Say Cheese!

Click on pic for the album.

Here's a few highlights from the last couple of days...

We took a mini trip over to Matamata to visit the Kamai Cheese Factory. We sampled a variety of cheeses. The entertainment of the day was having the kids try the blue cheese. The faces that they made were hilarious. It really did taste awful. Joel said that it tasted like an elephant smells...ewe! Next, we headed to a playground. Matamata is also the home to Hobbiton, a tour business for the Lord of the Rings movie sets. A lot of the shire parts of the movies were filmed there. We forewent the $20 to go see it since Anna and Dalton said that it's pretty much just going to see a bunch of circles cut into hills. But, Joel still went hobbit hunting...at least, to check out the smeagol statue in the middle of town. That night, the Walshes had us all over for dinner. Aaron and Christy head up the House of Prayer in Tauranga, and they have an almost 2 year old and a 6 year old. All the kids had a fun time playing together, especially on the trampoline. Dinner was great and it was fun to hear snippets of their story. Anna and Dalton have a great New Zealand family.

Today, we headed back to The Mount/beach. Joel and I ran to the top of the Mount and back down. Rachel, I thought of you and how fun it would be for you to be here with us to do crazy stuff like that. It was hard, but awesome. The views are amazing. We'll definitely have to do that again before we leave...if my back can handle it. We played on the beach some more and had a picnic. I told Mary Kate that she needed to try really hard to always remember this.

There's a big 10K race around The Mount coming up next weekend. A couple of Anna's friends are training for it and are trying to talk us into doing it. We thought it'd be pretty cool to run a 10k in New Zealand and we figured it'd be a fun way to get a NZ t-shirt...wrong! You pay $20 to register and then if you want a shirt you pay another $35. So, not the cheapest way to get a t-shirt.

Tonight, we hung out at Anna and Dalton's and got some more New York Pizza (and coke...my luxury item of the month). We are loving being here...and loving getting time with The Lifseys. They're pretty cool people!

Another highlight...Anna's guacamole. Yummy! I love being in the land of avocados.

It's officially Keri and Britton's wedding day. So sad that we can't all celebrate together in C-town, but we're celebrating them in New Zealand. Can't wait to see pictures.