Hamilton/Auckland

We spent some time out in Hamilton, where Kevin spent 20 months of his mission. The beach above was Raglan, a little surf town about 45 mins outside Hamilton. They sell awesome leather sandals there at a little shop called Heart and Soul. Kevin has had two pairs of sandals from there since he served his mission there and they last forever. The beach there was gorgeous, the road out there was rather trecherous and very very windy.

While out in Hamilton, we had the opportunity to stay with some families Kevin knew there on his mission. Below, is Amanda and her daughters Kendall, Choree, and her husband Jeffrey. Kevin knew Amanda when Kendall was about 3 or 4 and now she is 13! They live out on a dairy farm in a little town right outside Hamilton. It was so fun to meet the people that I have always heard Kevin talk so highly of. They were so friendly and made us feel so welcome. Unfortunately I am dumb and didn't get a picture of Raina and her family that we also stayed with for a few days.

Kendall really wants to come visit us now in Washington, in "America". We tried to convince her mom how great it would be for her to come work on a dairy farm in America for a summer... Below is Choree and her cousin Makiah..she was seriously cute. About 20 months with the cutest belly I have ever seen on a baby. I just wanted to rub it for luck. All of us trying to squeeze in for a picture, not the greastest, but at least we all got in one!
The temple in New Zealand is in Hamilton. We got a chance to go do a session while we were there and it was beautiful. We also got to go the visitors center there and see several church videos that I had never seen before and visit with some missionaries.
I loved being able to go running in the mornings around the temple grounds. It was so pretty! Also in Hamilton, there are these very awesome gardens that represent different areas in the world. Below is an Italian garden that was filled with lemon trees.

I really don't remember what they all represented. I just remember there were a whole lot of them, and they were amazing.

I was pretty fascinated by the bamboo trees that grow all over New Zealand. It was all over in Paihia and I found it again at this garden in Hamilton. So Cool!

The national soft drink of New Zeland is Lemon and Paeroa, Lemon for the taste and Paeroa for the town where it was discovered. We traveled up to the coramandel peninsula while we were there and the town of Paeroa was along the way. Had to take a picture with the giant L&P bottle! I tried some while I was there and its actually not too bad. Its slogan is, "Give it your all....most". Kind of funny, its like the national slogan of mediocrity.
We went up to the Coramandel Peninsula because we had heard about this place called Hot Water Beach. There are these natural hot springs on the beach right by the ocean. You can rent a shovel (or just take someone else's spot if your cheap like us) and dig a hole to lay in. You have to bring a bucket to haul cool water into the hole so it doesn't get too hot.

It was pretty awesome. I think I could've sat in my little hole of hot water all day long. We were pretty close to the spring and it was getting pretty toasty on my toes or I might have.


I thought the other mountain roads in New Zealand were bad, the ones up to Coramandel were by far the worse. There were even mirrors for trucks on the roads so they could see if there were oncoming cars before they completed a turn. Talk about hairpin turns, I thought we were going to die!

We spent the last few days in New Zealand in Auckland. Above is the pier in Auckland. It also happened to be my birthday while in Auckland and we celebrated by eating on top of the sky tower. It is apparently the highest structure in the southern hemisphere and the top does one full rotation every hour.
Apparently New Zealand has become the hot spot to visit for reality shows, just this week I saw the biggest loser contestants jumping off the sky tower and then I discovered Kate Gosselin and her kids also did the same. Crazy. After the sky swing experience I flat out refused to do anything more with heights. We had an incredible time, totally worth the 13 hour plane ride there and back and missing my kids for 2 weeks. Who, by the way, were totally and 100% find and not scarred at all from the experience. I thouht we were going to have some major clinginess/insecurity issues and they were completely fine! Not so sure about our parents, but the kids were doing great! I don't think I will ever be gone for that long again while I have little babies but I'm so glad we did it once. And who knows? Maybe someday we will make it back there. I can only hope.

Rotorua

So I should back up a bit. Kevin served in the Auckland, New Zealand mission 10 years ago which is why we decided to go back and visit. We have wanted to do this ever since we got married and Kevin has managed to stay in touch with a few people. Since we live conveniently near both sets of grandparents and Lucy is now 2, we decided it was now or never. We started saving a few years ago and just decided to do it. It seems things like this you either make happen or they pass you by so we decided to jump. It still doesn't seem like we really went there. Anyway, after Paihia we made our drive to Rotorua, it was about 5 hours and the longest car ride we had. Since the scenery was all new to me, I didn't care and we took our time meandering through the countryside.

We passed by this awesome tourist attraction in construction, a pre-european Maori village that will open this summer. It was near a museum that we stopped and talked to some of the workers. We found a lady there who was LDS and discussed with us the growth of church in NZ in the past 10 years. I honestly couldn't understand a lot of what she was saying do to her thick accent and use of Maori words thrown in here and there, but Kevin later translated for me.

There were some pretty awesome road signs in New Zealand. Above, this was on the very windy 2 land road coming out of Paihia. It reads, "High Crash Rate". I thought, "shouldn't that read Road Closed??". The roads there are kind of scary, a lot of blind curves. Below, their yield signs read "Give Way". There are way more of these then stop signs, which is nice and much faster. I also saw a sign that was a yellow diamond that read "Aged Persons". I was so mad I never got a picture of one, they were hilarious.

Kevin and I went to the Hells Gate Spa in Rotorua when we got there. There is tons of geothermic activity in the area and there is even a steaming park in the middle of town with all this bubbling sulfur. Anyway, first up on our little spa trip we got to go for a walk through all this geothermal area.

It reminded me quite a bit of Yellowstone, except, there was a hot water waterfall there. The largest in the southern hemisphere, apparently.

This was a mud volcano that apparently erupts up to a 5 foot diameter. This little fence is definitely within 5 feet, which could make a person a bit nervous.

Anyway, we got to go rub stinky mud on ourselves, sit in a very hot sulfur pool, then got awesome massages. They shuttled us home in a mini-van, that also contained 4 workers that they dropped off on our way home. It was pretty funny...and very much New Zealand culture.

We went to the agrodome in Rotorua as well which contains several hundred sheep. You can tour the farm sites, watch them get sheared, etc. We got to see them call out the sheep dog and watch it herd the sheep into a pen. Very exciting. Above kevin is standing with a very tall fiberglass sheep. Across the way, we tried our hand at Zorbing, a lovely little activity invented who knows when, that involves you getting instead an essential hamster ball and rolling down a hill. We opted to do wet zorbing, which you do in your swim suit and they weight down the ball with water, so you don't actually flip over, although you feel like you do. This was the track we went down. It was fun, but it was a pretty short ride. I'm not sure I would do it again, but I'm glad I did it once.

Kevin and I also went to Skyline, this lovely place that we took a Gondola ride to the top of a very large hill and then scootered down on these lovely things. It was so much fun! We went down 3 times, once down each course. Above is the gorgeous view we had from the top, that's Lake Rotorua in the distance.

Alright, I will save the best for last here. We bought our tickets for Skyline in a package, that included a ride on the "sky swing". I didn't really know what it was, it sounded harmless enough. We saved it for last, which turned out to be a good thing. A little alarm went off in my head when the 5 point harness then the 2nd seat belt clicked into place. The lady clicking me into place, muttered somthing about "make sure you are clicked in on the way, that would be a big mess" . That's when the panic set in. She pointed out the release pull that we were to pull to "release" ourselves at the top. Then we were elevated very, very high in the air, facing the ground. On this little journey, I had some words with my dear husband about exactly what I thought of this little adventure. Little did I know, there was a camera recording the whole thing. I HATE rides like this and I wanted nothing more than to get down, but at that point, there is only one way down. So I shut my eyes and Kevin pulled the cord. I felt my heart drop through my toes as I slingshotted (is that a word?) out over the hill. Apparently we went 150km/hr in 2 seconds. NOT FUN. But oh don't worry, my cute little husband bought that DVD that was conveniently for sale when we were done, so I can relive it again and again. Oh and so he can show my rantings to everyone we know. Would've been so great if he would have mentioned to me that there was a camera above my head...I may have chosen some different words :).This is already too long. Rotorua was packed full of stuff we did. I'll talk about the Tamaki village and buried village and whaka in another post. Betcha you can't wait.

Bay of Islands

Kevin and I just got back from two weeks in New Zealand. It was AMAZING and we had so much fun. We did so much it will be hard to summarize it but I want to include it in my book so I'm going to split it up by the areas we visited. First up, Bay of Islands. This was on the northern part of the North Island and was the most tropical area we visited. It was right on the ocean and has a group of about 140 small islands in the area. We stayed in a little coastal town called Paihia.

There were several historical areas in this little town, including sites where Christian missionaries first landed and integrated with the Maori people. Below is a Huge tree we saw there, see Kevin underneath?

We went sailing out to an island the second day we were there. Neither of us had ever been on a sailboat and I thought it would be fun. We were on the boat with about 6 other people, several from the UK, Australia, and a German. I rarely met any Americans the whole time we were in New Zealand, it was rare to hear anyone that talked like me!

We had a pretty leisurely sail out to a little island where we stopped at an island for lunch, hiking, and to kayak. Glen, our captain, had to boat us over to the island in his "dinghy" as he called it. It was rather tiny and I was amazed we didn't fall in the water.

We hiked to the top of the Island where we found this amazing view. Apparently most of these Islands are protected land by the government in New Zealand and are considered nature preserves. Some of them have homes on them that people have to helicopter in to to reach. Can you imagine??

We also went Kayking a little but it was so windy it was hard to get to far in the bay as we kept blowing back towards shore.The sailing on the way back to Paihia was quite a different experience from the way there. It was so windy we sailed the whole way back on the side. Apparently this is how most sail boats go but I had no idea. All I know is we were tipped so far over my feet were dragging in the water and everyone had to be on one side of the boat so we wouldn't end up in the water. Our captain let the German tourist take the steer for a while at this point while he did the lunch dishes . I did not think this was the greatest idea as we were sailing sideways. Anyway, it was quite an adventure. I'm glad I did it once, not sure if I would want to do it again. We were able to see the Island that Captain Cook first landed when he came to the North Island in New Zealand.

There were several hiking trails in this area and waterfalls. Unlike America where there are rails keeping you from falling to such falls, there are none of those in NZ. We could get very close to the water.

I was amazed by all the lemon and orange trees that were growing everywhere and the huge palm trees. They were beautiful.

Isak: "Dad, when is Lucy going to turn into a boy?"
Kevin: "Ask your mom, she's a nurse."
Me: "Isak, Lucy has a little girl spirit in her. She will never be a boy. Maybe someday when Mommy has more babies we can have a little boy".
Isak: "I just don't want another toddler".
Luckily Isak, they don't come out as toddlers. By the way, he thinks babies come from the kid store and that you can go get one when you want. Yes, at 3, I think we will just leave that be :).

Fun Adventures

I went to Isak's preschool meeting Monday night and met one of the parents there of a girl who goes to school with Isak. I got, "Oh so you're Isak's mom. We hear lots of stories about Isak at home". I was afraid to ask. Isak was pretty grumpy today because he skipped his nap. He kept saying, "I wish you would just go back to heavenly Father!". Yes, super nice. When he doesn't get his way or is being disciplined he loves to tell me, "You are breaking my rules! That is not nice. Those are not my rules!".

When Lucy wakes up from her naps in the afternoon, she loves to come lay down on my bed while she is still waking up and talk to me. She has recently started singing the ABC's song and just this week started saying a short prayer by herself before bed. Its very sweet and almost intelligible, but kevin and I can understand her pretty well. Her hair is always is some crazy form when she wakes up. This morning she dumped a bottle of tylenol all over the kitchen (she got the lid off, it was loose) and then tracked it all over. She was very very sticky but she smelled great, very grapey.

Wednesday morning Kevin needed to go out to the dairy for something and the kids and I decided to tag along and pay the cows a visit. It was very rainy and cold though and my kids were rather unsure of the baby cows. I am pretty sure Lucy was expecting sheep and Isak kept trying to have conversations with the big cows out the windows.


We have made some good friends here in Othello and are getting to know families as they move it. This week we made mini pizzas at a friends with several girls and their kids. It was crazy, probably 10-11 kids there, but it was so fun to get out and talk to adults and other moms. I went out Wednesday night to have dinner with my good friend Emily who leaves on her mission in a couple weeks and my friend Crystal. We went to Shari's and it was high school all over again! Best part, free pie night! We are holding silverware for no reason inparticular. I am so excited for her, she is going to northern Brazil and will be an awesome missionary.

And below is a picture of Lucy being cute. She is going through this "very naughty I am 2 and terrible stage " and will scream for everything at me until figure out when she wants. But then other times she is so sweet it almost makes up for her craziness.