A day in the life of...

Since we havn't done anything too exciting lately, and are kinda just living day to day life here (working all the time, blah), thought y'all might enjoy a little piece of that. Basically there aren't really any other pictures to post, and we have to keep you coming back for something! It kinda looks like an ad to rent our apartment. Anytakers? So here it all is, laugh if you must...


The Flag



The Uniforms



The Tag



The Hospital
(3 buildings at the top of the photo)



The Hospital Sign




The Inside Hospital Sign



The Flat

Piha Beach

Its just a short (30 min) drive away from Auckland to this awesome beach which is very popular with locals. You can't tell from the pictures but the black sand just sparkled like diamonds under the sun. There is actually a TV show called Piha Rescue about the lifeguards and all the crazy stuff that happens there in the summer when it is packed with people. We were lucky to see it with very few people there.

















The Ducks...

We had lunch just off the beach along side the fresh water stream running into Piha. Thats where we met the crazy ducks, the most fearless ducks we have ever encountered. Or maybe just really really hungry.

Auckland Domain

So we decided we needed a little culture outside the shopping centers. We found this at the Auckland War Memorial Muesum. The Muesum is located on top of the hill within Auckland Domain, a huge city park where they often hold open air concerts. Here we saw a cultural performance and then the rest of the muesum which was surprisingly, one of the best we have have ever seen. The displays include a virtual experience of what it would be like to be in a house in Auckland when one of the areas many volcanoes inevitably erupts. The house went black, shook, had deafening noises as well as large screen imagery of the ash coming through the fake window. So realistic in fact, that Jodi screamed and ran out of the room. Awww.







The Haka (on a small scale) Very powerful, but more so with a larger group (and larger men) more specifically the All Blacks rugby team, most of whom are easy on the eyes as well.




Linda and Jodi's escorts


Inside a Maori carved meeting house (whare whakairo)



















Above: Linda and Jodi being statues, awww a Kiwi! A giant Moa bird which used to roam NZ and is now extinct

Below: Hey, that's not the musuem, oh ya, its all the shoes we bought!! Divided by 3 of us, its not so bad...

More Waipoua Forest

So its bin a while and in order to get you all to look at these pics, we thought we'd just do a new post. But really it is a continuation of our wonderful vacation with Mom K. The tree below (Te Matua Ngahere, specs on other post) is actually wider than the first but shorter. You cannot tell from the pic but my body wouldn't even be as big as one of its branches. These things were massive. You can see other Kauri trees below that we were givin some love to, which are not even half the size of the others. But they are all pretty cool and the whole forest was quite mesmerizing.







We drove up to yet another lookout point which had a panoramic view over the entir forest. Tired and jaded from too many scenic views, we decided it would be more exciting to race around the top of the tower...although technically I WON, it did end in disaster for me and Jodi won by default (she also kneed me half way around, before I slipped). Ask Linda who won people, she was there, she saw. You know who it was. The rest of the pics are some of the countryside on the way home, and the trip ended appropriately with a rainbow, awww.














And last but not least, Tawnya's fat, gross, spider-bitten foot on day 2 and 3. Thought it might interest some people. It is still sore to touch and bend. But it is not necrotic as far as we can tell.