a study week for nige

With Nige's upcoming hernia repair surgery mid-May, Impact early June and then Nige's D.Min class early July Nige needed to get away for some concentrated time on his doctoral studies, so we headed to Taupo to a friend's holiday home and Nige worked hard.

Each day we headed to Replete Cafe in town, where they don't seem to mind us staying for hours and working on our laptops or reading.  It was school holidays while we were away, and the store side of the cafe hosted a little cupcake afternoon with TraceyLee from MasterChef NZ.  Here she is in action!  She was very bubbly and friendly, and it was fun listening in as she shared what she had learned with the kids (and Mums) that were there.

One of the beautiful sunsets on Lake Taupo!!

This is Acacia Bay, just across from Taupo.  One day during our stay the winds were particularly strong and it caused a power outage for ALL of Taupo for several hours that afternoon and evening.  We were fortunate that the power came back on for a couple of hours leading up to and during dinner time.  We were very thankful for that because we had a young lady come for dinner that night, who will be coming to TSBC as a student next year.  About 30 minutes after she left the power went off again for an hour or so.  The poor people in Acacia Bay were in darkness the whole night though!

Nige brought his bike with him to get some exercise while away and was able to get out for two rides.  The winds were quite strong all week, but thankfully he came back safely both times!

The day we headed home was the first day we could see the mountain - it looks so beautiful with all that snow on it, and the lake in front.

Heading home.

Looking back at the curviest piece of road on the Napier-Taupo Road.
Maybe next time I should take a photo of Nige sitting in the cafe.  Yes, he did actually work.  He even got ahead of what he wanted to get done that week, so that was great!  Meantime, I was working on Impact things and got a bit of reading done too.  I'm thankful for technology and being able to get online wherever I am, enabling us both to keep on top of e-mails etc.