Our Days Are Almost Over.....

Sniff sniff.

Let me see, what have we been up to over the last few days?  We had a weekend filled with family get togethers.  Cousins who hadn't seen one another in many years on Saturday followed by a visit to "cousin Chris" and his place for a 'viewing' of his automobile museum.  That's all I can call it.  A close second to Jay Leno's collection, I'm sure.  He is a very successful dairy farmer.....very unassuming and very likeable.  Sunday we went to Sister Sue's place for lunch/dinner.  I went down to the chicken coop with Sue and was given an up-close-and-personal showing of feeding the "chooks".
Sunday afternoon we hung around in the a.m. and enjoyed visiting with T's mum, who is awesome.  Then in the afternoon T. and I went back out to cousin Chris' place where I had another up-close-and-personal showing of his cows being milked.  The photo is of me drinking warm milk straight from the cow.....absolutely delicious.  I know everyone doesn't love milk (cold, let alone warm) but I do.  Ymmmmm, delicious (photo attached).
Monday morning we headed off to Mount Maunganui ('nother one of those names).  About one and a half hours from Te Awamutu where we looked up the mother of a pal of T's who has died.  Took her out for dinner and had a great day.
Tomorrow is our last full day and we're thinking of driving down to Raglan (black sand beaches) which is an hour+ away from where we are in Te Awamutu. "Tomorrow" is now today, which is almost over and we did drive down to Raglan.  Was suggested we take one of the back roads.....holey moley, was it ever a back road!  But the speed limit is still between 80 and 100k --  some parts of which are gravel roads ('they' call them "metal roads").  Another photo attached of a parasailer we watched jump off the edge of a cliff this aft.
Have had a wonderful time and it's hard to believe it's almost over.  Had to work out logistics of how and who would be taking us to the airport tomorrow which we did tonight when three of T's sibs were here for dinner.  Thanks to Sister Sue for making that happen and getting us to the airport.
Long flight ahead of us tomorrow night -- non stop from Auckland to L.A., and then a short stop in San Fran and finally back into YVR at 10:20.  Thanks to Gavin and Shannon for picking us up at the other end.

Hope anybody who has been following our little holiday has enjoyed our travels and tales.

Over 'n out for now.


S&T