Monday, December 14, 2009
How Red Beach got its name
The town we live in - Red Beach - got its name from the thousands, or probably millions, of red shells found on the beach there. The red shells are only on this beach!
The Great Sea Glass Hunt
Also a good place for hide and seek when the tide is out.
This is down the street from our house and we've found some really cool and random things hiding there. Including some awesome sea glass.
A proud day for Mom
At the museum of transportation and technology we got to try out the stilts. Mom was the best of all of us and since it was her first time ever to try them, she was pretty proud to dominate us all - she could walk around forever!
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Black sand beauties
The black sand was super soft and fun to play in! What you can't see in the pictures is that it also sparkles in the sunshine. The black beach is surrounded by green, green hills. It was a beautiful day!
Surfing the Tasman!
A lucky day for Kimberly and Kelsie! A surf school instructor offered us an amazingly low price to give both girls a one hour surfing lesson. We couldn't pass it up! Wet suits, boards and all were provided and they had a fabulous time out in the waves of the Tasman Sea in Raglan, New Zealand on a gorgeous black sand beach.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Skiing anyone?
This is Snow Planet. The indoor ski slope open all year, just down the street from where we live.
One of our favorite places...
This is the Whangaparaoa Library where we've spent many happy hours. It's so nice with great books, movies, reading areas,etc. It is also where we got all our e-mail until we had our own internet.
Cave exploring!
Here we are exploring a beach cave. Really it doesn't go much deeper, but there are some that do and have tons of broken shells in them. BUT, there are bugs and they don't smell too good :P
Thursday, December 3, 2009
The City of Sails
The beautiful city of Auckland as seen from the bridge heading into it from north of the harbour where we live. It's really fun to see it when all the boats are out sailing.
Definately not rubbish!
They have delicious ice cream here that is hard to resist - so we try not to resist too much! One of the favorite flavors is Hokey Pokey which is honey flavored with little bits of honeycomb in it - mmmmmmmmm!
An Oompa Loompa house?
Really awesome looking onion house built on a tree. We heard it was built for a commercial and now is used for privately booked special
occasions. Zach says maybe Oompa Loompas live in it.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Framed by New Zealand at Shakespeare Park
A gorgeous park with beaches and hiking trails. About 10 minutes from home.
Our tiny little chapel.
We have church at 10 am, and as we are the only ward that meets here - it will stay that way! There are two portable trailer classrooms out back, and we are all excited about our new, expanded parking lot! (Before it was finished last week, families had to park on the grass you see up front!)
Part of our garden and deck (above).
This house has gorgeous gardens and flowers on all sides. There are fruit trees, an herb garden, and even a banana tree!
Kids' bathroom sink
Decorated with shells and a starfish they found on the beach. (And a bottle of soap found at Countdown market ;O )
Our claw foot tub
For a wonderful, hot, relaxing soak. Aaaaaaaah!
(Yes, we do have a shower as well :)
The view from our deck of the bay and ocean
We love waking up to this each morning! It's a six minute walk down to the beach.
To flush or to half flush?
Each and every NZ toilet has this option. There are always two buttons. One to flush, and one to ...... half flush. (?)
NZ electrical
This happens to be a safety outlet near a sink, but ALL outlets have the little switch you see next to where you plug in. It turns the power to the outlet on and off. We keep them switched off until we need to use them.
Indespensible item!
This is a towel warmer, as found in almost every New Zealand home. Great for wrapping up in a toasty warm towel after your shower!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Hedgehog!
So. We were house hunting. And boom! We saw this little brown thing run across the road. It was a hedgehog! We all thought it was sooo cool, so Dad pulled over. Mom got out of the car, but right when she did the hedgehog ran into someones yard. She followed it! She spent like 5 minutes in some random person's yard trying to get a good picture of the hedgehog. Here you go. :)
Sheep World!
Sheep world! We took a day trip to Sheep World, where we saw pink sheep, alpacas, and a sheep sheering show! It was a really fun day. The highlight for me was when we got to feed the lambs. We all got to hold them and give them milk. Mom really liked holding the possum afterwards.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Fun at the Supermarket!!
One of our favorite things to do is go grocery shopping!!! So the Starburst picture is for starburst lollypops, and it's pretty much the funniest thing I've ever seen. The one with Kelsie is the dogfood here. I lovingly call it The Giant Sausage of Death. :) Trundlers... we thought all the shopping carts here are called trundlers. turns out they're not. Just at that one grocery store (New World) are they called trundlers. Everywhere else they're called trolleys.
We love to see all the different names at the grocery store.
Temple!!
Okay. Well. This was going to be a post about our new house, but we haven't taken a picture yet. So. This is us at the temple! The NZ temple is very old, (well, old to me) but the Spirit there is the same. It was our first encounter with our new ward (we hope it's our ward!) and they are simply wonderful. I had lost my voice the day before, so I couldn't say anything. :(
The strange thing about this temple is that it's in the middle of the country. You really drive through fields of cows and sheep to get there!
House Number One!
Hola! Sorry this has taken so long, we have a very limited supply of internet. Well. When we got here we stayed at a bed and breakfast, but we found a temporary town house right on the harbor! We've stayed there for the past week and a half. This is the beautiful view from the dining area! We all loved the harbor, but we had to move. While we lived there, we had a fun time playing "I-Spy" with the names of the boat. Some favorites were "Snap!" and "Amigo". I would put on more pictures, but the computer won't let me. :)
Monday, September 28, 2009
Welcome!
This is Dad and Zach. While we waited. And waited. And waited. for our plane.
Hey! Here's the blog. I'm going to try to post my playlist on here, but I don't know if it will work. It doesn't work in New Zealand, but it might work for those of you in America. :) just turn it off if you don't want to listen to it.
Anyways, we arrived safely in NZ! Mom got very very motion sick so was pretty much dead the whole time. The plane ride was SO long!!!! Never again! Actually, we will do it again in a year.... *groan*. Anyways. We're here! Sorry, I will write more later, but I'm really tired right now.
This is a picture of when I knocked over all of my luggage. BAHAHAHA.
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