A-mazing

New Zealand is amazing! Definitely, the most beautiful place I've ever seen. It's like a mixture of places to me...the vineyards make me feel like I'm in Italy, the roundabouts and sheep make me feel like we're in Scotland, when you drive through the towns I feel like I'm at the beach because they have short buildings with a lot of different colors, the lush vegetation makes me feel like I'm in Hawaii. It's just beautiful. Anna and Dalton win the host and hostess of the year award. They have gone WAY out of their way to make us comfortable...like stocking our house with groceries, finding us Americans a fan to put in every room, and a heater, finding us car seats and a pack-n-play, buying our meals, toting us around (but, now we have a car), and just loving on us. I'll give a quick run-down of the last couple of days (for our moms that want to know what we're up to) and I'll try to post a slide show of pictures that I made.

Saturday: Just hung out with Anna and Dalton and the kids at their house most of the day. Had New York style pizza that night. Anna and Dalton were super excited about that because, until now, they haven't had anything like that in NZ. It was pretty good. Our kids slept much better that night.

Sunday: We went to The Mount. Kids played on the beach. We walked around the Mount (beautiful). That night, we went over to A&D's for some yummy chicken enchiladas and guacamole. Avocados are just pouring off the trees here. We can pick them in our front yard. They would cost $1 a piece at home. Who said there wasn't such thing as a money tree?

Monday: We had a very stressful trip to the grocery store. I had 3 recipes that I was trying to get together. I'd find a few ingredients and then figure out that they don't have the rest of them in NZ, so I'd have to put everything back and start over. I finally got 1 recipe together, but only because Anna had a secret stash of Parmesan cheese from the States. So, Robin, could you ask Mary to bring some more back with her :) ? Plus, everything is so much more expensive here. An 18 pack of coke was 18 NZD (about $14)!! After that, Joel got to have his first visit to the prayer room (Anna and Dalton are missionaries with the International House of Prayer). I hung out with Anna and the kids. That night, I made meat loaf (Mary Kate's request) over at our house. Granna, you're also on the hook for making her some more when we get home. Anna put the kids down here, so we got some fun hangout time with the kids asleep.

Tuesday: It was an early morning with the kids. Plus, we got up early to do Insanity so that I could make it to the House of Prayer on time. By the way, I'm loving Insanity. It's so much more fun than P90X for anybody that wants to know. I had my first visit to the prayer room. For years, I really haven't had a clue as to what Anna and Dalton actually do. Now, I know why. It's just something you have to experience. It really was neat. Just all about Jesus. I wish my life was just all about Jesus. I got to hear Anna sing and play the keyboard...absolutely gorgeous! Today, was a Mary and Bethany session, so more of a devotional time. I was there for 4 hours, so my butt kind of hurt by the end...and I totally dozed off a couple of times, but I did get some good time with Jesus. For lunch, we went to where Dalton lived during his internship. It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Lots of lush vegetation, waterfalls, rolling hills. It was great, but a bit of a trek with little ones. One of the YWAM training centers was there and they all came out in the blue jumpsuits...I totally felt like I was on the island from Lost with the Dharma Initiative. That afternoon, we just took it easy. Isaiah's been feeling a little yucky, so they stayed home and rested.

Wednesday: Both of the kids slept to 7! Woohoo! I got to go to the prayer room again. Today was intercessory prayer day. It was very cool to hear them sing out people's prayers. One of Anna's friends brought us a little Kiwi gift bag...how cute! Joel took the kids back to the beach and got them ice cream. We're probably laying low again this afternoon because Isaiah is still not feeling good. Poor guy!

Well, for some of you, that's probably more info than you care for and for others, I'm sure it wasn't enough. Love ya'll!

Well, the slideshow wouldn't load. Might have to do that at A&D's later.