Whangarei!

March 2-4!

This weekend we went up to Whangarei. Our tour guide, James Ah Mu just moved up there and told us we could come and spend the weekend. We were excited to go on another trip. Whangarei is about a 2 and half hour drive from Auckland, so basically it was like driving from Lyman Wyoming to Provo, Utah. The only downside, no one in New Zealand knows anything about straight roads. All of them are super curvy and I get a little car sick. But no worries, I was fine this trip.

When we got to Whangarei we unloaded the vans and started getting set up. There were 2 large tents that all of the girls, except 5 would sleep in. One of the girls got to sleep in the house and 4 of us got to sleep in the garage. I was lucky enough to get the garage. That meant that when it rained and was cold outside, I wouldn't get wet! =)

After we got all unpacked we loaded up the vans and started off for town. Our first stop was a children's bookstore. We were told there were a lot of books by New Zealand authors there. I ended up buying three books all about New Zealand. It cost me quite a bit of money, but it was worth it.

After the bookstore we loaded back up in our vans (we spend a lot of time in these vans) and headed to a dairy farm. I was super excited! When we got there the first thing we were told was "girls come take a picture with this famous All Blacks player!" WHAT?! Yeah that's right, I got to meet a famous All Blacks player. He is also in this Mormon Message! Sid Going is his name and he is a very cool guy!

Our Group with Sid Going in the middle! 

Here is the mormon message on Sid Going! 

After getting our picture taken with him we went to watch the cows get milked. It was kind of interesting to watch. A bell rings and the cows walk in on this platform. There is one guy that puts the machine on their utters and then the platform rotates. At a certain point the machine falls off and then the cows back up off the platform and go and get in line. After standing there for awhile he asked us if we wanted to try! It was a little difficult, but I handled it quite well. I guess you can just call me the Cow Whisperer! Growing up on a farm definitely helped.

After the farm we went back to James house to hang out with the YSA and to have a BBQ. It was fun to get to know them all. We played volleyball, ate some very delicious food, and just sat around and talked. It was a great time.

The next morning we woke up and headed to the beach. I just laid around all day, played in the water a little, and rode on the boat. It was  a lot of fun. After the beach we went back to James' house ate dinner and then sang karaoke. We had a blast. After we had sung a lot of songs we were asked if we wanted to sing in church the next day. We thought he was joking.

I'm trying to get better at taking pictures. I like how this one turned out! 

When we woke up the next morning and got ready for church. When we walked in to sacrament meeting they said okay girls go sit up on the stage and we will tell you when we want you to sing. They WERE NOT joking! So what did we do?! We sang, "How Great Thou Art." without any practice. Yeah we are that good!

After church we ate lunch with James and his family and then started on our way back to our houses. On the way home we had an interesting run in with a lady that was clearly high on drugs. It was a little freaky to wake up to, but Chris our driver did great at handling it! What would we do without him?!