Matthews Family: Holiday Part Two

Wow it's taking me ages to get all this done. We've been home almost a month now! I have other things I want to blog about, we started preschool this past week, and Auron turned TWO!

Ok now on with this holiday...

We left Friday afternoon to head to Taupo, which is about a 2 hour drive. We planned to stop there the night just to break up the trip a bit for the babies and give us a chance to have some time together as just our little family. We went to Taupo for our Honeymoon, this trip was nothing like that haha.
Lili screamed the last 20mins of the trip nothing we did could calm her down (this was becoming quite a regular thing the last 3 days...more on that later) we finally got to our hotel and they had upgraded us to a family suite which was LOVELY. The babies and I jumped in the mineral hot tub outside. The water is pumped up from a thermal spring under the hotel so you just fill it up when you need it. While we did that Aarahi went to get us Burger Fuel! (one of the foods on our "must eat when we are back home" list)
The next morning we left for Palmy to make it in time for Nana's 80th Birthday party. Lili screamed the last 30mins of that trip. We made numerous stops to get her out, calm her down, feed her but in the end we figured we would just try get there as fast as we could...without breaking any road rules.
We arrived in time for the party Mum and my sister we busy with all the food preparations. It was so good to be HOME finally. Home with my mum and siblings. My sister and I both have kids the same age so we got to swap our little ones over to meet for the first time.
Our neighbours were away so we house sat their house. The often go away and we house sit so their house feels just like home too.
The party was fantastic we got to see lots of people and family we haven't seen in ages. Aarahi and my sister Eleanor sung for Nana and our little brother played her a song on the piano. (I have no musical talent whatsoever)
The rest of our time in Palmy was spent catching up with family and friends, swimming and eating....oh my gosh the eating we totally put on so much weight while we were away.
Lili continued to scream every time she was in her carseat, enough was enough it was driving us crazy and she was miserable sowent and bought a new one SUCCESS! best $400 I have ever spent. I got the most comfortable looking one their was.
After a week in Palmy we left at 5am for Hamilton to make it in time to see our friend Nadia come out of the temple. She was going through to receive her endowments so we wanted to see her on her special day. Lili didn't cry once on the 6 hour drive.
We saw quite a few others up at the temple as it was their temple week so that was a bonus. We settled into our hotel for awhile and the babies and I slept while Aarahi went to see one of his old mission companions who we went out for dinner with later that night.
Sunday morning we left early again for Auckland. We stopped in Pokeno for ice cream. It's this tiny little town...don't even know if it is a town it is so tiny but it's famous for its icecreams. We guessed about 40 different flavours.
We arrived at my families house, they left for church and we went to see Aarahi's brother. His wife is expecting a baby in September which is exciting, it's their first one so a whole new adventure for them.
We were in Auckland three days, we didn't do much, which was perfect, just spending time with family, I miss them. The kids were both sick by this time.
We left for the airport at 5am. Auron and Lili both slept on the plane. Auron is so used to planes and airports now he knows the drill and what to do. I counted this had been his 16th plane trip. How crazy is that, and not once have we really had any issues at all, not even on the 16 hour trips to USA.

Well thats it for the trips, sorry it was so long.

Dressing up as Uncle Teina

Bouncy Castle all set up

A trip to Woodville for Yummy Mummy Cheesecakes. Reminiscent of our dating days

Icecream! Banana and something...

I suitcase full of New Zealand treats to bring home

New car seat = one VERY happy baby.

First taste of icecream

Cuddles with Uncle Khyber

Mum's four grand babies. Auron and Ensign are only a few months apart and Lili and Grayson are only 3 months apart too...crazy stuff. Whats even stranger was that both older ones weighed exactly the same and same with the two little ones!