A couple of company events...

Near the beginning of 2016, there were a couple of events put on by Matt's work.

First, they did a kind of post-Christmas party at Boomrock Resort. It was really fun. It got off to a little bit of a rough start, though. The bus got stuck on the steep road. They had all of us get out and walk the rest of the way. The buses made it up with no problem once we were all off. Luckily, we were almost there, so it wasn't too bad. They had some childcare provided so the adults could try out a few different activities. We rotated between skeet shooting, cooking/cocktail mixing, and archery. It was the first time I'd ever shot a gun. I wasn't very good, but I think I hit 2 out of 10 clay pigeons and that was pretty thrilling actually. Matt got 6. The cocktail mixing was a little unnecessary for us non-alcohol drinkers, but a virgin mojito was surprisingly refreshing. At the cooking lesson we learned how to cut lemon crowns and make dumplings in three shapes. We had a great time with that. I'd love to take a cooking class with Matt some time. We also got to do some archery, which I'd only ever done on the Wii. Pretty different in real life... Matt got the high score of anyone at the event! We also had a wonderful dinner. Quite delicious. We were told that the resort usually has an amazing view of the Tasman Sea. (After looking at the map, it's hard to tell if it would really be the Tasman Sea... it's barely north of the Cook Strait.) It was too foggy until the very end to able to see any water, but we did get a couple of shots. We were on a cliff!

 Another activity that was planned, mostly for the kids, was a visit to a Wellington Fire Station. The kids got to try using the fire hose (with help of course) to knock down some orange traffic cones, try on the boots and climb into the truck. It was a fun little afternoon.

And since this happened the day before Valentine's Day, I'm going to take the opportunity to post the cake I decorated for the holiday:

And the picture of me and the kids after church on Sunday...

(written August 2017)

The Final Episode of our New Zealand Christmas Adventure

On Christmas morning, we did another opening of the stockings and one last Christmas gift for each person. Matt bought the only "Christmas" tree he could find at a local store to put up.

 Marie was the last to wake up around 7:45am. The boys woke up at 6am, so it was a long wait for them!

 Ready to go down the stairs...

 We didn't get much of a reaction from Marie on our "Christmas morning" the day before we left Wellington, but she was all smiles for this one!

 She received her one and only doll (so far) and she loves it!

 The boys got a bunch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures so they could play together.

 Matt got Ant-Man

 We got the boys a series of books called "Who Would Win?" about mock animal battles. It's pretty fun. I'm reading one of them in this picture:

 Bobby and me in our crowns from our first ever Christmas crackers. They have a prize and a crown and a joke inside each one. It has a tiny firecracker inside so they pop when you open them. Pretty fun. I don't remember purchasing them, and neither does Matt, so I am pretty sure we received them as a gift from the owner of the hotel! That was sweet of him!

We thought about going to a park or to the Antarctic Centre which was the only thing open on Christmas day, but since we had had very full days of touring, we just stayed "home" and rested and played and watched movies. It was a wonderful Christmas day.

The next morning, we went on our final tour in the South Island, the only Lord of the Rings tour leaving out of Christchurch. It was about a 2.5-hour bus ride out to Mount Sunday, where they filmed the Riders of Rohan and Edoras.

We stopped a few times to stretch our legs and have lunch with the tour group.

 We finally reached our destination after some crazy gravel roads...

Our view of Mount Sunday

Screenshot of Edoras

 Side view of Mount Sunday 

Side view of Edoras

 We took about a 40-minute hike up the mountain.

 The tour provided Lord of the Rings weapons for people to use in their photos.

 The boys loved it!

 They had pictures of Eowyn so we could line me up to look like the screenshot below.

 I'm pretty sure we used this as our family photo for something... pretty intimidating ;)

 Then we hiked down the mountain.

Shot of Scotty walking back to the bus

...which matched a screenshot of the front wall of Edoras!

Marie getting some space after her long walk in the baby carrier.

And she wanted her turn with the weapons. 

 Beautiful lavender field on the drive home.

We loved the South Island and couldn't wait to return! The North Island of New Zealand is made from volcanoes, and the South Island is made from tectonic plates colliding, so they really seem to have every geological feature within the country. It's truly incredible.

We drove back to the ferry the next morning and then home. It was an exhausting, but very fun family trip. We made lots of wonderful memories and took hundreds of photos!

(written January 2017)