NZ Trip- Day 7

March 8th was a rainy day, but we couldn't just stay indoors because we may never get to New Zealand again. Here are our highlights from day 7:
* Visiting the Auckland Botanic Garden and being able to finally find our way out. We got lost inside!

* Watching my husband sniff all of the roses in the gardens and listening to him decide which ones he wants in our garden someday. This was our favorite in smell and looks. (Adam's nose was yellow from getting too close to so many flowers!)


* Eating lunch at the famous Burger Fuel.
* Window shopping at a mall.
* Touring One Tree Hill and driving through all of the sheep to get to the top.


* Seeing Mt. Eden, an exploded volcano crater, and finding at least half a dozen more volcano cones surrounding us.

* Eatting my first Indian food ever. Butter chicken and naan.
* Visiting the Fatai family from one of Adam's Auckland wards. They used to feed the missionaries and help them out a lot. They're an awesome family. We LOVE the Fatais!

NZ Trip- Day 6

Day 6, March 7, was a rainy day all about fulfilling Adam's dream of deep sea fishing. Even though I don't enjoy fishing and the water was really choppy, the highlight of the day was watching Adam check deep sea fishing off of his bucket list.

Look at that line, he's got something!

Here's proof of the size of Adam's prized Snapper. Now, don't go believing any of his fish stories! Adam caught 6 fish total. They were Trevally and Snapper. He caught two fish that were big enough to keep, one of each kind. We got to keep them and took them to a local fish and chip shop to have them cooked up for lunch. Yum! Yum! They were the best fish and chips from the whole vacation! My mouth is watering just thinking bout it right now!

NZ Trip- Day 5

March 6th was the 5th day of our trip. Here are the highlights from day 5:
* Tramping (hiking) through the Wairere Boulders. We probably tramped about 4 miles. This was an awesome valley full of beautiful views and huge boulders. The pictures don't really do justice to how big everything was. You really need to go see it in person! I convinced myself that the big boulders were asteroids that fell to the earth and killed the dinosaurs. With his science background, Adam disagreed! Haha, I guess the surroundings kind of made me feel like I was in Jurassic Park! Seriously, they did!



* Having a man pinpoint where we were from just by hearing our voices. We must have some sort of accents! And here I was having a hard time understanding everyone else!
* Being in awe in the Waipou Kauri Forest. These ancient kauri trees were ginormous! Again, the pictures don't quite do these trees justice! In this forest we saw the 1st, 2nd, and 7th largest kauri trees in the world. The largest tree, named Tane Matu, is thought to have started growing when Christ was on the earth! Another cool fact about this tree is that there are over 30 different species of plants living in it.

This tree below does not even rank among the large kauri trees!

Exploring New Zealand sure helped us appreciate how amazing God's creations are!

NZ Trip- Day 4

Wow! Our trip went by so fast, see we are already at day 4 which was the 5th of March.
Here are some highlights of day 4:

* I finally learned how to flush a New Zealand toilet. They don't have flush handles! There are two buttons on top of the toilet tank. One button is pushed when you pee and it is like a half flush. The second button is for #2, the poo. It flushes all of the way. New Zealand is big into conserving their water.

* Visiting the Ancient Kauri Kingdom in Awanui. The kingdom is a showroom for art work made out of ancient kauri trees. We are talking about huge trees that are 45,000 to 100,000 years old here! The coolest thing at the show room was the staircase made inside of one of the tree trunks. The $55,000 wooden couch was also cool.


* Touring Gum Digger Park. My mom was sort of disgusted when we told her we were going there because she thought it was dealing with chewing gum! The park is actually an excavation site where gum from ancient kauri trees was dug up and used to make varnish, laminate, and what not. Gum digging was sort of a big thing like digging for gold. These are gum digging boots.

* Hearing the roar of these nasty bugs everywhere we went. Their empty shells are everywhere too. Yuck!

* Traveling to the tippy top of New Zealand, seeing the beauty of Cape Reinga, and exploring the beach of the local bay.



* Visiting some of the church members Adam grew close to in Kaitia and hearing about how good of a missionary he was.

NZ Trip- Day 3

Hooray! We finally landed in New Zealand on March 4th. New Zealand is so beautiful. It is indescribable. I hope that someone everyone has a chance to go see by land and by air.
Highlights of the day:
* Landing in Auckland and being on land again.

* Seeing the look on people's faces when Adam and I walked into one of Adam's old ward in our jeans. (It was so embarrassing, but our flight had just gotten in.)
* Driving on the wrong side of the road in the wrong side of the car.

* Experiencing our first hostel in which our room was actually more like a little shack. The showers were like camp ground showers. It was an adventure, especially since they only allowed 5 minutes showers.

* Visiting 90 Mile Beach in Ahipara. Pretending to do the Baywatch run. Exploring the windy beach and looking for shells.

NZ Trip- Day 1 (and 2)

Our trip began on March 2nd. After a flight to LAX we had a 9 hour lay over before our 12 hour flight to New Zealand! March 2nd and 3rd were full of flying, so nothing too exciting there.

Although we experiences a little turbulence, I don't think I am afraid of flying anymore. Flying, to me, has always been sort of like getting a shot. I sit stiffly in my seat on the plane and my anticipation builds as you listen to the engines beginning to roar loader and louder and faster and faster. My grip on Adam's hand grows tighter and tighter and my grimace grows larger and larger. But, once the plane actually takes off it isn't as bad as I expected and I can actually breath again and lower my shoulders.
Adam and I definitely learned a few things about long flights though. 1- Always request aisle seats so that you can get up and walk and use the restroom as much as you want. 2- Try to sit in as much seclusion as possible so that you don't have to smell others and what they are eating and drinking. You also won't have to continuously try to distract yourself from looking at the hairy guys next to you. 3- Never wear shorts or capris on a long flight. This way you and others don't have to see your nasty swollen kankles and elephant legs. 4- Don't plan on sleeping, it is not going to happen. Get plenty of rest before hand!

Coming Soon

COMING SOON:
Hear all about OUR TRIP TO NEW ZEALAND. That's right, we are home safe and sound and within the next few days we will hopefully we able to start telling you all about New Zealand, its wonderfulness, and our great time together.
We really enjoyed our trip to New Zealand and our opportunity to relax and get away from "it all". As our family continues to grow, we would like to continue exploring the world with our children.
Although we like to travel and experience new things, family is still the most important thing in our lives. I am just telling all of you this because I don't want you to think we'd ever put children on the back-burner for traveling. I just read an adoption novel where the birth mother didn't really like hearing about perspective adoptive parents travels because it didn't tell about who the families were and she felt like her child might put a damper in their future travel plans. So, that is why I wanted to address this. It scared me! Adam and I for sure would rather have family than travel any day. Promise, promise, promise!