The Journey Home (and my last really long travel blog entry)

Now that I'm back home with a faster internet connection, I can post a few more pictures. The day before we left, we said goodbye to the Smiths (the senior missionary couple that works in the office) and the assistants/office elders. We got ties for all of elders, so they're showing them off. Elder Kroll (the one on the left) has Katie's copy of the notes for "Book of Mormon Stories" that she used to teach him how to play.

The airport goodbye was very sad for all of us. Katie kept going back for one more wave, but eventually we had to head into customs. And then we were off. The trip from Adelaide to New Zealand went really smoothly, and we landed in Auckland with an hour to connect to our next flight.

We got on the flight to LA, put all of our things where we wanted them, and even took off our shoes to get comfortable when it was announced that they had found a fuel leak on the plane and we would need to get off since the repair could take between 2-4 hours.

In case you've forgotten our last 12-hour flight, let me remind you that it was also delayed by 4 hours. In that case, the flight had left Auckland 4 hours late, so we knew when it was going to get to LA and when our flight would actually leave. When I am given a very ambiguous "2-4 hours at least", it's really hard for me to wait patiently. I like to know what I'm in for.

After about 1 1/2 hours, I began hearing rumors that the flight might be delayed up to 10 hours, since the flight crew would have to go rest after 4 hours. That sent me into panic mode--I was not prepared to spend that much time in an airport waiting with my kids, and we had to catch a flight in LA on a different airline, so the connections would be a nightmare.

I went over and planted myself at the gate so that should any tickets come available, I'd be right there. It was a full flight to begin with (at least 250 people), so that would be a really long line to have to be at the back of. There were two other flights going out that night: a 9:30 flight, which all of the business class and elite frequent fliers had already been given tickets on, and an 11:00 pm flight. They finally announced that there was no way our airplane was going anywhere for the next 24 hours, and the flight was cancelled. They were going to try to get hotels for people (which would have required people getting their luggage and going through customs and a hundred other hassels), and hopefully find everyone seats on whatever flights they could the next day.

By that time, I had really started to panic. I couldn't even begin to imagine the nightmare that would be to do that with three already exhausted children. Finally, the woman issuing tickets ran out of business class people to give seats to, and announced that the next people that would get tickets would be those with children under the age of five. I almost shouted "I DO!!" and handed her my old boarding passes, praying my most desperate prayer that she could find five seats on the flight that was leaving.

My heart was pounding and I could hardly breathe while I waited to see if we were going to get the tickets. When she finally printed them off and handed them to me, my hand was shaking when I reached out to take them. The flight was ready to leave, so we had to grab our things and run for the gate. The seats she had found were scattered all over the plane, which is far from ideal when you have children, so the flight attendant who seated us was able to find enough people willing to change so we were able to sit together (she gave all of those people a bottle of wine at the end of the trip to thank them).

I've never been so happy to have a crowded middle seat in all of my life. Our flight over had been so easy and we had each had 2 seats to ourselves. This flight, Andrew only slept about 3 or 4 hours, and I didn't sleep at all. But after having faced the possibility of spending the night either in the airport or having to haul everything to a hotel and hope for a flight the next day, I was not complaining at all. I LOVED my crowded middle seat. So I guess the lesson learned is that once you realize just how bad things can get, you can be so happy with something that is below average at best.

After getting in to LA, we rented a car and got something to eat (In-n-Out again), and then drove to the beach so I could see the sunset. It was a little chilly by then, and we had made it just in time for the sunset. So we watched it, and then got back in the car to figure out what to do. We ended up at a McDonalds that had a playland, just so the kids could burn off some energy, and then we went to the LA Temple. They had all of the Christmas lights up still, and we had a great time walking around looking at them. In Australia, the sun doesn't set until it's time to go to bed, which doesn't leave a lot of time to look at Christmas lights.

We got on our flight at 10 p.m., and the kids slept for the entire 4 1/2 hour flight. Ryan and I tried, but neither of us have had much luck sleeping on planes this trip. Abram timed things perfectly and drove up just as we finished getting our baggage. It's amazing how something that small can make such a difference when you have been travelling so long. Not having to wait was wonderful.

We spent about a half an hour there, and I realized that the short nap I had on the plane was not going to compensate for the 8 hours I had missed the night before. Ryan drove home, and I went in and out of consciousness for the entire 2 hours. I couldn't quite fall asleep, but I couldn't stay awake either.

We spent the morning unpacking, and by 1:00, Andrew and I were both down for naps. I took a solid 3 hour nap, and now that it's 10:00, I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep. I'm not sure I'll get it, since Mason and Katie both melted down at about 5:30 this evening and fell asleep. All I can do is hope for the best--but it could be an early morning!

Goodbye Australia

I stayed up too late last night. The funny thing is, no one else was awake--just me. So there wasn't anything to do, but I just couldn't make myself let the night end. I knew that once I woke up in the morning it would all be over. So I just sat at the kitchen counter hoping that I could just soak in all of the happiness and love I have felt over the past few weeks.

It's hard to leave a place that there is very little chance I will ever come back to. So I had to cry a little just for the sake of all the people I will most likely never see again, the beautiful birds and trees, the mangos that I eat every day, the amazing beaches, the kangaroos and koalas I will never pet again, and of course, KMart (I know that will be back home, but it just won't be the same). Along with that is the fact that it will be yet another year and a half before we'll see Bob and Delsa again. That's a long time, and we miss them so much. It has meant so much for Mason, Katie and Andrew to be here with them. I hope the second half of their mission will go faster for us now that we have seen where they are and know how much the people who work with them love them and love to serve them.

So, goodbye Australia. I hope you continue to take great care of Bob and Delsa.

We leave here at 11:30 a.m., take a 4-hour flight to Auckland, have a one-hour layover, then take a 12-hour flight to LA. We have to spend the day there (I hope we can figure out what to do) and then we fly home Sunday night on a red-eye, and drive home on Monday. I will be very happy to see a change of clothes and a shower by the time it's all over. Our last 12-hour flight was so easy, I think I'm going into this with unrealistic expectations. Wish us luck.

You've Got to Love the Girl

I had two post a couple of cute Katie experiences.

For the Christmas day workshop, Bob let Mason and Katie each play the piano for the missionaries, since that's something they had thought they could give as a gift. Their choices were nothing short of poor for a spiritual Christmas meeting as Mason played "Up on the Housetop" and Katie played "Book of Mormon Stories".

Katie had been practicing the previous day and kept getting halfway through and messing up. She would bang the keys and then start over. She eventually worked herself into a meltdown as she got more and more frustrated with trying to play it perfectly. I sat with her, and cheered her on, clapping for her when she kept going through the song.

On Christmas day, she went first and bravely walked up to the big grand piano to play her song. It didn't end up being perfect, but she made it through, speeding up toward the end like a galloping horse when she could feel the end was in sight. The second she was done, she jumped off the bench, gave herself a clap, and turned to the missionaries in anticipation of their applause (take a second to visualize it). It took me a second to realize why she was standing there looking so expectant, and I had to whisper to her a couple of times, "They aren't going to clap!" before she finally got the message. She was very confused, since at the piano recital she played at everyone clapped. But she eventually took the hint and proceeded to skip back to the bench where she had been sitting.

The second story is from this afternoon when the great missionaries Elder Kroll and Elder Norton had come over to play football with them. Naturally, the subject of Pokemon came up. Katie proudly told the she had "beat Mason TWICE!" And then added "But I cheated the second time." The only difference between her and Mason is that at least Katie admits that she cheats. Mason just conveniently forgets the rules.

Missed Opportunity

Shauri has been asking for a photo of Michael, Garrett's friend here. Had I been the one to go to the airport with him and the two friends he flew with, I would have been able to take one of the best photos possible. All three of them had chosen to wear the same t-shirt , bearing the logo "heaps good" as shown in my little picture here. Garrett, upon seeing the situation, didn't think he could possibly go through with it. Michael let him know there were probably going to be 15 other guys there with the same shirt, so he needed to just get over it. All I know is that I'm really disappointed I couldn't take a picture of the three of them for a "who wore it best" contest. It would have been "heaps good". I never did get a photo of Michael--but Garrett has a camera, so we need to make sure he gets something.

Boxing Day/Proclamation Day

Here in South Australia, it is officially "Proclamation Day" for reasons I won't go into, but for the rest of Australia, it's "Boxing Day", which I also won't go into. Either way, it was another holiday here, and that meant a great day for more meetings.

Ryan took care of the kids while I crammed for the 11:45 a.m. talk I was supposed to give. The meeting had started at 10:00, but I slipped in on the back row some time after 11:00. I talked about what I expect of missionaries when they come into my home. I wasn't very excited to have to do it, but I was amazed at how it resulted in changing my relationship with the missionaries. The sister missionaries especially took the time to come and talk with me after the meeting. I loved getting to know them, and I was amazed at how many memories came back of my own mission.

After the first two hours, there were two hours for lunch and a mission celebration. That was followed by two more hours of speakers, with Ryan, Delsa, and Bob being the last ones. I left Andrew sleeping in his room and went over to listen to that part, which was wonderful. They all did a great job. Then Ryan and I came back home and ended up taking Andrew for a walk. The weather the last couple of days has been nothing but fabulous, with a brilliant blue sky and warm breezes. It will be hard to go back home to the cold weather.

Once Bob and Delsa were done, we got pizza from Dominos, and headed to the park. The original intention was to play kickball, but we settled for sitting around and watching the kids play. After putting the kids to bed, we played (can you guess?) Scrabble. We did the 2-board innovation so we could all play, and Bob came through with an amazing victory with the word "jailers". He cleared his board, which ended the game, but he was also able to nail a triple word score, which ended up sending him from dead last (where he had been the whole game) straight up to the top. I love a little drama in Scrabble.

I kindly gave Delsa a Scrabble dictionary for Christmas so now she can check up on Bob and all of his made up words. I think it will definitely come in handy.

The Rest of Christmas Day

It has been a very busy two days. Not so much for us, but for Bob and Delsa and all the missionaries. After we ate a fabulous breakfast Christmas morning, the kids opened a gift sent from one of the missionary's mothers. How sweet was that? Elder Wong is from Melbourne, and had written his mom about our family visiting, and she sent Pokemon cards for Mason and Katie, a stuffed koala for Andrew, a Mr Potato Head game for the kids, and candy for Ryan and I. She also sent gifts for Bob and Delsa as well. It's amazing to get gifts from someone who doesn't even know us.

After breakfast, we went to get the dry ice for the root beer, and then headed over to the church. Mason and Katie helped Santa Bob pass out gifts to the missionaries and I worked on the root beer. Katie's version of helping soon evolved into seeing if she could throw the presents at Bob. She was quickly demoted from Santa's helper.

I was pretty unsure of how the whole root beer thing would go, but I'm happy to say that I made almost 10 gallons of root beer, and it pretty much gone by the time lunch was over. The missionaries loved it and I didn't blow anything up. So that was a success.

After lunch, Ryan did a great workshop with the missionaries, and then we headed home while everyone else watched the movie "The Nativity". Andrew was asleep all afternoon, and Katie and Mason had been on their own. So we made sure to do a little family time and actually let them open up their presents. We only do one an hour, and we had missed quite a few hours as a result of lunch and passing out presents. They didn't seem to notice. If you've been reading the blog at all, you can guess what they had been doing.

We had a less than traditional Christmas dinner in the church gym with all of the missionaries. Baked potatoes, ham, salad, and rolls on plastic plates and with plastic utensils. Not quite like home, but we won't complain. Our kids were not in a great mental state to be in a crowded gym with lots of tables. Garrett had the fortunate spot of sitting next to Katie and watching her absentmindedly shoving an entire roll into her mouth.

We headed home after that and the missionaries had a testimony meeting. After putting our kids to bed, we had some quality time with Garrett, since Bob and Delsa were busy with the missionaries until almost 9:30. That gave us time for 2 games of Scrabble (both won by Garrett) and a game of Rummikub (a decisive victory for me). That was accompanied by a complete performance of Les Miserable by Garrett and I.

The funniest moment: Ryan came in with Andrew. He was having a somewhat frustrating night, and it showed in his furrowed brow. Andrew was asking for orange juice, as he does roughly 99% of the times he passes through the kitchen. Ryan was going to just tell him no, but I suggested grabbing a cup and just putting a little orange juice in the bottom for him. Ryan reluctantly conceded, found a mug in the cupboard, and put orange juice in it. The next thing we know, we hear a crash, followed by an explosively angry (Ryan gave me that description) cry of "Why did I listen????" Make sure when you imagine him saying that you have both of his hands balled into fists of fury. I turned to Garrett, who was busy beating me in our first game of Scrabble, and said, "Oh, man--I'm in for a serious beating tonight."

It probably won't make anyone else laugh, but let me tell you--it hit a chord with us. A lot of it probably had to do with the fact that there was a part of me that felt like I shouldn't laugh since Ryan was so angry, which always makes me want to laugh more. Either way, we laughed a lot. If it's one thing I can say about this vacation is that I've laughed a lot. And to his credit, Ryan neither beat me or continued to be grouchy. I love my Ryan.

Bob and Delsa eventually got home, and we opened the few remaining presents. Ryan got me a beautiful opal necklace (opals are mined here in Australia), I got Ryan promises of a new flat-screen t.v. for our bedroom, and I got Garrett a sweet "Adelaide Crows" jersey (they are the local footy team).

So overall, not a very typical Christmas. But definitely a memorable one.

Christmas Eve to Christmas Morning

It's 7:00 am Christmas morning, and I have more time on my hands than I had been expecting. My kids have been awake for over a half an hour and haven't even mentioned Santa Claus. So we're off to a great start.

Last night, we had a wonderful Christmas Eve barbecue. The Smiths (the office couple), the Davenports (friends of Bob and Delsa's that are serving a mission here), Elder Jones (one half of a CES couple that is here--his wife wasn't feeling well), Judy and Phil Howes (he's in the mission presidency) as well as their son and his fiance, the three office elders, and two assistants all came. Dinner was great (hamburgers, some amazing baked beans, fruit, a cabbage salad, and an angel food cake imported from Melbourne).

After dinner, Mason was in charge of teaching a lesson. He kept letting Ryan and I know he had it under control. He ended up just reading the entire Luke 2 Christmas story, followed by the scriptures about the wise men. He did read it fast, and was easy to understand, and most importantly had drawn stick-figure illustrations to enhance the story.

After him, Phil Howes told a story about a memorable Christmas Eve on his mission where he basically had to spend most of the night sleeping in a taxi in Peru. His son and fiance followed that up with a duet of "Away in a Manger." They did all three verses.

After they were done, and everyone complemented them, Katie took her chance to say (loudly), "That was LONG. It was like an HOUR."

To her credit, Katie was only looking forward to one thing: opening a gift the office elders and assistants had bought for her (they had one for Mason and Andrew as well). She had to sit through us singing one verse of every single Christmas hymn in the hymnbook, and then she got her chance.

After sitting through many meals with us, the missionaries were very familiar with our kids. I hadn't really thought too much about what they might have gotten for the kids, and was almost as surprised as they were when they opened their gifts and they each had received two packages of Pokemon cards. They were in heaven. Kids have a hard time faking it when they don't like something (like Katie telling the couple their song was long), but they are also very good about letting you know when they really do like something. Andrew also loved his gift, a cute stuffed dog. He kept shaking it and saying "Woof woof" at them and giving it lots of kisses. Well, I think he was actually biting it's nose, but it still looked cute.

Ryan went and put them to bed, but played one game with them with their new cards, as there would be no sleep if he didn't. The rest of us started a game of church celebrity. After the first round we had to take out about 5 Moroni's and a couple Teancums and Brother of Jareds. They were pretty popular. President Hinckley? Not even once, although both his counselors got in. Delsa and Bob added in obscure church history figures just to spice it up. Garrett, Bob and I ended up on the same team, and the scores for the two teams reflected our Celebrity prowess. Delsa showed a competetive side that probably hadn't come out for quite a while (say...a year and a half?), but quickly reined it in.

I'll try to recreate one of the funniest moments, although I won't do it justice. Judy was up, and we were in the only-one-word-clue round. She was doing great, and got to one and gave the clue "dead." If you're only going to have one word to choose from, and you're working with scripture and church history people, that didn't seem like it would narrow it down. But just as I was thinking her Celebrity skills weren't quite as sharp as I had thought, her husband said "Lehi", and he was right. After the round, we were all so curious how he had gotten "Lehi" from "dead". It turns out what she had actually said (in her Australian accent) was "dad", which her Australian husband understood perfectly.

After we had finished the game, the missionaries needed to move all of the Christmas packages from the office to the church (the mission home and mission office are right across the parking lot from the church). So we all went to help and had a great time setting up the packages for the Christmas party the next day. We felt like Santa's helpers delivering all of the gifts. Katie and Mason are going help hand them out at the party, which I'm sure they will love.

We went back to the mission home, stayed up a little longer talking, and then went to bed. When the kids woke up this morning, the only thing they remembered were the Pokemon cards from the day before. Santa who? They finally did remember that it was Christmas and have opened their stockings. So I guess Christmas has officially started.

I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and Delsa did the make ahead breakfast. There isn't any normal bacon here (it's more like Canadian bacon), so she has to use bacon-in-a-bottle. It's just real American-style bacon bits in a small jar. We go through it fast. Then some time before 10:30, I have to go get 15 pounds of dry ice so that we can make enough root beer for 100 people (they don't sell root beer in Australia, except for at the Asian market). The previous mission president and his wife must have liked root beer, because there were 4 bottles of extract on the shelf when Bob and Delsa got here. Since we're having hot dogs and chips for lunch, root beer sounded like it would be great, so I found a place where we can buy dry ice on Christmas day. I've never actually made root beer with dry ice, but I've had it before and remember it being really good. Hopefully I don't blow up the church in my attempts.

A Little Love For Garrett

Garrett (Ryan's youngest brother, who has been here in Australia with us) has not received a lot of attention on this blog. I'd like to fix that. I decided to put together a list of things Garrett has done here that he hasn't ever done before, or things that are new to us. These are in no particular order.

Relieved his boredom by walking to KMart. Nothing says fun like KMart.
Made this statement (Delsa can validate): "I'm actually looking forward to starting school"
Admitted to his mother that he's been subconsciously blocking her out since he was a young child (he followed this up by letting her know that she's the only person he does that to and that he's trying to change)
Ate salads without a crouton, bacon bit, or ranch dressing. In fact, when Delsa did put ranch dressing on a "special salad" like Ryan's, Garrett asked her why she had put ranch on his salad since "ranch didn't really go with that salad."
Asked a girl on a date, in person nontheless. He and his wingman Michael (hopefully I can get a photo of the two of them at some point) drove all the way to the girls house just to so he could ask her out.
Ate duck pizza.
Ate duck pizza with a fork. The friends he was with told him he could use his hands, but he ate it Aussie style.
Went to church two weeks in a row.
Actually stayed for two out of three meetings on the second week ("66% isn't to bad "). His white shirt and tie are probably wondering what's going on.
Made an effort to rearrange his life so he could attend a Young Single Adult conference for five days.
Raided Bob's closet to find something to wear on a date.
Made us concede defeat after two rounds when playing Scrabble.
Got "the President" to play basketball. The missionaries can't stop talking about it.
Played squash.

Things he will not do again after leaving Australia:
Watch National Treasure 2
Eat Vegomite (actually, I don't know if he even has done that--but I'm sure I can include it)
Go to KMart

Thai Adventure

We went to a fabulous Thai restaurant last night where Bob and Delsa are very familiar with the waiter. Maybe a little too familiar, as he treated us to a little surprise while we were waiting for our food.

Andrew Is Two

Andrew now has the age to match the attitude. I started the day taking the kids to (where else) KMart to see if we could find anything else to give him for his birthday, and we stopped at the grocery store to get things to make a cake.

After we got back, I sent them outside to play in the water. Adelaide has been having a drought, so there are a lot of water restriction (like you can only water your yard once a week). So we had to play in the water on a much smaller scale: 2 buckets of water. That didn't stop them from having a great time, though.

We had cake after Andrew woke up from his nap, and he opened one present. That sounds pretty lame, but that's about as much as he cared about--so that's all we did. I just had to make sure that I had proof that his birthday wasn't forgotten should he care to ask 10 years down the road.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday afternoon, Delsa and I had planned to go shopping at a mall. She invited Garrett to come along so that she could buy him something. Bob decided to come along to keep Garrett company. When we mentioned we had slated a solid three hours for the adventure, Garrett quickly retreated to the house to grab a book.

We headed to Rundell Mall, where we knew there was a Toys R Us and a Target. We had been warned that traffic would be bad, and we were not disappointed in that. After a couple of very stressful times around the block, it was decided that Garrett and Bob should just go back home since they were just going to be miserable anyway, and then they could come back and get Delsa and I later .

I probably haven’t mentioned that Kmart is the store d’jour in this neighborhood. I haven’t been in Kmart this often since the days of the blue-light specials in Helena. There is a Kmart and a grocery store within walking distance from here, so that’s pretty much what you get to chose from.

So when she mentioned there was a Target downtown, I was pretty excited. It didn’t last long though, because Australian Targets are not anything close to the same as what I had been expecting. It was so disorganized and crowded that we finally just bailed, hoping that Toys R Us would be better. We walked down the mall (not the indoor kind, but the kind with a cobblestone road with stores on either side) and found Toys R Us. I guess we picked a bad day to shop on, because it was more crowds and chaos and we ended up leaving pretty quickly. After that, Kmart began to look way more attractive.

We went to a men’s’ clothing store for Bob, and a Borders Bookstore, and then tried to find something for Delsa. The clothes seem to be a lot more expensive here than in the states, and it was hard to find anything great, so we gave up and called for a pickup. I think even our pathetic little mall in Charlottesville will seem pretty great now that my best option is Kmart.

After we got back, Ryan and I grabbed our backpacks and headed to the airport to go to Sydney. It is so nice not to have to have a lot of luggage. Have I mentioned you don’t even need to show ID in the Australian airports? We use our credit cards to print our boarding passes at little kiosks and then go through security. No one ever asks us for anything. It still seems crazy to me.

About 10 Sudoku’s later (they really make the trip go quickly), we were in Sydney. We grabbed a taxi to the hotel, checked in, and grabbed some hot chocolate from the McCafe down the street (nothing but the best). Our hotel was right downtown, so the next morning Ryan took a cab to where he needed to be and I was able to just walk over to the Opera House. I quickly realized that I had left my media card for my camera back in Adelaide—it was pretty disappointing.

Sydney is a great city. I’m sure it’s expensive to live here, but it seems like it would be such a fun place to live. I went on the tour of the Opera House and then took a boat cruise all around the harbor. I got off the cruise on a different part of the harbor than where I started, and began exploring there. After our miserable shopping trip the previous day, I decided to try the Queen Victoria Building (QVB), since I had read good things about it. It’s an old building that has been redone into a shopping center.

I think the QVB is one of the most beautiful malls (although, that doesn’t seem like the right word to call it) I’ve ever been in. It was also expensive, but the stores were so fun to look through that I didn’t care. I found a couple of photos online that show the building, but I'm really sad I didn't have my camera here.

After going there, I walked down to the Chinatown area and Paddy’s Market. I had promised the kids I would bring them something back, and that seemed like a good place to get it. They had lots of souvenir shops, all of which sold exactly the same thing. So I found a few things they would like, and then treated myself to a back massage at a little kiosk there in the market (nothing like Shauri’s and Kristin’s). I had been carrying around my backpack the whole day, and the woman kept trying to rub out all of the knots in my neck associated with that. I wanted to tell her to just give up, since I was only halfway through the day and I was sure anything that got rubbed out would just come right back.

After that, I walked around Darling Harbour. Or maybe it was Cockle Bay. Either way, there was lots to see and do. I did find that walking around by myself made me less likely to try things (like museums, tours, etc). I have pretty much always done things with Ryan, and I definitely missed having my travel partner. I’ve always thought he was crazy for not taking advantage of touring the cities he has gone to on business (Oslo, Athens, Istanbul, etc), but I can see now how being alone does change the dynamic.

By the time I needed to head back to the airport, I was pretty tired. There is a train that goes straight from downtown to the airport, which made my life very easy. It was a great day in Sydney, and only could have been better if I had had my camera and Ryan with me. But I’ll take what I can get. Ryan also had a great day meeting with people at a consulting company named “Second Road”. I’d explain what he learned there, but I don’t think I understood it 100%, so we’ll leave that for another day.

Monday's Adventure

Since Delsa was busy this morning, and Ryan was working, I decided to try out Adelaide's public transportation system and head to the beach. We went to Glenelg (your alarm just went off if you happen to be a member of the palindrome police). Delsa drove us to the middle of the city where we picked up the tram that took us to the beach. On the advertisements, the tram looked something like a trolley from San Francisco, but the reality was much more boring. In spite of the lack of quaintness, it got us to the beach in good time.

We headed to "The Beach House", an incredibly overpriced beachside attraction that had a train ride that went around a small miniature golf course (less than impressive). They made up for how pathetic the track was by letting you go around it three times. Nontheless, the kids loved it. We bought passes that let us go on the train an unlimited number of times, but once was definitely enough. We hit the carousel a couple of times, and played some of their Chuck E Cheese-style arcade games. The favorite was one that let you use a dinosaur head to try to nab candy and toy dinosaurs. Naturally it would have been way cheaper to just go to a store and buy the said prizes, but winning them makes them so much better. We finished it off with an indoor climbing structure that kept them busy for an hour or so.

We then headed down to the beach. It was a beautiful day in the 80's, and I brought their buckets and shovels. It's amazing how long Mason and Katie can entertain themselves with those things. Andrew, on the other hand, loves people to make holes in the sand and fill them with water so he can repeatedly jump in them, or have me bury his feet and ask him "Where are your feet?" It never, never gets old. The other thing that never gets old: Pokemon. It came with us on the train, which made the 30 minute ride a little faster for everyone.

We grabbed some hamburgers and took the tram back home. After we got home, Ryan cornered me and was trying to get me to talk details with him about Christmas. I wasn't very nice to him, and I realized that after a busy morning like that I don't want to have to talk to anyone or think about anything.

After 30 minutes or so, I was ready for something new, so we started a game of Scrabble (have you noticed a trend?). It was a game of 1-point letters for Garrett, which made for a good game for me.

Ryan and I get to enjoy a dinner tonight with those who are leaving. Elder and Sister Smith were so nice to take our children to the park, so we might actually get to hear some conversation.

The picture of Mason with cereal is to show Shauri that the Coco Crispies she bought last Christmas still have a home here. And I think they will last even past us, since Mason didn't love them.

Giant Jelly Bean Stories

Here's a picture from last night. I kept trying to get a video of it up, but no luck. So I'll have to settle for a photo.

A few more things

Here are a few more photos, including one of Delsa and Jennifer. The little girl came over and started talking to Delsa, and wouldn't leave her alone. Even when Delsa would send her over to meet Garrett, or to play with Katie she would always come back. So when I asked if I could take a picture of them together, Jennifer quickly posed in great Australian style--as a kangaroo.

Beach Trip

Visit to Goolwa/Victor Harbor December 13-15

Ryan, Bob and I drove down to the little town of Goolwa on Thursday morning. They had rented a beach house that was about a 2 minute walk from a beautiful beach. Delsa, Garrett, and our kids had driven down the day before.

The weather cooperated beautifully, warming up just in time to hit the beach on Thursday. The one thing I wasn’t prepared for were the flies. I guess I’ve never had to worry about flies when I go to the beach, but in Australia you don’t have heat without flies. It was a good thing the beach was so great or I would have gone crazy. The kids can entertain themselves for ever with shovels, buckets, and waves.

The previous night, Delsa had taken everyone to the “Whistle Stop Café” for dinner, where there was a sign hanging that said “Work is the curse of the drinking class.” It created a lot of conversation as Mason tried to wrap his mind around what that was supposed to mean.

So we bypassed the Whistle Stop and went to the Saltwater Café for dinner the night after we got there. They had great Australian style hamburgers (gynormous) with the traditional topping of beetroot (which was skipped by all).

We went back to the house and had fun playing games. We resurrected the game “Draw 2” to give us a variation of Scrabble (Bob and Delsa’s staple game these days), and then tried playing Scrabble with 2 boards and 5 people. Bob one on a clutch last-minute play that was almost subverted by Delsa. It was nothing but dramatic.

The next day we went to an “Adventure Park” in Victor Harbor, a nearby town. They had all sorts of activities like a maze, a climbing wall, a water slide, go carts, etc. It was the kind of thing that is perfect when you’re between the ages of 2-14. It was great for Ryan and I because it was so entertaining for our kids. Andrew and Katie loved the little kids water slide, and Mason loved the one for the older kids. It was a great way to spend the morning, and we followed it up with our almost-daily dose of McDonalds. I had told the kids that we wouldn’t do McDonalds more than once a day, and they interpreted it as me saying that we could GO once a day. I quickly disabused them of that idea.

If we keep Katie and Mason busy all morning, then by the afternoon they are content to sit and play Pokemon with each other all afternoon while Andrew takes a nap. As much as it drives me crazy, it is amazing how much Pokemon has kept them entertained this whole trip.

That night, we gave the game Rummikub a try, and after Amy got really frustrated by the 1-minute time limit being enforced, we took a little game break and just sat and talked.

Here’s where the best line of the night came. We were talking about having a sense of humor, and Ryan mentioned how when President Faust had done baby blessings he had blessed the babies with a sense of humor. Then Delsa turned to Bob and said “What were you blessed with? Oh…I forgot—you WEREN’T blessed.”

Although there’s no way it was intended as such, it came out sounding like prime spiritual trash-talking. It’s impossible to recreate it in a way that does it justice, but it was great. It’s fun just to sit and laugh at stories.

We went home early the next morning since the nice weather had left us and all we had was rain and clouds. We spent most of the day just getting things washed and unpacked, and getting things ready for Sunday since the stores close at 5:00 pm on Saturdays here.

As I was unpacking things from the car, a guy (probably in his 20’s) came walking his dog into the parking lot that divides the mission home from the church building. He was shouting at the top of his lunge a constant line of confusion that I couldn’t make out (although it was clear it wasn’t admiration for the church). I guess he had been there once or twice while we had been gone, including dumping some garbage on the doorstep of the mission home. The office elders had called the police, but since no one actually saw the guy dump the garbage they wouldn’t do anything about it. It was funny to see everyone in the office and all of us just watching this guy walking back and forth shouting craziness. Eventually, he must have gotten tired because he left. We’ll see if he comes to visit again.

One of the highlights of the day for me was having Bob tell Mason and Katie Giant Jellybean stories on the swing out on the patio. We have to get three years of visiting done in 3 weeks, so that means a lot of Giant Jellybean stories.

We finished off the night with the movie "Elf." I don't think it will ever get old for me--I laugh so hard every time.

It’s hard to believe our vacation is half-way over. Ryan keeps challenging Garrett and I to Sudokus (his game has definitely improved), and Andrew just keeps challenging us. He has taken so well to everyone, though, even if he can be aggressive in his affections. But he is still as busy as ever. He is presently keeping everyone busy trying to keep him away from the stero buttons so we can listen to Christmas music (I can hear Garrett counting time out for him). Overall, though, it has been so much easier than expected. I think just having the kids sleep so well here has been one of the biggest blessings.

Great Barrier Reef Trip

Here's a summary Ryan wrote up of our trip. I'm so glad he's gotten the bulk of things down, because it has been so hard to get time to write. I'm going to try to get the beach trip written next.

Monday and Tuesday, December 10-12, 2007

Ryan and Amy got on an airplane early this morning to fly to Cairns (pronounced, “Cans”) for their tenth anniversary trip. Grandma Quinn watched the children while they were gone. She took them to the zoo. Apparently, Andrew found a nice, small kangaroo to terrorize, chasing it around while it hopped away.

Ryan and Amy arrived in Cairns in the early afternoon, and without even going to a hotel (it’s amazing how two adults can travel for two days with nothing but backpacks if they do not have children with them), hopped a bus to the SkyRide. The SkyRide is a gondola that takes you over Australia’s tropical rain forest. The view was gorgeous and relaxing. At the end of the ride we arrived in a small town called Kuranda. It had small places to eat, aboriginal art, a few little zoos specializing in different types of animals, and other quaint shops. We felt like we were in a scene from a movie as we ate our lunch while people around us played musical instruments and sang at a leisurely pace.

After lunch Amy went into one of the zoos so she could get a picture of herself receiving a hug from a koala while Ryan looked for gifts to get people, and then we hopped back onto the gondola. On the way back down we stopped at each of the stops, enjoying some amazing sites, including a gorgeous mountain waterfall in the middle of the rainforest. When we reached the bottom we found a public bus that took us to our hotel.

After staying in the ghetto hotel in LA, the sulfur trailer in Rotorua, and a decent but average hotel in Aukland, Amy was in love with this hotel. It was called the Sea Temple, and she kept taking pictures of it and admiring the pools and the decorations and so on.

We called the kids and got a report on the day. They seemed to have enjoyed themselves. Then we walked the beach for a while, with Amy taking pictures where the light was good. We stepped a few feet inland to find a street full of restaurants and eventually settled on one. We walked back home along the beach. This time, it was night. The stars filled the skies and we admired the constellations and had the beach all to ourselves. When we got back to the hotel, the swimming pools was also empty, so we swam in one of the gorgeous pools, and then went to bed.

The next day we went on a tour to the Great Barrier Reef. We were both very excited, but also a little nervous. The directions on how to scuba dive in a way that both enabled breathing underwater and equalizing pressure in one’s air cavities was a bit intimidating to people who had never done it before. Also, Ryan had the remnants of a mild cold, and was very worried that this was going to prevent him from being able to scuba dive. He was feeling very sad about the possibility of coming to the Great Barrier Reef and not scuba diving. Worrying, of course, did not help anything, as Amy reminded him many times, but somehow he still seemed to have trouble stopping worrying.

It turned out that the worrying was, in fact, pointless. Ryan did just fine, even in spite of his cold, and the scuba diving was AMAZING. The experience of breathing underwater. The experience of seeing an amazing array of biodiversity all around you. The experience of moving in three dimensions instead of just two (and learning how to do that). It was just one of those great life experiences. We would have smiled the whole time, but when you smile you let water into your facemask, so we just smiled inwardly the whole time.

We went to three different dive sites that day, and at the second two sites we snorkeled rather than scuba dive. Although this was not as comprehensive of an experience, it was still extraordinary in terms of what we were able to see, and the advantage of snorkeling was that you could decide where you wanted to go, instead of having to stay with a guide the whole time. We did have a little snorkeling guide for part of the time, in which we got to hold sea cucumbers and learn about other sea life. We saw a bewildering array of fish, a turtle, a shark, a sting ray, and so on. The weather was perfect, and the experience was wonderful.

After the tour we bought some gifts and returned to the hotel. We took another walk through the little town we were in and got some dinner. We talked to Mom who added further testimony to the fact that if you make sure the kids spent lots of time getting exercise during the day, they sleep better and longer. She had them do their chores, had them play outside, took them to the beach, took them to IKEA for lunch (where Mason had “the best lunch in the WHOLE world—hot dogs), picked uncle Garrett up from the airport, put Andrew down for a nap and played in the back yard with uncle Garrett, took a family walk down the street a few blocks to Kmart, and put three exhausted kids to bed early.

The next morning we went for another walk, called the kids (who were about to leave for the beach house with Grandma), and Ryan bought an anniversary/Christmas gift for Amy which will remain unnamed until Christmas. We caught the bus to a shopping mall where we got our underwater pictures developed from our tour of the Great Barrier Reef and bought two identical Sudoku books so that we could compete against each other for the fastest completion times in Sudoku on the airplane ride home. This made the airplane ride go faster, we think, even though Amy beat Ryan about 30 times before Ryan finally won one “mild” puzzle as our airplane arrived in Adelaide. Amy tried to buttress Ryan’s feelings heroically as she told him that at least he does well in his job and “it’s only a puzzle.” An exhausted Amy and Ryan greeted President Quinn back at the mission home, told him about their trip, and packed up to drive down to the beach house the next morning where they would join Grandma, Garrett, and their children, who had had a nice afternoon at the beach.

Great Barrier Reef

We had an amazing trip up to the Great Barrier Reef. The first day we took a 2-hour long trip over the rain forest, stopping at a cute little village along the way. The second day was going diving and snorkeling. It's about an hour boat ride to get to the reef where we did our dive, then we went to two other spots where we snorkeled. I'll post a few pictures, but it just doesn't do it justice. It was our first scuba dive, so we were both a little overwhelmed jumping in, but it was a great experience.

We're off to the beach tomorrow, so I guess I'll have a lot of catching up to do when I get back since I don't think there is internet access. "No worries" (as we've been told endlessly on our trip), I'll get all caught up when we get back.

Taking a little blog break

We're heading to the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow for three days and Ryan is leaving his computer home. It's hard to believe he's leaving a part of him behind. So we should have some great photos to post when we get back--it's going to be mid-80's and no chance of rain.

Here's a conversation with Delsa just to end with. She gave me the cell phone Shauri used last year (hopefully I get it to work), so I asked her about her phone number. She didn't know her phone number. I mean, she's only been here a year and a half, and really--she's just visiting. Her response was "I don't want to fill up my brain with all that".

So far we've had some fabulous fajitas, and chicken divan. Our menu will be somewhat limited due to the fact we have to keep three kids in mind, but as always, the food is awesome. I hope she survives the next few days with my sweet, busy children. I wrote out instructions on about 10 different post-it notes, so I'm sure everything will be perfect. We are so grateful for wonderful grandparents who will watch our kids (we've taken advantage of both sets this year).

New Zealand Part 3

Thursday, December 7, 2007

We woke up on Thursday to rain. As we learned later, there is an expression in New Zealand, “Four seasons in one day.” Apparently the weather never stops changing. We packed up our things and left the sulfur trailer for the last time sometime between six and seven in the morning. We went to McDonald’s for breakfast because our kids needed to play somewhere, and where else can you go for a play place at seven in the morning in the rain? After breakfast and some play time, we all headed north to Matamata.

Matamata is the site where Peter Jackson filmed the Hobbiton scenes from the Lord of the Rings. Ryan and Mason (with Katie occasionally listening in) spent the past year reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings together at bed time, so going to Hobbiton was one of the anticipated parts of being in New Zealand. It was also something that we knew would not be a fun thing to bring Andrew along with. So Amy took Andrew to the Laundromat to get some laundry done, assuming that she would be able to find something to do in Matamata with Andrew while she waited for us after the laundry. Nope. Matamata has Hobbiton and nothing else. So Amy spent her time entertained with a clothes dryer that didn’t work, the consequential wet clothes, and a little boy who entertained himself playing in a mud puddle. Ah, the joys of vacation!

Hobbiton, it turns out, is the only scene from the Lord of the Rings movies where New Line Cinema did not take down all of the scenes. It also happens to be on a sheep farm. This meant that the grounds were littered with what the tour guide called “Hobbit droppings.” So while it was educational and fun in many ways, it also turns out that Ryan spent much of his time listening to Mason and Katie talk about how disgusting the hobbit droppings were and complaining about how hard it was to avoid stepping on them. The kids did like to look inside the hole for Bag End, though, and Ryan got to do the “Frodo Bop” under the party tree. In the end it was a fun thing to have done, and the new Zealand countryside is so gorgeous that almost anything you do has the benefit of incredible scenery at a minimum.

We left Matamata and drove to Aukland, wondering what we would do when we got there. Prior to the end of the tour, Ryan got into a conversation with the Hobbiton tour guide and asked him, “What should we make sure we do not leave New Zealand without doing?” He thought about it for quite a number of seconds, and finally said, “Have you done the Zorb?” He then started talking about amusement parks, and how the ones in the States are better anyways. We gathered from this and other experiences that you really need to have some kind of “in” if you want to have a cultural experience in New Zealand. Apparently, much of the draw of New Zealand is the countryside and the adventure sports. Although there are many trappings of Maori culture strewn about here and there, they do not seem to have a lot of effect on daily life.

In Auckland we got some food. At some point during our time in New Zealand, Katie discovered the power windows in the back seat of the car. As Ryan and Amy tried to navigate directions through Auckland, unbeknownst to them, Katie started holding her beloved “Turtwig” stuffed animal out her window. (If you do not know who Turtwig is, you clearly have not been keeping up on your Pokemon characters.) Suddenly, our struggles to understand where we were going were interrupted by Katie screaming, “Turtwig!!” followed by Mason yelling, “Mom! Dad! Katie dropped Turtwig out the window!” We pulled over, and Ryan jumped out of the car, running back through a main street of Auckland, New Zealand like Frogger of old time video game fame, looking for Turtwig in the middle of the street. As Ryan approached Turtwig, a car drove over the stuffed animal, but being a resilient little Pokemon, Turtwig survived with only tire track scars. Ryan and Amy instituted a new rule that the windows would remain closed from that point forward.

After rounding up our food, we went to a farm with a train and a playground. The farm animals were entertaining to the kids for a while, but the train and the playground were underwhelming, especially because the playground was filled with dirty puddles. Andrew was bordering on uncontrollable, so we gave it up and went back to the hotel. This turned out to be a good move. Although it was raining and the outdoor swimming pool was too cold to play in, the rain made the outdoor hot tub warm instead of hot, and so the five of us played together in a small outdoor hot tub in the rain for the a half hour or so before settling down for the night. That may have been the favored activity of the day.

New Zealand Part 2

Wednesday, December 6, 2007

(Thanks to Ryan for this entry!)

We all went to bed early on the day we arrived in New Zealand, so on Wednesday we woke up with a day wide open for activities. We drove downtown to find the Rotorua information center to help us plan our day. As we looked for the information center, we noticed that we were right next to Rotorua Lake, so we drove toward it and found out that there was a city park by the lake. We decided that after a 12-hour flight, a three-hour car drive, and driving around town looking for a place to eat the night before, our kids would probably benefit from some unconstrained time, so we got out of the car and let them play on the playground. Ryan watched them while Amy drove to the information center. Mason and Katie spent their time on the playground playing…surprise, surprise…Pokemon. Andrew simply relished in the freedom, running and climbing to anyplace he could rest his eyes.

When the kids had played for a while and Amy had returned from the information center, we decided to do the Zorb and the luge in the morning, and a museum in the afternoon. “Zorb” is an 11-foot clear plastic ball that you climb into and then roll down a hill. When we arrived, however, we found out that (1) they recommended riding in a ball with water inside of it because it is more fun, but we hadn’t brought our swim suits, (2) they would not let Katie do it because she was too young, and (3) it would cost $50 for each of us ($150 for Amy, Ryan, and Mason). We decided to forget about the Zorb.

Our next attempt at entertainment was to go to the luge (which is similar to the Alpine Slide in Park City, Utah, but it is more of a road than a track to ride down). There was a sign up that says that it is the first luge in the world. Hmmm… The luge was a successful activity. We rode a gondola up the mountain, which gave us spectacular view of Rotorua. Then we went down the hill in three luges—Amy and Katie, Ryan and Andrew, and Mason in his own. Mason did a great job, but wiped out twice, so he was not particularly excited about piloting his own luge the second time. Katie and Andrew loved it, though. We went down a second time, taking turns, Mason with Amy and Katie with Ryan, and both of them loved it the second time. Andrew happily wandered up and down one of the walking path. He made a couple of attempts to dive off the cliff, which was a bit frightening. He is a baby who does not like to be constrained.

After riding the luge we had lunch in a nice restaurant at the top of the mountain with a beautiful view of the mountain valley. The kids had their first experience with Christmas “crackers”—where you pull both sides of a little roll, which makes a cracking firework sound before you find little cheap plastic presents inside. Those were a big hit, except for the tragedy that Mason got two cheap plastic magnifying glasses and Katie did not get any, which sent her into a fit of tears. Mason did not want to share, but eventually did. This made Katie happy, until the ride back down the gondola, in which she dropped her magnifying glass behind a railing and lost it, sending her into another fit of tears. Sensing a pattern in Katie’s decision making, Amy gave her a lecture about thinking before acting. Andrew liked the dinner at the top of the mountain so much that he wore most of it home all over his clothes.

We went back to our sulfur-smelling trailer and put Andrew down for a nap while we played card games with Mason and Katie and read them books. When they woke up, Amy announced that we were going to the museum. There was not a lot of energy among the rest of the family for this activity, but Amy then had a talk with the kids about how most of what we have done have been fun things for the kids, and that this was something that Mommy wanted to do. They understood and reluctantly agreed, and were surprised with how much they liked it. Mason, in particular, was interested in learning at the museum.

The highlight of the museum was a movie on the history of the bath house that the museum was made out of. The museum had been a bath house because there is so much underground hot water, because New Zealand is made out of so many volcanoes. As the movie reviewed the history, it came to the part in the story where the nearby volcano erupted. During this part, the music got intense and the seats in the museum’s movie theatre started shaking. This freaked Katie Quinn out: “I’m scared! I want to leave!” Ryan took her and Andrew out, and left Amy and Mason, who both thought that the volcanoes were really cool, to finish the movie. Katie also refused to go in the dark, underground , pipe works part of the museum, and Katie, Mason, and Andrew all refused to stay up on the rooftop of the museum. A family of chickens—that’s what we are.

We tried to play croquet on the beautiful lawn in front of the museum, but were told you had to be club members. Instead we went to the rose garden, and then let the kids play on another of the playgrounds we found. While at the park, Ryan started to climb a tree, and re-tore his abdominal muscle (recall his hernia surgery from last February) as he was hoisting himself up. Amy thought he looked pretty funny moaning in pain on the tree branch and took pictures of him doing so.

We picked up Subway sandwiches on the way home and crashed for another exhausted 10-11-hour night of sleep.

Australia

Our flight on Friday morning was a breeze compared to our other flight, and we made it to Adelaide at 10:45 in the morning. It was a wonderful surprise to clear customs and find Grandma and Grandpa waiting for us. They had tricked us into thinking that someone from the office would be picking us up and we totally fell for it.

Adelaide is a beautiful city, and the weather is perfect right now. The mission home is great, and we feel right at home. Having spent the couple of days in New Zealand helped with the jet lag, so we're all sleeping through the night, but getting up close to 6 a.m. Normal is 7 a.m., so hopefully we'll get to that soon.

All I can say is how happy we are to be here. I love seeing Mason making cookies with Delsa, and listening to Ryan's conversations with Bob. It's hard to believe it has been a year and a half since we saw them. Andrew has warmed right up to them, which is great since we're leaving him with them in two days. We have just over three weeks here (we leave on a Sunday), and I'm sure they'll fly by.

I still have to catch up on our New Zealand adventures. Ryan and I are both really glad we made the stop, and we squeezed in as much as we could with three kids. I'll post something on that later on today or tomorrow.

We leave on Monday morning for the Great Barrier Reef (that will be until Wednesday night), and then we'll go down to a beach house for a couple of nights with everyone. So it's going to be busy, but fun.

We're going to a ward Christmas party barbecue in an hour. I'm glad about that, since two of my "musts" for Australia are having someone say "g'day mate" to me and having someone throw something on the "barbie" to me while I'm here. This will take care of at least one of those.

Our First Day in New Zealand

I’m always impatient to get off a plane once I’ve landed, but Mason and Katie set a new standard for that. Once the plane has gotten to the gate, it’s nonstop, “When is it going to be our turn’ until the line actually moves.

The first stop is getting through customs, where we had to show our passports. I was very relieved when I saw they had a line for children and people in wheelchairs—I like New Zealand already. Katie decided to pass the time while we had our passports checked climbing on the front of the desk where the customs guy sat (it was elevated a foot or so higher than a normal desk). She would hold on to the edge and try to pull herself up, using her feet to boost her. The customs agent asked for proof of our exiting flight, and while I was looking for it, Katie slipped and bumped her face, landing in a bloody heap on the floor. Make that a really LOUD bloody heap, because she started wailing so loud the entire customs area started staring at her.

My first thought was that if any of her teeth are broken, I was going to be really mad at her since we didn’t come to New Zealand to check out their dental services. So although I was interested in whether she was in pain or not, I will say that the first thing I did was check for the teeth. Luckily with as forcefully as she was crying, I had no problem seeing her teeth. After assuring myself that we would not be leaving New Zealand with less teeth than we had come, I took her to a nearby bathroom to try to get her cleaned up. She had cut her lip and was bleeding pretty badly. For Katie, the one and only solution to blood is a Band-Aid. Unfortunately, the inside of a person’s lip isn’t exactly the easiest place to put a band-aid. Even more unfortunately, Katie wouldn’t get it into her head that she would survive without one.

What followed was a solid half an hour of moaning and wailing. At first I would meet peoples’ stares with a polite smile to say that everything was under control, but after a while I gave up and just let her go for it. Who cares—I’ll never see these people again anyway. After gathering up our luggage and getting through the rest of customs, we found a phone to call for our car.

The man who ran the car rental agency was great, and gave us all the help we needed to get to our destination about 3 hours south of Auckland. Unfortunately, he was unable to rewire our brains for driving on the other side of the road. It would be hard to drive on the left hand side no matter what, but add in that we were working on about 4 combined hours of sleep over the past 36 hours, and have us driving in a place we don’t know with three tired kids complaining in the back seat and you would think it would be a recipe for disaster.

We managed to navigate to a shopping center to grab some lunch, and got out onto the road to go south. The New Zealand government must have known the state I would be in as I drove to Rotorua since there were no less than 15 signs I passed warning of the dangers of driving while you’re tired. “Driving Drunk, Driving tired—No Difference!” “Power naps save lives!” “20% of all accidents are caused by driver fatigue” Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was no way I was stopping until I got to my destination.

A friend of mine, after hearing I had chosen Rotorua as our destination, warned us that it did have a pretty strong smell due to the thermal activity in the area. After we finally found the place we were staying, we discovered that she wasn’t pulling our leg. It was like you ran into a wall of rotten-egg sulfur smell whenever you got close to the geyser/hot springs. The place we were staying was called “Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park.” I think they could have chosen a better name like “Smells Like Crap Holiday Park.”

We all got out to go to the check-in place, which doubled as a small convenience store for those staying in the park. While I talked with the pleasant woman at the desk, Mason and Katie provided background commentary like, “It smells like poopy diapers!” and “I wish my nose was broken so I wouldn’t have to smell this.” They pulled their shirts up over their heads and pretended to gag. I apologized for what they were saying (although I was in agreement with them), and she said that she can’t even smell anything. She wasn’t missing out.

The reason I went for the accommodations I did was because it was really hard finding a place that allowed 3 children plus 2 adults in one room. The place I got was kind of like a cabin, which I thought would be great because there was a separate sleeping and eating area. I also had visions of just buying groceries and making some of the meals at home (that sure didn’t pan out). Overall, it wasn’t a bad set up, if you could get used to the smell.

We got there about 4:00 pm, and all we had energy for was to find a place to eat. We followed signs to the city center, and got out and started walking around. It’s harder than you’d think to find a place that is fast enough to get food to our children before they go berserk, but yet has food that you actually want to eat. Plus they were tired and hungry, and were letting us know. As people were passing us, I could tell they were thinking, “Man, I wish I had three kids with me to haul around this dream destination! Some people have all the luck!”

We eventually settled on a kebab place, which was our staple when we went to England. They had a plate of fettucine with tomato and meat sauce on the outside of the restaurant, which we thought would be great for our kids. I got some lentil soup and tabouleh (I’m not sure how that’s spelled), which felt pretty healthy compared to my previous five meals.

When Ryan brought the pasta out, Mason and Katie started eating it, but said it tasted strange. I tried it, and although I agreed with them, I made them eat it anyway. It turns out that when Ryan was ordering it, they had just put the meat on the pasta. Ryan said he wanted the tomato sauce on it as well, and they were more than happy to oblige. Before he could say anything, Ryan found out what “tomato sauce” was: ketchup. They put a nice generous helping of it all over the pasta. Generally Mason and Katie love anything with ketchup on it, but I had to agree that pasta was not so great with it. Luckily for us, the gelato we had afterwards was on point.

After finishing our dinner and dessert, we were all much happier and went home to our little cabin with a little less complaining. Once inside, it actually was fine and the kids loved the bunkbeds. For Andrew, we turned a couch around so it faced the wall and became a sort of padded cage for him. It wasn’t perfect, but it did the job. We all slept until about 5:30 the next morning (the kids were in bed by 8:00 and Ryan and I crashed by 9:00), which was about as successful as I could hope for.

I'm now two days behind on blogging, but since my wake-up call at 5 a.m. is already going to be brutal, days 2 and 3 in New Zealand will have to wait until we get to Australia. I can't wait!

Traveling to New Zealand--the Extended Version

Sunday, December 2nd

We spent the afternoon in the hotel taking naps. Ryan and I weren’t very successful, but the kids did awesome. They slept from 2:00 until we woke them up at 6:00. Actually, Katie took a little while longer to fall asleep, to the point where I was really wishing I could staple her eyelids closed. It’s amazing how frustrating it can be trying to get a child to sleep when they are feeling restless.

We went to the airport feeling quite optimistic, and pleased with ourselves for having gotten our kids to take such great naps. We got there right on time, and were handed a piece of paper telling us our flight was almost four hours late. We quickly found out that there was nothing we could do about it, and at 8:00 pm, the options for a family of five with no car and a boatload of luggage are nil. But they did give us meal vouchers for $15 a person, so I guess in the end we were even.

The terminal our flight was leaving from didn’t have much to offer, so they suggested we walk over to a different terminal. We did that, only to find that although there were more stores and restaurants, there were no additional benefits to being there when you have three tired kids. So we ended up going back to the terminal our flight was leaving from and putting our meal vouchers to use. There was a Wolfgang Puck’s by our gate, so at least we were well fed while we waited.

Mason and Katie watched a lot of Pokemon (that has been annoying, yet very convenient to have) while Andrew ran around like a child possessed. Eventually I stuck him in his stroller and started walking around, and was pleasantly surprised to see that he actually fell asleep. He slept for a good hour and a half, then we had to wake him up to board the plane.

Because of the flight delay, a lot of smarter passengers had managed to get on an earlier flight. Other smart passengers probably rebooked for the next day. All I know is that the plane was less than half full, which is a beautiful thing on a 12-hour flight. The flight attendant, noticing our tired kids, saved an empty 4-seat row for us to grab once the seat-belt sign turned off. So we ended up having Mason sleeping on a 3-seat row, Katie and I sleeping on the 4-seat row, and Ryan and Andrew sharing another 3-seat row (Andrew was in his car seat).

Mason and Katie slept for over 6 hours, and Andrew slept for a total of 7 or 8 hours (a 5 ½ hour nap, plus another 2 hour nap). Each seat had its own TV, and the kid section offered Playhouse Disney shows. Andrew watched the same Mickey Mouse Clubhouse a minimum of five times, but he never seemed to get tired of it. Mason and Katie watched movies (our new DVD player has been fabulous) and played some of the video games that were on the TV. It wasn’t until we had to strap Andrew in for landing that he really showed everyone on the flight what he was capable of. I hope that his little exhibition made them a little more grateful for how amazingly well-behaved they had been for the previous 11 ½ hours.

We arrived in Auckland at 10:45, about 3 ½ hours later than planned. Neither Ryan nor I had actually gotten much sleep, but we were both so excited to have finished the flight with relatively little damage done that we didn’t even mind.