The Last Few Days...

We went for a little roadtrip the beginning of this week and had no Internet, so sorry for the lack of updates. But before that...

On Saturday, the boys got to go with Mary's uncle to watch a rugby game. They sure do love there rugby here! There are rugby fields set up everywhere and there are always games going on multiple tv channels! The rugby world cup is here next month, so everybody's pretty excited about that. Downtown there was a place with a huge countdown board for when the first game starts. There's a huge stadium down in the city where they'll play some of the games.

Sunday we went to church, and boy were we obvious visitors! Haha The ward we went to was pretty much all Mauri people (Aka natives of New Zealand) and we stuck out like a sore thumb! Not exactly something we're used to, but they were all very nice and super friendly :) It was cool to go when it was testimony meeting too. Lots of cute little kids got up to bear their testimonies. That afternoon, lots of Mary's family came over for a big dinner and we had lots of good food!

We drove down on Monday south of Auckland to do some different fun stuff. That afternoon we stopped at a place that had "Zorb" balls. It's like a jumbo inflated ball and you get strapped into the inside and then roll down a big hill. Haha it was really fun! We got some good video of John inside his, so hopefully we can put that up sometime...

The next day, we drove up to Mt. Ruapahu for the boys to go snowboarding. Not quite the same caliber that they're used to down in Utah, but they had fun and enjoyed being able to go during August.

The last day of our mini trip, we stopped by the Waitomo caves. The big thing is to go in and see the glowworms that are on the cave ceilings. Mary, Steve, Mary's sister, John, and I all did this tour of them where you put on a wet suit and a helmet with a headlamp and you get an intertube and the guides take you through the caves. Some parts you walk through, and some parts you float through with your tube. It was really cool!

After the caves, we stopped in Hamilton on our way home. Hamilton is where the temple is. We didn't have time to go in, but we walked around and went into the visitor's center that was there. The temple and the grounds were really pretty! Then we went back to Auckland, but here, from 5-7 in the evening, the traffic by the city is awful! It seemed to take us FOREVER to finally make it back! Needless to say, we slept very good that night after our long day on the road! Haha

The past few days, we've just gone around to places near Auckland to see some sites. We went to the top of a big dormant volcano, to a huge waterfall, and kayaked in the ocean! The beach where we kayaked had TONS of seashells, so we had fun trying to fond some cool ones. It's hard to believe that our 2 weeks are almost up!

You'll Never Guess What We've Been Up To!

So yesterday we had quite the adventure!  But the day before, John decided to be a bit of a daredevil... Him, Steve, and Mary's sister all went for a little Jump that wasn't so little... haha  They all jumped off of the Skytower, which is a tall building that looks pretty similar to the space needle and is the tallest man-made structure in New Zealand.  You get clipped onto some wires and its a 192 meter drop to the bottom!

Yesterday however, Mary, Steve, John, and I all went canyoning!  It was pretty crazy!  We had a guide and he took us basically on a hike through the forrest, but x1,000,000!  We hiked in to a certain spot, and then we put on wet suits, helmets, and harnesses and swam, jumped, slid, repelled (abseiled, if you're from New Zealand), and "tramped"(hiked) down a big stream with tons of drops and waterfalls!  It was tons of fun!  The girls got a little chilly with it being colder out, but it was definitely worth it!  Our guide was really nice and funny too, so he was fun to go with.  He also told us a funny joke: What's brown and rhymes with snoop? (think about it and the answer's at the bottom) And the scenery was SO pretty!  There were tons of trees and blue water and cool huge rocks everywhere!

Our guide took some fun pictures too, so have a looksy!

John repelling!

Me jumping!

Me, John, Steve, and Mary

As you can see, it was pretty awesome!  :)   

O yeah, the answer to the joke is: Dr. Dre  haha

Day Out With The Grandparents

Yesterday we got to spend the day with Mary's grandpa and his wife. They took us first to a really cool aquarium! There were lots of penguins and some ginormous sting rays! We took a bunch of pictures, but due to technical difficulties (i.e. I brought the wrong cord) it'll be a while before we can put them up. :(

After that, they took us out to lunch at a nice place where we got to try some fish and chips and some spaghetti with prawns (which is what they call shrimp). It was delicious! We went back to their house after lunch to hang out for a little while. They like to have hot drinks after their meals here, so they made us some Milo, which is like hot cocoa for them. We see lots of different birds around, and we saw one that they call a parakeet, but it looks just like a parrot with lots of bright colors, but smaller. We've also seen lots of sheep and pet pigs. Mary's uncle was telling us about how he goes hunting for big ol boars and he showed us some of the heads he had mounted- they were huge! And nasty looking! haha

Anyway, To finish off the day, we went to a little town called Piha and went to a really cool beach. We found a few starfish and John plucked a huge one off of a rock! Don't worry, we returned it to it's home after we finished feeling it and taking pictures. Lol In New Zealand it's currently winter time so there weren't too many beach goers. Apparently it's a really good surfing beach though, so there were quite a few devoted fellows out trying to catch some good waves. At the beach, there's a big rock that you can hike up. When we were there the sun was just about to set so it was really pretty! All in all it was a really fun day and were tuckered out by he end!

We Made It!

We left Sunday at 9:30pm LA time and landed in New Zealand around 5am here, except here it's Tuesday now. Crazy time difference! Our plane was super nice! We were supposed to leave LA at 10:20, fly to Sydney, then fly to Auckland, but our plane got delayed tip the next morning, so the nice people at the airline snuck us onto a different airline's plane that was going straight to Auckland. This was definitely a good deal for us, because we got there a lot sooner and our plane accommodations were a step up, to say the least. :). Mary's family is super nice and we get to stay with them while we're here. It's nice to have our own personal tour guides. We went for a nice little drive today to see some beautiful New Zealand scenery. So far, it's a little hard to get used to the driving on the left side of the road. Haha. It's also been confusing trying to figure out conversions. Stinkin metric system... Lol