Day 16 (Aug. 17th) Auckland and our final day in New Zealand (sob, sob)

 Auckland, our final city

 The City of Sails

Our final day in New Zealand was spent with Treg's friend Stephanie (who brought the girls a HUGE bag of New Zealand candy just like Paula).  She introduced the girls to the $2 stores (which are like our $1 stores) and they found the contents of those stores quite hilarious.

This one was particularly creative.  They combined SEVERAL $2 items to create this baby.

This one was our absolute favorite though.  "Hit the Pest on Your Mushroom"  the must have toy for every child.  Sierra found this one so hilarious that she actually bought it for a friend's birthday present and carried it on the plane.
We headed up to one tree hill with Stephanie (it's where we were trying to get last night)

We went for a walk on the beach and found this beauty.  The sign above that grate reads "Hey Kids, don't swim or play here this water is polluted"...and the water goes....



Straight across the beach and into the ocean!!  That made us laugh... and weep a little.

We visited a vintage bookstore where Sierra found an original copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".  It was later changed to "the Sorcerer's Stone"in America.  Apparently they thought Americans would get it confused with our definition of Philosopher which apparently then ticked off the Americans who thought it was insulting to their intelligence that we wouldn't know the difference....but it never got changed back in the U.S.

We visited a beautiful botanical garden

Oh my gosh, we so want to grow one of these in our back yard...imagine your own cocoa plant...mmmmmmm

How fern leaves start out...all curled up

We found the way out...you know just in case you were looking for one.

And finally we headed to the airport :-(  We were exhausted and ready for our own beds and our own food but at the same time we were ohhhh so sad to be leaving New Zealand. 

Sierra found these in the airport.  How creepy are they?????

We ate McDonald's in the airport (they actually had amazingly good chicken sandwiches...ones we have yet to find in the U.S.) got on the plane and proceeded to have groundhog day...that is we got to do the day over when we got to the U.S.  We went to Treg's brother's for dinner so we wouldn't go to sleep and completely mess up our internal clocks.  That worked for everyone but me.  Everyone else fell right back into their normal rhythms...it took me about 3 weeks.

Our beautiful girls in their New Zealand lava, lavas

This was an incredible trip.  Truly the trip of a lifetime.  We did so many things while we were there and yet we only scratched the surface.  We love Treg so much and are so thankful he worked so hard to get us there and are so thankful he shared that beautiful place with us. I think if there is an Eden on Earth...New Zealand is it.

**Our favorite quote from the whole trip.  There was apparently LOTS of time to think in the car.  Maunia out of the blue says "Are sheep flammable?" 

After we stopped laughing we said "What?" 

"Are sheep flammable?  I was just wondering because there is a fire in that field over there" (she had never seen burning leaf piles before) "and there's a bunch of sheep by it so I was wondering if they were going to catch on fire?"   LOL  that made us laugh really hard

But the joke was on us.  A couple of weeks after we got home we were reading scriptures and read Job 1:16 "The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!"

"I KNEW IT" Maunia yells  "sheep ARE flammable"  Hahahahahahah