Sightseeing in our Backyard

 Sunday night, we finally decided to get out and explore the area behind our house. Our landlord had told us there was a Maori pah back there (which according to Dictionary.com is "a Māori defensive position and settlement on a hilltop"), and it was promising to be an amazing sunset, so my parents, little sisters and I grabbed the cameras went out to see what we could see...

Mom was happy to be able to try on her new "gum boots"

That roof you can barely see on the right? Ya, that's our house :)

Me, helping Joycie take a picture...

My dad, taking a picture of me helping Joycie take a picture :)

We weren't really sure what we were looking for, but assumed these odd trenches are the remains of the pah.

My dad almost stepped on this pukeko bird nest, it was just a bunch of eggs hidden is some deep grass.

The mother bird itself took off way too fast for me to snap a picture, so this is a pukeko bird picture off the internet :)

 Two of my favorite pictures of the whole night, both of walking down our driveway on the way home :)

We got home, and my parents went to put the girls to bed, but I grabbed Oak, and we ran back out to catch the rest of the sunset...

It was definitely an awesome way to end a Sunday afternoon.

Wet 'n Wild

What were you doing early last Saturday morning? I'm willing to bet my basketball (which is obviously worth more than any amount of money) that no one was doing the same thing I was...

What was I doing you ask? Well let's start simple: I was driving on a very windy but beautiful New Zealand road in MAVY. I'm assuming that eliminates almost everybody :) I was also listening to the audiobook of Eragon, trying to tune out all three of my little sisters crying, and above all concentrating very intently on breathing through my mouth so as not to smell my sister's breakfast for the second time that morning :P
  

Why was I putting myself through all this you may ask? There was a multi-stake youth activity in Hamilton! And getting together with other youth like us was worth any kind of unpleasant drive :D

We honestly had no idea what to expect when we got there except that it was called "Wet'n Wild", but it turned out being a ton of fun, and really well organized. How could it not be a blast when the first thing we saw was this massive slip'n slide?

We met up with some friends we already knew from an orchestra exchange, and were introduced to heaps of other great kids.

and yes, that is my same old frisbee... :D

By the time it was all over we were covered in grass, mud, chalk, and sunburns, but it was so worth it!

(For anyone that's wondering, the kid on my right is Cameron, he's from Australia... enough said :D)



After we'd had our fun, it was my mom's turn. So we parked MAVY in the shade at the stake center parking lot, and played basketball and watched the girls while she did a session at the temple.

     
The drive home was much better than the one there (basically everyone just slept the whole way) and we got home around 7pm. What a day! Time to have a cup of hot chocolate and curl up in bed, yes?
Yeah right! You know my family better than that! Within fifteen minutes, I was on my bike to the gym, and people were showing up at our house for a party :) I got back just in time for the fireworks around 9:30 :D

 I fell asleep wondering how even with 7hrs of driving we had still found time for so much fun :D