Visitors!!!

This past Wednesday my youngest sister, Megan, and her husband, Jarod arrived for a quick visit.  They had spent the past week and a half traveling around NZ, particularly the South Island, and had many incredible pictures for us to peruse, which got us extremely excited about our trip down there.  Not sure when we're going to take it...we'll definitely wait until it gets warmer, though!  Luckily, we had good weather while they were here, so we spent quite a bit of time outdoors.  Following is a picture of Megan & Jarod testing out some of the unique playground equipment here in Gisborne...following their test run on this one, they deemed it not up to their safety standards, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

Brad convinced Jarod to rent a wetsuit so he could have someone who would hang out in the water with him (since I refuse to get into the ocean until at least November, and then only with a wetsuit on!  They said it felt like an ice cream headache each time their heads emerged from the water...and that's suppose to be fun?!).  So the two of them spent Thursday afternoon and evening frolicking at the beach.  Here, Jarod is in the background on the surfboard and Brad is in front on the boogey board...quite the pair!

We celebrated Jarod's birthday while they were here.  Megan and I made red velvet cake, which turned out pretty good, considering we had to make a few alterations to the recipe.  We had a nice meal for supper, and tried a variety of different hard ciders we had picked up earlier in the day at a local cidery...quite tasty!  Afterwards, we walked down to the beach...the moon was really bright and it was a beautiful evening out.

We took them to Wainui Beach one morning, and had a good time running around and playing in the sand.

Megan trying to take down Brad

Brad doing cartwheels (much to our amusement!)

Jonathan's sand angel

Jonathan had a good time showing Aunt Megan & Uncle Jarod around his school:

This is the entrance to Jonathan's school.  Awapuni is the name of the school (and also the street we live on).

Here are a few more pictures we took while they were here:

Harrison & Uncle Jarod

Brad getting ready to head out and surf (this was taken about 30 minutes before we saw the orcas!)

Beautiful sunset over the bay.

Jarod & Megan

Harrison taking a break from rolling around in the sand.

We had a really great time with Megan and Jarod and are glad to hear they made it back home safely (hope there wasn't too much water in your basement!!!).