Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Gallivanting around the world

Well... we were thinking of taking a nice vacation after summer school was over, to have some recovery time before school started in the fall. So, we decided on New Zealand... and here we are! Our friends, Alan, Libby, and Anna invited us to visit them in Auckland, and so we have. We did some travel around with them last week, and now we are on our own for most of this week. Yesterday we tasted wine at 7 wineries!! It was a tour; we learned a lot... and we are very impressed by the wines here. (We're in the town of Napier.) Monday night there was some excitement: Keith got to experience his first earthquake! This is a very earthquake-prone region. It was a 5.9, and we were 30 km from the epicenter. Luckily there was no serious damage or injuries... except in wine shops, where some wine bottles fell off the shelves! Below are some picture highlights. Just a few for now.

Celia and Libby went frolicking through the daffodils in the park in Auckland.

Keith and Anna painted lovely pictures in the window fog.
Anna discovered that sand is lots of fun.
Anna loved the spaghetti Keith and Celia prepared for her.
We all enjoyed looking at the interesting plants and animals of New Zealand.