Visiting Friends

I had a little bit of fun with this one . . .

I organised this trip with Hannah, being careful to avoid letting little siblings see my messages.

Then I wrote on Mum's calendar that I was taking "M, D, D, & B" with me on a given day--no further details.

Kids were curious (obviously) but I refused to answer any questions.

The day before I let them know what to wear & take.

The day of, they all climbed in my car with no idea of our destination, or duration of the trip :P

They began to suspect something when we turned of SH1 toward Coromandel.

They were VERY excited when we arrived.

 We spent the day relaxing, catching up, and looking around the farm. Once the kids got settled I didn't see them for several hours! One of my sisters wrote about her memories here. A little before sunset we hunted down the kiddos and piled them into the car again. (It's amazing how long goodbyes take with that many people!) As we were winding back down the coastline I decided to stop briefly for some sunset snaps.

Isaac's 21st Birthday & Wellington Trip

Jarrod and I managed to get away for a weekend to see Isaac when he turned 21. We did a few things, caught up with some of the family, and had some fun.

This is a fairly long post, but I had already uploaded photos here when I found some more and I decided not to reorganise into another post as well so we're going with it :P

: : Alex and Isaac were heading north for work about the same time we were heading home so we made a road trip of it : :

: : Let's all appreciate the PURPLE rail for a minute : :

: : It was a bit cold : :

: : Found some rose gardens on my GPS to stop for lunch at : :
Turned out nothing was in season . . . next time.