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.
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. 
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. 
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.
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. 
I had a race yesterday down on the Snake River by Pullman. It was a half-marathon and the weather was perfect. The course was out and back on a road along the river. It was gorgeous, the only downside was that there was no spectators because the road was closed for the race. Kevin and the kids occupied themselves throwing rocks in the river and Isak found some 12 year old girls to talk to about the dead fish he found along a dock. They had a lot of fun while I was suffering. I had a new PR though! I was hoping for 1:45, ran 1:46, but as long as it was under 1:50 I was happy. I found this sweet Nike app for my phone that let me hear my mile splits and have "power songs" when I needed them. I could have also had people cheer for me on facebook and then hear cheers while I was running, but alas, there was no service near the river. 
The poor kiddos crashed on the way home. I think they were more tired than I was. We had someone ask us if Isak and Lucy were twins. He told us he had boy/girl fraternal twins that didn't look as much alike as Isak and Lucy did. Funny, first time we have gotten that. Lucy keeps getting so tall, hopefully Isak can keep ahead of her or he might not love that so much when he's older.
Kevin's sister Lindsey and her husband popped in to so it was like a mini family reunion, minus Jason and Whitney. We had tons of fun, staying up late playing Kinnect, having a huge nerf gun fight and even got in a little shopping.
By far the kids favorite part of their house was GusGus the hamster, who was recently acquired by Nathan and Steph. Lucy was so excited, I thought she would hyperventilate. She would just stare at him in the cage and then we let him out to run in the ball and she just kept saying "hi gusgus, hi gusgus" over and over. Poor Skeletor, the other hamster, didn't get nearly as much attention. Probably because he's a biter. Isak thought he was cool but wasn't too sure about holding him. Apparently Conner likes to try to give him rides in his little push cart.
We got Conner his very own automatic nerf gun for his birthday, a rite of passage for every 2 year old boy.
We had lots of fun and loved visitng everyone. Did I mention Stephanie is 8 months pregnant too and super cute? She is. Sorry that I didn't get pictures of my trip to Boise, I promise I love my family there equally too. I love that even though we moved away, we are still close enough to visit once in a while!
