New Zealand--4th and final part

Our last few days in New Zealand we spent in the Hamilton area. It was fun being so close to the temple. Each night Mark and I would go for an evening walk around the temple grounds.

Here is a picture of the temple at night. I'm standing on the stairs. You can't see from this picture, but there is graffiti on the front of the temple. Most of it came off, but you can still see it a little bit. So sad.

We wanted to have one more beach/swimming/snorkeling day, but it rained the last two days we were in NZ. The day before it rained pretty hard, so we just went shopping. The last day, we decided to brave the weather and go see Raglan beach and Bridal Veil Falls anyway. These were such gorgeous places! I was bummed the weather didn't cooperate, but it was still fun.

Here is Mark walking toward the beach at Raglan.

Beautiful Raglan beach.

If you click on this picture, you will see many surfers. Raglan is known for surfing, and apparently the best surfing days are the rainy ones?! I guess rain is good for snorkeling too?! Too cold for me.

Here I am at Bridal Veil Falls. The water looked murky, but Mark's dad said it is usually very clear. It must have been the storm.

Mark and me at Bridal Veil Falls. We were both wearing our swimming suits, just in case the weather decided to clear up. It didn't. :(

We then went back to Mark's parent's home, packed up and left for Auckland. We visited the Sky Tower which was really cool. There are tower's like this all over the world. Mark and I have been to the CN tower in Toronto which is very similar.

Here is a view of Auckland from the top of the Sky Tower.

Mark and me inside the Sky Tower.

We didn't have any time to eat at the restaurant on the tower, so Mark's parent's drove us to the airport, where we bought a rugby ball for our boys, and then we went home (having 3 little boys we couldn't have left NZ without getting a rugby ball. We also got them some cute All Blacks jersey's. The All Black's are the NZ rugby team). The trip home was good. We were so excited to see our children. When we got off the plane and saw Caleb, he looked at us like we were strangers. It didn't take him too long to remember us. James and Andrew were great! It wasn't hard jumping right back into our lives!

Here we are at the LA airport.

Here are our boys, decked out in their NZ duds!! Aren't they handsome?! Right after we took the picture, James and Andrew started to "play rugby." James said, "Andrew, I'm on the All Blacks team, and you're on the All Red's team!"