Wellington,NZ

Words can not really explain the beauty that is New Zealand! I landed in Wellington, a coastal city on the North Island, and we have had such a fun time!

We went to some local hot spots in Wellington...Ugg Boots are all over the place here, they also filmed the Lord of the Rings and they have a museum dedicated to it. But, most important and not to be overlooked, is the food. It is so yummy - I have enjoyed meat pies, butter chicken {insert mouth watering}, pavlovas {you can buy them in the stores}, and their candy or "Lollies" as they call them, are the BEST!!! 

We went to the Wellington Botanical Gardens and took the cable cars to the top of this beautiful mountain top to get there. This was quite a sight and we just kept saying we couldn't believe that we were actually here...with no children.

At one point, we took a nap under this big huge tree and I was trying to get a picture of the beauty of it. The Camera doesn't even do justice. The clouds are so close that you literally watch them fly by as new ones roll in. They also have these crickets that come out in the summertime {these are their Summer months} and make the most amazing noise. Bart laughed and said that I could totally fall asleep to them every night as they sound like a noise machine. He's right!

We also did a LOT of walking down by the wharf. We walked into museums {which are all free as they are funded by the government} and just soaked up the people and the excitement of Wellington.

Wellington is the Capitol of New Zealand and one of their windiest cities. Case in point, I stopped to take a picture of Bart as he was about to be blown away - funny story - about thirty seconds after this picture was taken, Bart was yelling for me to run as fast as I could as the wind was blowing so hard that a local restaurant had chairs and tables flying down the street behind us. It was crazy!

On Sunday, we found the local church and we are so glad that we went. EVERYONE came up to meet us and we were even invited over to lunch by one of the families. The people here are amazing and go out of their way to make you feel welcomed.

After church, we decided to walk back to the hotel instead of taking the bus...

My husband/picture model took many poses for me along the way. I laughed so hard at him up on this bridge. He didn't really know when I was taking the picture, so he decided to lay on the moves and poses.

The words in New Zealand are also great - Give Way means yield {Do you get my husband trying to be funny and pretend he was giving stuff away}, Lollie means candy, Cheers means Thank you, Holiday means Vacation, rubbish means trash, Are you feeling Peckish? means are you hungry? We love the way they talk and just ask Bart how annoying I have been trying to pretend {This entire trip} that I can speak like them, accent and all!

We also spent some time with Karl and his family - they were the ones that Bart came over to do business with. They are such great people and we were amazed at their generosity and kindness. Once you are in with this family, they make you feel like family. Great people!

We have been Skyping at night to see how the kids are doing. At one point, we almost hung up because it was so chaotic and we couldn't understand between all the yells for our attention. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for taking such good care of them for us!

Now we are off to ChristChurch on the South Island!