a quick view of what was for sale:

Fabric Birds

Cards for every occasion

Glass Magnets

A fun example of a page for my pre-made photo books

Books made with the coptic stitch

By the time the Picnic was ready to start the sun was out and we took down all our plastic walls. The weather was good for about 2 hours but I quickly realized we were not in the best location. I thought we had picked a good spot from the layout of the booths but I think we were wrong. There wasn’t anything to bring people our way. The booths near the food had tons of traffic but we only seemed to get a few people wandering our way. Also we were right next to the main stage, need I say more?

And then the rain came. It came and it came hard. Luckily we could tell it was coming so we covered everything up and nothing was ruined but we literally had to hold our tent down for about an hour.

This is me, soaked, after the worst rain was gone. I was only able to put on my rain jacket after I was already completely drenched!

Cold, wet and tired, we packed up once the rain stopped and were ready to go home. A lady at another booth told me not to let this discourage me because she has been doing this every Saturday for years and these were the worst conditions she had ever seen.

All the hard work and preparation we put into this show made this experience disappointing, but I do think I want to try it again…one day.

Thank you so much to Roger and Oley. We couldn't have done this without you guys!