Random Pictures

For my birthday my immediate and extended family brought me a very good Canon camera. Here are some random pictures I have taken. Thanks to all my family that put in money to buy it!

Our Kitten

On Thanksgiving Day, our parents surprised us by getting a kitten. We got to enjoy playing with it for a few weeks, then, sadly, we had to give it away. Here are a few pictures I took with my new camera.

Wilderness Adventure

While we were in Hastings my Grandad took us all on a "wilderness adventure". A friend of Grandads owns some land out in the country in Hastings and he runs horse treks and jet boat rides. He also owns some cabins by the river that we stayed in for one night. Rachel and I went on a 3 hour horse trek through the hills, it was a lot of fun. That night we went out shooting rabbits and then went eeling. The next morning we all went on a long jet boat ride. It was a great time and we all had tons of fun, thanks Grandad!

At the end of our horse trek.

Me carrying Matthew across a little part of the river so he didn't get wet.

We borrowed my uncle's 4 wheel drive for the trip as we needed one for the roads. Mum had great fun with it.

When it got dark we went out and shot some rabbits and then used them to lure in the eels.

Us in the jet boat.

On the way to the hut. This is a typical New Zealand road. Notice we are driving on the other side of the road.

Grandad, Rachel, Joel, and Matthew outside the hut that we stayed in.

This is the view that we had from the hut.

The boys fishing for trout.

Kuratua

While we were in New Zealand we went to a bach (cabin) in Kuratua that mum's sister and family owned. Kuratua is a really nice place in the North Island. It's mainly all baches, people own them and then go and live there for a few weeks when they can. They bring boats, because Lake Taupo is just down the road and so they go out on their boat and fish and water ski and biscuit (tubing) and everything like that. So that's what we did. We stayed for about a week and a half, and we got up every morning and went fishing on the lake, then that day we would biscuit or go for walks or just do nothing. It was a lot of fun and a good way to get to spend a lot of time with our cousins before we left.

Me and my cousin sitting by a lake. This isn't Lake Taupo, it's just a smaller lake that we walked around.

This is a really nice place that not many people know about. You have to cut through some bush to get there but it is worth it. As you can see the pond is clear blue, and usually there's tons of trout.

Matthew with his first trout that he caught in the boat. We all had turns going out with my uncle and catching trout. One morning I caught seven which was cool. We kept two and cooked them for lunch. We had quite a bit of trout for meals since we caught quite a few good sized ones.

I'm Back!

We are all back in America after spending about two and a half months in New Zealand. New Zealand was great fun, we all had an amazing time but it is nice to be back into normal life.

Well, my grandma and grandad came back with us from New Zealand. They stayed with us for about 3 weeks and then headed up to Canada and Alaska. We took them around Kentucky and went to all sorts of different places. I will do separate posts for photos of all that we did. I will also try and get some more photos of us in New Zealand.

Pictures from New Zealand.

These are a few pictures from what we have been up to in New Zealand. We have been here for 5 weeks already, the time has flown past! We have 4 more weeks until Dad comes, and then two more weeks here with Dad.

These are our cousins, Tori and Lauren.

Maccy Memorial. We went here with our Aunt who just recently got married. This is where she got her wedding photos taken and as Matthew was the page boy and was there for the photos, we thought we would go and take a look.

Us kids and our Aunty Leanne who's wedding we came over for. We spent a day cruising around Wellington and all the cool beaches.

Us kids looking out at the Sea.

Our Grandad took all of us kids to a Rugby game against the Hurricanes and the Sharks. It has been a long time since we have been able to watch rugby, so we really enjoyed going to the Westpac Stadium for the game. It was a draw, 13-13.

While we were in Hastings, a good friend of ours got baptised which we managed to see.

I'm in New Zealand.

Well, you're all probably wondering why I haven't blogged for a long time and the answer is, because I'm in New Zealand. We are here for about 11 weeks, Dads coming for the last 2 weeks after he's finished semester. So we have been lazing in the sun, enjoying being home with all of our extended family.

The plane trip was absolutely horrible, it was way too long. We flew from Louisville to Chicago, which was an hour long, then Chicago to LA which was five hours long. That flight was really hard because five hours is a long time and it was a little plane. Then we had the long flight, 12 hours from LA to Auckland, and the last one from Auckland to Wellington which was only 1 hour.

We have been here for about two weeks already. We came for our Aunty's wedding which was last Sunday. It went really well and everybody had a great time. Matthew was the page boy and Rachel and Joel were on seating people. My cousin and I had to go up to the front and read something out of the bible which we were really nervous about but it went okay.

Grandad has been taking us kids fishing which is something that we all love and Grandad has basically been fishing all his life so he is a a great person to go with. Rachel and I went with him and stayed over night for two nights, and fished for three days. Above is a picture of a 2 pound trout that I caught on a fly rod.

Anyway, we are heading to Hastings tommorrow to visit friends.