Day Two of Our Trip-Toupo & Rotorua May 2011

This Day was full of beautiful scenery. We started the day off going to church at the Taupo Ward building early in the morning. We met beautiful people and I learned so much talking to all the women in nursery (I had to spend the entire time in nursery with Ethne). One lady from the Cook Islands was telling me all about people, places and food. She has had a life full of travel and has spent most of her life living around people from all over the world. She gave me recipes (verbally), told me her history, and was just lovely to be with even though I had a hard time understanding her English. It was Mother's Day and so they had a soup and bread potluck and the primary children put on a little program and made sucker flowers and things for their mothers. They buttered the bread, set the table and served it up while dad's and little children hung around the kitchen drinking soup from paper cups :)



After church we went to find Huka falls before leaving town and heading to Rotorua for the next four days. It turned out a little different than we had expected but it sure was beautiful. We just loved it.

We couldn't stop oohing and ahhhing at everything we saw. Garrett took thousands of pictures on this trip.

There were black swans and hot pools to swim in (which we just looked at) and so much GREEN! and the water was so clear and a greenish blue.

It was paradise to us. We just loved it. Unfortunately the pictures just can't do it justice. It just isn't the same as being there and seeing it in person.

Ethne was a trooper on the hike because she didn't have to walk :) The boys had a harder time. They started mumbling and complaining. Ezra especially had a hard time and was really slow by the time we had hiked an hour he was toast. It was a much longer and harder hike than I was expecting.

Beautiful Ethne girl in big brother Ezra's sweater. Camilla says she looks like a little Dutch child.

We didn't get a single picture of the falls that can do it justice. The water was beautiful and blue. It was very fast moving and we could see why people would want to raft down it.

I wish the pictures were better-sorry

We did manage to get the boys to make it to the end. I took on the backpack with Ethne and Garrett gave Ezra little piggy back rides every so often to help him out. Garrett was the only one who knew just how far the falls were and how long it would take. He didn't bother to share the info. because he thought I would say it would be too long and hard for the kids and maybe a little more than we should do on Sunday. And he was right! That is what I would have said :)

When we got to the end of the hike we saw that here at the falls there was a parking lot and we could have driven here. We would have missed the hike and all it's beauty but it would have saved the kids legs and been more appropriate for Sunday I think.

Garrett decided that we wouldn't make it back before dark so he would run all the way back and pick us up in the parking lot so the kids could have a break. I said OK and the kids were begging for water which I didn't have and I needed to find a little girls room. They had a little stand and toilets but the toilets were pay and I didn't have the right change so I went to the stand to get money and Garrett (who had left a little while ago running for the car) came up and asked me for the car keys-whoops! He gave me more money so I could get the kids some water and I bought a patch for the backpack. When I got back to the kids and G was off again I realized that I had compounded the Sunday thing and Ezra won't let me forget it. He told Garrett when he picked us up that "mom, forgot it was Sunday and she bought water and a patch" :) That is what happens when you do things on the Sabbath that you wouldn't normally do-all downhill from here I guess.

After that we left for our hotel in Rotorua where we would be staying for the next 4 days. It was dark so we missed a lot of the scenery but we had a nice drive anyway.