Best weekend ever!

WARNING: MASSIVE POST 

Well, I can't really say that, since my brain is such mush at the moment I can't really remember most of my weekends, but this was by far a super duper awesome one.

We headed down to Turangi for 4 days to go to the snow with my brother and his family.  They moved away at the beginning of the year and we miss them so much.  It was nice to spend some QT with them all.  They boys loooooove their cousin Hannah, and me and my SIL Amy are kindred spirits.  And John's my favourite brother.  So we were all pretty happy campers to see them.  We stayed in the same airforce house that we Brunton's used to as kids when we went on our trips to the snow. 
Memories!

Day 1

We drove down, unpacked and went to the trout farm to feed the fish and went for a little walk by the river.

 

   

 Look at those little fishies jump!

  

It was just ridiculous how many fish there were.

 

   

There was this really cool tree cave that the kids hung out in.

Day 2

We got up at the mountain nice and early and were surprised at how few people there were.  We got to park at the very top in carpark 1. Last year we parked in carpark 7, so the day started really well.  There wasn't as much snow as usual because we've had such a short winter, but there was still enough for us!  We had such a great time sliding and making a snowman.  We didn't think the kids would last very long, but 2 hours later they were still going strong.  It really could not have been a better snow day.  Then that afternoon we went off to the hotpools.

 
me and my little snow baby.

 
Our awesome little snow man.

 

 
Ripping it up, literally.

 
Malachi was so determined to go on his own.  I wish I'd got a picture of how big this hill was, probably 500m long the slide, and he blasted down on his own again and again. Little ripper.

 

Thank goodness for Aunty Amy and Uncle John, who were soooo helpful with Lani so me and Tui could play with the boys.

 
The lifts are all part of the fun.

 
All smiles after a great day on the mountain.

Day 3
It rained. Oh well.  We played games, watched movies, and went back to the hot pools. And then the skies cleared and we went through one of the thermal walks.

 

 
Lovin that warm water.

 

Yes, Tui is walking over boiling mud, in RUBBER JANDELS, holding my baby....sigh...

 
This was one of the pools that the hot water came from for the hot pool we visited. Pretty awesome.

Day 4
We watched General Conference together.  I'd gotten the idea from a friend of mine to make it more interesting for kids by having cups of lollies with key words on the, and when ever the kids heard the words they got to have a lollie from that cup.  It totally worked  All 3 kids sat for the full 2 hours and listened their little hearts out to hear the lollie words.

 

 
Happy little people

We've decided to make it an annual event, our snow trip with my brother's family, coz it really was the best weekend ever.