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!