Water Slides and Red Meringues

Another week gone.  I feel like time is flying so quickly.  We're past the halfway point now.  Work was pretty uneventful this week, but it has been HOT outside, up to 27-28 degrees (~83 degrees fahrenheit) and muggy.  Apparently, this is about 5 degrees hotter than usual at this time of year here.  Thankfully the little heaters that we have in individual offices at work and in our house double as air conditioners so I can stay pretty cool until I venture outside.  Liza has transitioned to a walking hard-soled shoe, which has made life much easier for her.  It took all week for her to get used to walking on that foot again since it was pretty weak and felt like jello at first.

I worked the Saturday morning clinic and Liza went to an all-day birthday party of one of her friends.  After work, Blake and I decided to invite one of his friends to the indoor pool in a local town.  We picked Ryan up from his house and I recorded the below on the way (completely safely).

We spent a couple hours up there, me knitting and reading and they and sliding on the "hydroslide" and wrestling in the water.

Today, Liza's friend Ashley came over and the girls decided to make meringues, which they dyed red with food coloring.

Now that they are in the oven, they have gone into town to buy popsicles or ice cream and I am in charge of the meringues.  They look a little flat, so we'll have to see how they turn out when we taste them.  

Taupo

Another weekend of travel and fun filled adventure.  This one was a regular 2 day weekend, so we headed Southeast to Taupo, which is a tourist town set along a large lake.  There were lots of bicycle riders on the highways and signs about giving them enough room when you pass.  There is a bicycle ride coming up going around Lake Taupo.  It reminded me of a more country version of Lake Union.

On Saturday, after we checked into the hotel, we headed out to Lilliput Farms where we were able to pet and feed lots of different animals.  I took lots of videos of this experience because the sounds of the animals up close were just as new and interesting as the look and feel of them.

 

We ate lunch at the Taupo "Macca" where you can sit in a real converted airplane to eat.

 

Lake Taupo was a short walk down a path from our motel, but some of the dearly departed in Taupo also have beach views.

To end Saturday, the kids were almost lost amidst bubbles and jets.  The Cottage Mews Motel was very nice and quite reasonably priced.  Our room was two-storied with a full kitchen, chairs, a TV, 2 twin beds, a table, a bathroom and a private outdoor patio on the first floor and upstairs held a queen bed, patio with chairs, TV, bathroom and the loveliness that is pictured below.

Today (Sunday), we viewed Huka Falls, a waterfall, which is reported to be so fast and long that it can fill 2 Olympic sized swimming pools each second.

Then, we went prawn fishing at the Huka Prawn Park, where the restaurant cooked out prawns for us free.  The kids took a tiny bite each (under duress) and proclaimed they did NOT like prawns and as a vegetarian, this benefit was a little lost on us.  However, the park had a lot of other kid and family friendly things to do also. 

On Sunday, we also went to Puzzle World where we saw a really large and interesting Lego display and a collection of holographic pictures as well as trying out several puzzles and games laid out on the tables.  Among the activities there that we didn't try were remote control boats, a maze, a drum set, shooting gallery, and mini-golf.

Our last stop in Taupo was a Honey Mill where the kids had honey ice cream and I had a square of latte fudge (yum) and brought home a jar of apricot honey and plain honey to make peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

As always, the views are amazing on these long drives and I suspect that part of my motivation for doing these trips is to take in the scenery.