day with the skeens

Saturday morning we say goodbye to the Bangerter’s 😢 and then we drove to skeens house. We load up and stop at a few bakery lunch pies chicken kebab and treats before we head out to pick our own strawberries. We also stopped at a park and the kids raced around and played together. A nice little visitors center stop before we went back to their house and ate Melted chocolate and gorge on strawberries. Fish n chips for dinner playing and fun. Kiwi Hotel and watch castaway. Cannon enthralled 

Sunday check out of hotel and decide to get breakfast and candy chocolate milk from grocery store. We wait in the airport line over an hour- security and enjoy the nice airport lounge for food and drinks. 3 hr flight to Fiji — enter another airport Lounge for more food and drinks. Finally board our flight that is 7 hours to Honolulu arrive at 3:30 am January 1st - home and in bed at 4. 

 

More fun

 Wednesday early flight from Auckland to Queenstown jet boat river crazy spin driver “I wanna go home” freaked out when it started. All over “I wanna go again”-cannon. It really was crazy the drifting and how close we got to hitting the river gorge cliffs. I was afraid of crashing on multiple occasions! A short drive down the road to watch Bungee jump for sam Isabelle Chad. We enjoy a lovely picnic at the bay- Ben snores and takes a nap in the shade. We decide to walk downtown. Most of the kids stop for swimming - play king do the dock while some people went shopping - dinner was fish and chips. A nice evening Walk back to the parked cars. 

Thursday pack up for overnight fjord boat cruise drive 2 hr to ferry. Then board a bus ride 45 minutes then get on overnight boat - weather then Windy and raining. The kids found they could turn their coats into sails! Wet but happy. We saw seals and so many waterfalls. A short excursions in the rain before dinner. Most everyone went on the Kayak but me, Gwen, Brielle and cannon ride on a boat with tarps- so much rain and get really wet. Dinner is delicious and small portion dessert- lemon sponge cake or chocolate tart- yum 😋 

Friday sunshine in the fjord cruise- take a bus — then ride a very nice boat ferry back to our cars. While driving in the car, cannon pipes up from the back “can somebody roll down the window?” I turned around in a shock and yell at Eva to roll down her window, and then unbuckle her seatbelt into the move out of the way right as Cannon is sticking his head out the window and begins to puke— luckily most of it makes it out and sprays onto the side of our car. Luckily, we are close to a park that had bathrooms and water to help clean up the car. We had to stop a few more times for Cannon has his belly was still a bit crazy for the two hour ride home . He eventually close his eyes and went to sleep. We really wanted to go downtown to a couple of these cute souvenir shops, but we went and got some food and it was looking a little close for our flight. We actually had plenty of time. So the kids got to choose what they wanted to eat. We got some gelato at a very expensive place and then went to turn back in our rental cars and made it to the airport in plenty of time. flight back to Auckland. Check into a cheap airport hotel order Uber pizza for dinner.

New Zealand continued

Xmas eve Saturday we woke up and tried to quickly pack out of the rental house. A short drive over to the redwoods mountain bike trails and getting everyone set up with their e-bike. Cannon and I stayed behind and waved as they all drove off. After a short start, with some tricky handling, Gwen got very frustrated, crying and refused to go any more. Isabelle also said she was ready to quit after 30 minutes. Ben says he will bring them and Chad and Emily can take the rest of the kids on a ride. Ben tries to get back to the beginning but can’t- one way trails and weird loops. After an hour, they finally make it back to the starting place and me Ben and cannon go for a little ride. Cannon does great, even though the bike was too large for him to handle comfortably. Just a short time later the rest of the gang reappears and we turn the bikes back in. Our lunch options gross, so we decide to take out family to an Indian- yummy kebab and meat and rice. After that, we start our drive toward mount manganui with a short stop for a vigorous Waterfall hike down to swim. Water is pumping out of the waterfall- a Very strong current the boys challenge each other to make it to the rope and climb next to the waterfall. Grocery shopping ($200 for 2 days) beach at sunset. We have gross Chinese for Christmas Eve dinner. Play a fun pass the parcel (Isabelle wins) Emily reads a New Zealand  children’s story, we light the whirligig candle and read Luke 2.

Sunday Christmas morning stockings and yummy coffee cake for breakfast. Eat candy all morning, listen to piano guys on YouTube get ready for church at 12 nobody there. The 2 wards had combined at 9:00!! We Talk to elder platt and go to the beach. Steak and potatoes dinner hike to the top of mount mainganui. Brielle broke Eva’s sand dollar :(  we thought cannon did it and so we played truth or dare to get him to tell us the truth. Brielle was so scared when she broke the sand dollar she dropped it and ran away. We all had to clean it up. She confessed in the car ride and cried. Worries that Eva would be so mad- but she wasn’t. 

Monday potatoes steak eggs breakfast clean up house beach parking full so Ben drops us off- Brielle cannon and Connor do 5 minute trampoline with their Christmas money. Then we rent scooter- play at fun beach ocean for 1 hour pb jelly at the park drive to Auckland for flight to queenstown — really trying to hustle worried about making the flight.. plenty of rain and wait. Fly all the way to queen town (1.45 hr) and try to land twice. Pilot decides to fly all the way back to Auckland — what a crazy turn for our trip. Stranded and rebooked flight for Wednesday. Late booking for Airbnb take 3 Uber - everyone so hungry we walk to gas station and get donuts, milk and some weird fried meat Pattie’s the cashier lady passed to us through a bank tray box. 

Tuesday check into kiwi hotel. A driver offers to take all of us in his Toyota Prius downtown to thenAuckland Museum. Ben was very comfortable in the fort while 5 of us were crammed in the back!! We walk through the museum until we are ready to go, then walk downtown to an arcade for video games. Started looking for a place to grab lunch/dinner and arrive at a new shopping mall food court with so many options at the mall! We decide to watch the 3 hour new avatar movie.