June 2010

June
We moved back to New Zealand the end of May and Tricia and Lee Arrived June 1st for a conference that Lee was speaking at.

What a fun treat it was for us to have Tricia, Lee, Dallin and MeKenna come for a visit. Of course their plane got in at 5 AM which meant that we had to get up at 4 AM to get to the airport on time. It was so fun to see them. I just love having our family come for a visit. The timing of the visit was not the best for us because we were not completely settled at work or at home. In fact, we had only been in our home for one night before they arrived.

Tricia’s really saved the day for me. All of our things were either still in the boxes or piled all over the kitchen cupboards so she and the kids got busy helped us to move in. When we looked in the cupboards we found lots of mouse poop and they really stunk. I wanted to just pack up and find a new place to live. But Tricia and I pulled everything out of the cupboards, stripped off the old cupboard paper and replaced it with brand new stuff. Boy what a smelly, dirty job. Trish had her whole upper body in the cupboards trying to reach back into the corners to clean out the poop. What a trooper.

Guess what the name is of these falls.?

If you look and Lee and Dallin you could get a clue.

They are called "Fairy Falls"

They are located in the mountains above Auckland. It's a 45 minute hike down into a canyon with over 500 steps. It was a beautiful and amazing place. The hike was spectacular through the mountains and it seemed like the falls went on forever.
When I was taking Tricia and Lee’s picture at the top of the falls, Lee pretended to slip on the rocks and I screamed in horror. I guess I’m still suffering from post traumatic syndrome from when Natalie got hurt in Samoa. Lee felt so bad that he had scared me, he promised not to do any more crazy things.

Lee did a fabulous job on his presentation so now we can just have fun with them.

Pat and Dallin at the conference with Paul and McKenna.

Our fun trip to Hobbiton

They are getting ready to film a new movie "The Hobbit" and are rebuilding the shire. It was so fun to see the little places built into the mountainside and the amazing detail that they do for a three second shot. They told how they found this location while flying over it and they fell in love the huge tree (the party tree) next to the pond. It was amazing how one scene would be filmed here and the next one would be filmed on the south island. We had fun taking pictures and hearing the stories of how everything was done. What a huge amount of money they spent on things that are hardly visible.

Rotorua

It was a cold wet rainy day but we went to Rotorua anyway. We wanted to go down the luge ride. It kept raining but we just decided to go for it anyway. We waited for a small break in the rain , bought our tickets and headed up the mountain. . When we got to the top of the mountain it started to rain so we decided to wait for a while until it stopped or at least let up for a while.





There are three trails that you can go down so when we had a small break we decided to take the longer scenic one first. It started to rain half way down and in the middle of the trail it looked like a small river running down. You had to stay close to the edge or you would get soaked. It was so fun and we all met at the bottom. Of course I was last because I like to look at the scenery and not go like a crazy person. We waited for another break in the rain then we all went on the intermediate trail. It was much faster.
On the last run everyone wanted to take the very fast advanced trail but me. I wanted to take the scenic one again only this time I got behind a small family and their child stopped just before the end so it slowed me down and I couldn't get started again. When I finally reached the bottom Everyone was making fun of me because I couldn't get going again so when another lady came down I told her to hit me to get me started again. We went to the top again and everyone wanted to go again so Paul and I bought a season pass and put four more rides on it. So Dallin, McKenna, Lee and Paul could go again.
When they returned they were all so wet. I went into the bathroom and put McKenna’s sweat shirt under the hand dryer. We were cold and wet but had a great time.












Hulka Falls near Taupo

It was raining and a very dismal day but we made the best of it and went to see an amazing relatively small waterfall named Hulka. The water coming through the falls would fill up 5 Olympic swimming pools in 5 seconds. It was awesome. We then went to see the bungee jump and there were people jumping on this cold wet winter day. These people must be nuts.

Our favorite shell beach

Our Whangari trip, a lovely little sea port town up north. We didn’t get away until around noon that day because of work so we were pressed for time. We didn’t realize how far away it was and by the time we got there we only had one hour to look around. On the way home we had quite the experience. Paul calls it the $500 coke story. As we arrived in Wellsburg Paul saw a McDonald's/gas station and decided that he needed a coke. (What else is new) As we were going in, Paul decided to fill up the church van. So we went to get drinks and Paul pulled over to the pumps to fill it up.

He knew that the Van used diesel so he made sure that he pulled into the proper pump. He jumped out and grabbed the green handled pump and started filling the tank . Just a few seconds into this he looked up and saw that the pump said "regular"as in gas. (in New Zealand, the Diesel fuel pump is Black not green) He stopped the pump and thinking that he had only put in a gallon or two, finished filling the van with diesel.

He asked the gas attendant how much gas could go into a diesel tank without hurting it. The guy told him you could only put in 3 %. He didn’t think that he had put that much in but in checking the pump he found that he had put in 14 liters. The attendant said that if you started your car with that ratio in it, the engine could be ruined. Of course we are on a tight time schedule because we had to get the kids to the airport by 7 PM. We are two hours from the airport and they were not completely packed yet.
The attendant ran across the street to a repair shop and asked for help. They sent over a truck, towed the van across the street and tried to drain the gas. No drain plug. They tried to siphon it out but the van had an anti-siphon flap on it so they couldn't get any gas out that way. They tried several different ways and only drops would come out. It was 4:30 by now and we were worried about making the airport on time.

Paul could see that this was not going to work for us and asked them for rental car number. Of course there were none in this town and the next town was 15 miles away and they would have to put a car onto a truck and bring it up.
When they brought the car it was an old Subaru station wagon with only five seats and it had 250,000 miles on it. It rattled and shook but we all piled and off we went. We made it to our place and within 15 minutes we were off to the airport, praying that this car would make it. We arrive at the airport at 7:30 just in time for their international flight. We honestly couldn't believe that we made it. It was sad to see them go but with everything that had gone wrong we were glad to see that they made it.

The story is not quite over. The next morning, we got up and drove the rental car back up to Wellsberg. We picked up the Van, paid the $170. bill. (Not too bad) and then drove the rental car back to Warkworth. We made it home and discovered that we had left our Garage door opener in the rental car. It was too late to go back so we got up early on Saturday morning and made one more trip to Warkworth to get the opener. When all the bills were totaled, repair shop, rental car, two tanks of Diesel fuel, one tank of gas and two large cokes,it came to just over $500. Hey, its only money.