Pavlova: A National Dish at it's Finest

As per request, this here blog is about the lovely group dinner we had... two weeks ago?!  Holy moly time is flying.  Anyways, this request was put through by Nic, my lovely boyfriend.  I'm not really sure what he wants me to say about it.  How delicious the food was, how awesome the hot tub was, how fun it was to get everyone together?  Because it was all that.  I guess I'll just give a little run down and let the pictures do the talking...

So, Nic lives about 20 minutes away from Palmerston North in the tiny town of Ashhurst.  He lives on a small sheep farm with his parents and brothers (when they're home).  So our first obvious stop, for carload one anyways, was the pasture so we could say hello to the sheep.  There were three main sheep we were looking for, Chop, Scarface, and Pippa.  Chop is a lamb from this past season who was raised in the house and is thus not afraid of people and is utterly amusing.  He wasn't hard to find.  As soon as he saw people coming he was at the fence baa-ing his little heart out. It was love at first sight for Kristen...

Our next conquests were Scarface and Pippa.  Scarface is a really old sheep and Pippa is a ewe who was raised inside a couple years ago and is only slightly skittish.  Here's Scarface-

Interestingly enough, he lost his eye after he got his name. From there we moved back inside where it was time to prep dinner.  We beasted some potatoes and kumara (a sort of sweet potato) while Nic prepped the lamb (sorry no pictures).  Just after we finished that task the second carload made it in.  It was the whole crew now, all nine of us.  Of course plenty of goofing around and talking ensued, along with some wine drinking and plenty of snack munching.

Dinner was ready in no time, and oh what a feast it was...

We quickly devoured that food, and it was back to shenanigans.  While some of us tidied up from dinner, others pigged out on a jar of peaches that appeared after icing and topping the pavlova Nic made for dessert.  Of course, Nic had to make the icing first, which he needed to use the mixer for.  The reaction to the opening of the pantry was quite funny.  As Steph put it, "I think I heard angels sing when Nic opened his pantry"

With the food in our bellies quickly adding up, it was time for a bit of enhanced digestion...

Warning: May result in vomiting

And now the moment everyone had been waiting for... the hot tub.  And yes, we fit all nine people inside at once.  Granted, it was a tight fit, but we managed it.

Ahhhhh....  As so often happens with hot tubs, most of us became quite drowsy.  So we headed back inside a couple at a time to have the heaven that is pav waiting for us.  It didn't last long, I'll leave it at that.

So, overall, a night of fun, food, and ...more fun?  Works for me.