Bodily Adventures

Kia ora! This post is all about James and these major milestones in his life. In August James was set apart to the office of elder and received the Melchizedek Priesthood. Brad did the setting apart and our Bishop, Gavin Midgley, and Ryan stood in the circle. It was a small circle and I couldn't help but think about how different his circle would have been if we still lived in Idaho and could share this momentous occasion with family and friends. However, it was still special. Another young man from our ward was set apart at the same time and his friends and family filled up pretty much the entire RS room! August 25, 2024 Bishop Midgley, James, Brad and Ryan Then, on September 1, 2024, James entered the Hamilton New Zealand Temple and received his endowment. Oh man, it was pretty awesome to be there in the celestial room with Brad, James and Ryan. Our bishop was also able to join us and I appreciate him taking the time to be there. It was a special day! James had lots of good quest...

August 24 we decided to take the kids to the Pacific Church History museum. We had gone to visit it when we came back in 2023 and thought the younger kids would enjoy it as well. It was fun going to it with them and sharing a bit of our trip with those who didn't get to come. A sacrament tray shaped like a waka (Maori for boat).  Especially living here, we love this picture. I know it's not in focus, but wanted to share this picture of James being silly. Funny kid. They have a glass hut set up in the museum. There's a bit of information here about the Church College, here is James wearing clothes and graduation cap from the church college. Before we moved out here Brad and I watched a documentary the church made all about the building of the Hamilton temple as well as the Church College.  Building for Eternity  It is really neat and I highly recommend you take 46 minutes and watch it as well. The sacrifices those missionaries made and their willingness to do so much for t...

 Kia ora! Brad finished up work a few hours early and we decided to go do something! We got onto Google Maps and saw that Bridal Veil Falls wasn't too far a drive from us, not quite an hour, so we loaded up the van and headed out. I'm so glad we did, it was a super easy "hike" (more of a walk) to get to the falls and it was beautiful. There were many steps to get to the bottom of the falls and unfortunately about 1/5 of the way down a tree had fallen across the paths, so that was as far as we could go. But, we still quite enjoyed the view from a little ways down. Daniel and Autumn doing a little exploring. Long shutter (or something like that) shot. Regular shot. This was as close to the bottom of the falls as we could get, due to that tree blocking the stairs. The ferns are so big. The view from the top of the falls. I held onto my phone super tight and I think the kids were all relieved that I didn't drop it! Looking out from the falls, so much green! On the sho...

Kia ora! This post is super special because it tells about when Sister Taimalelagi (we call her Sister Tai for short) made our big ol' family dinner. And man alive did she make us a big ol' delicious dinner! We felt spoiled, special and loved and I hate to think how much of her weekly allotment went to the groceries for this one night.  Sister Simon (from Utah) and Sister Tai were companions at this time. We love them both! Sister Tai is half Samoan, half Tongan and half Californian (don't worry about the math and hopefully I remembered the countries correctly!). She loves to cook and when we signed up to have the sisters over for dinner she told us she wanted to cook for us. Well, I'm not one to turn down help in the kitchen so we set the date - August 20th - for a special dinner by the Sisters. They showed up with several bags of groceries. I promise, I offered to buy the ingredients, but Sister Tai would not hear of it. She's like that. Generous and stubborn! We ...