Boating and Floating

What a day. Three years ago today, Sheryl’s grandmother/Raewyn’s mother passed away. In memory of her, their whole family gathered at the cemetery today to bury her ashes. It was very informal, but heartfelt. It was neat to meet many of Sheryl’s extended family, and hear cute little memories they had about Nana. It could have been very uncomfortable for us since we had never known this women, but everyone made us feel welcome, and Raewyn even insisted we participate in throwing a flower into the grave.

Then we all went to lunch at a cute little café called, “Ravenhill.” I had cannelloni with this amazing cheesy tomato-y sauce, and also a banana smoothie. But this smoothie was unlike any other smoothie I’ve had before…it was not thick at all—more like an extremely cold drink, and while it did taste like banana, there was another overpowering flavor. We couldn’t put our finger on it at first, but finally I realized it was honey. As soon as I had the realization, it was all I could taste—I felt like I was drinking an extremely cold, honey-flavored drink. Quite interesting.

Highlight of the day today: Kerry took us out on his boat!! It was SO much fun! We boated through Auckland’s harbor and got to see tons of boats, the cityscape, lots of beach houses, a swordfish(!), oyster shells, etc. We also got to anchor and swim around at a small, beautiful beach, float around the ocean, pop air-filled bubbles from the seaweed, and feel the sea breeze rushing through our hair as we sped through the water. I loved it all! My two new favorite things: boating and floating :)

We actually only wore the life jackets for the picture, but I can't even count the number of times Alexis told us to put them on...Maybe she thought we couldn't swim because she was quite persistent!

This is where we stopped off to swim around. The water was so clear and beautiful!

Kerry took this picture and wanted us to say: "Hello Utah! Wish you here instead of freezing in the snow?"

Alexis was SO proud of her driving skills :) Good thing Kerry was there to keep her going the right way!

There were so many unique houses all along the shore. Beautiful!

It was just so picturesque as we sped past the beautiful city. That thing that looks like the Seattle Space Needle is called the Auckland Sky Tower. It's similar to the Space Needle with observation and rotating restaurants on top, but you can also bungee jump off the top of it!

Even the car ride home was exciting: Alexis started dancing to one of the songs on the radio. She was hilarious, and we were quite excited to learn all of her sweet dance moves. Enjoy!

Two mini stories about food:

1. We had fish and chips for dinner tonight! I have been wanting to have some fish, and this fish was delicious! We also got to try fried wontons with balls of pork in the middle, and pineapple fritters—pineapple rings dipped, fried, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Can’t say I feel healthy after that meal, and I sure am glad this is not a common meal in the Lord Family home, but it was fun to try!
2. **Here is the best one that I can’t believe I’ve forgotten to write about until now: A few days ago at dinner we were talking about tomatoes. I said something about how my mom loves tomatoes, but Alexis stopped me and said, “You mean to-mah-toes.” She said it so matter-of-factly. No, Heidi, you’re wrong. It’s not “to-may-toes,” it’s “to-mah-toes.” Raewyn and I started singing that song, “You say to-may-toes, you say to-mah-toes,” but Alexis was still convinced that she was right. The funny is, Kerry and Sheryl told us that Alexis is quite a good imitator and has already picked up on some of our “funny” American pronunciations. We couldn’t get to say any tonight, but we’ll get her one of these days :)