Amy and James Bungy!

Amy was wanting to do the Nevis Bungy near Queenstown.  To gear up for that, she wanted to do a tandem jump with me at Taupo.  That would give her the courage to do the 450 foot jump at Queenstown.

Here's the photos of the 150 foot jump.

Just to show you how close we were to the water.

But then we started back up.

The brave return!!!

For those that want, the video is below.

I thought Amy did a great job on the jump, but she told me that she wasn't going to do the 450 foot jump.  I'm thinking that her bungy career might have ended....LOL

Family Pics

The next morning was Friday.  We went up to an area overlooking Taupo for family pictures.

The photographer was a lot of fun.

She did a great job of keeping the kids entertained and we did a pretty good job of keeping her entertained....LOL

She did have a fun group of people to work with though.

We haven't seen the finished pictures yet.  I'll add those later.

Once finished, we found a little scenic place where you could see through the trees and out to the lake.

I did zoom in and take a right and left half of that view.

After that, Amy and I had a date with a bungy cord!!!

Amy Arrives!

The evening of the day we arrived back in Taupo, Amy flew in from Auckland.

You will remember that Amy was the one that did the drawing on the "Favorite Son-In-Law" shirts.  She told us that we better have banners welcoming her at the airport.

Kerrie and Lily were put in charge of creating the banners.  Kerrie asked Lily what name she should be put on the banners.  Was it Princess Amy or Queen Amy?  Lily replied, "It's Queen Amy, because I'm Princess Lily!"

Queen Amy it is!!!!

We had the banners pressed up against the windows as the plane taxied into position.  Amy walked down the ladder and admired the artwork!

Next post, Family Pics!

Road Back to Taupo

This post is about the trip back to Taupo, but I have to go backwards a bit.  On the drive down to Wellington to see Annita's mother, it rained on us most of the way.

On the outside chance that we might bring this rain back to Kansas, Annita decided to take some pictures of what rain looks like.....

While taking Annita's mother around, we went to Waikanae and drove by where Annita's grandfather built his house.  We went to the beach there and took some pictures with Kapiti Island in the background.  This was supposed to be the picture that I sent to my co-workers of me, on a beach, in a thong.  But it was colder than shit that day, so I went ahead and wore blue jeans.

I did bite the bullet and do some driving this trip.  Some examples of the roads I drove follow.

We drove over Paekakariki Hill on the way back to Taupo.  Annita shortened it and her pronunciation sounded a lot like "pie-cock" hill.  Once at the top, the view was pretty amazing.

You do have to look at the road on the right side of the picture.  I was a little intimidated driving that.

One of the places we saw on the drive up (in the rain) was the Rangatira Golf Course.  We meant to stop by on the drive back to Taupo, and maybe play a little golf.  Unfortunately, it was raining on the drive back also.

We took a couple pictures of the course.

On the drive out, I stopped and looked at the tee box for hole 7.

Here's the actual tee box.

I walked forward a bit and took this one.

I think it would take driver twice to get TO the fairway!!!

We made it to Desert Road and found some interesting signs.

I'm pretty sure that's the name of Bon Jovi's next album, a follow up to "Slippery When Wet!"

We also stopped and took a picture of Mt. Ruapehu.  It was cloudy and rainy, so the picture pretty much sucks.

It finally stopped raining about the time we arrived back at Lake Taupo.  We pulled over and took some pictures of the lake.

Just to show you what we arrived back to, I took a shot from the deck of Robert and Viv's house, overlooking the lake at dusk.

Once again, not a tumbleweed in sight.  Who could look at that?

Next post, Amy Arrives!