Road trip

Once we were in Turangi, we figured we were more then halfway up to Hamilton anyway so we continued on up and spent 10 days up there with my family.  We stayed with my sister for a bit and then my Grandparents.  It was so nice for Malachi to be able to play with his cousins and get to know them all better.  And once we'd gotten to hamilton, we figured we were almost there to Auckland so we went up there for a day too, to see my other grandparents.  So in a week Vili was able to meet almost all his immediate family on my side, including two sets of great-grandparents.  For Tui it was more like a working vacation, he spent his time lifting furniture, digging holes, laying concrete, hauling rubbish, you name it, Tui was doing it.  But I think he secretly enjoyed doing some man work, a change from his usually house-daddy routine.

Our boys with their Nana and Pop Brunton, my dad's parents.

Vili with Grandma Park, my mum's mum.

Malachi had lots of fun in Hamilton.

We went to the swimming pools - yes, in the middle of winter.

We played at Lolipops, an indoor play center for kids with a bunch of toys and rides and stuff, totally worth the money on  a cold winters day.

They had all these costumes for little kids to dress up in, here we have an elephant and a dog.

We walked around the Hamilton lake.  We had attempted this last year but didn't get the whole way round.  This year we did.

Self-timers on bigger cameras are a pain to use without a tripod!

We visited the temple.  It's been over a year since I have been to the temple and I was so grateful for my Grandma watching both our boys so we could go.  Malachi was able to go outside and touch the temple and listen to Jesus talking in the VC.  He also found Sister Hafoka, aka Aunty Ofa.

Touching the temple.  He talks about it all the time now.

Chloe, my cousins daughter, Katherine, my sister's daughter.

The maintainance worker at the temple took Malachi for a ride on his motorbike, so lovely.

We celebrated my brothers 26th birthday by helping him move house.

The cake that Pak'n'Save made for him.

We're a close family.....aparently.....

On our way back home we stopped at Huka falls and at the hot pools where Vili went for his first swim.  He loved it of course and stayed in for about an hour.

These are the hotpools we would go to as kids.  They were just as warm and wonderful as I remembered.

He looks like a corpse due to terrible lighting, but he loved those bubbles.

It was a long 2 weeks, but so much fun and totally worth every $ and every km.