Hi Everyone; I have tried to do different thing with our photo/s from this past trip. Hopefully you can view them better by just clicking the slide show and see some of the things that we saw during our trip south. I just noticed that when I sent a copy to myself it went into the 'bulk' folder so if you didn't get it look there for our pictures. I have tried to go back and see what my last news was to you all. I guess that it has been a couple of weeks. Our big news is that David and Julie have a new baby boy. He was born about 7 weeks early but things are looking ok for Julie and the baby. They haven't named him yet to our knowledge. All the kids have gone to G and G Johnsons for the week so Julie can recover in quiet for a while. The baby will be in the hospital for one to five weeks depending on his real due date etc. David may have some different info. but that is what we heard so far. That fives them 6 kids and us 16 grandkids. 6 granddaughters and 10 grandsons. Suzanne and Brian have been approved to adopt so are now waiting to see what happens next. Dani and Steve are slowly working on the adoption process also. Who knows we could have a few more babies before we get back. We were able to go to Victoria Square in Auckland to just see what they had. Didn't get any pictures but did pick up some necklaces for the little girls and two blouses to wear in the islands. It is located almost under the freeway and next to Victoria Park in Auckland right by the 'Ski tower" Like the space needle--even has rotating restaurant at the top. We were able to negotiate our way in and back out with no problems. The off ramps and on ramps are not by each other so you need to know where they are. Can't just go back the way that you came. We had Family Home Evening dinner at "Wildfire" again due to Rousche's last hurrah before they left for home. He was the temple pres. in D.C., mission president in Brussels (sp) and exec sec. to the Area President. We will miss them. There were 18 of us for dinner but it was so good again. It is a Brazilian type restaurant with all the wonderful meats but with great veggies to go with it. The mushrooms etc. are to die for. I have even come to like calamari the way they cook it. However, we are ready to wait a few months before we go again. (I did find another coupon that needs to be used this month though!). I guess the big event was going on our first trip. This was a dry run for the other trips. Learned to take a few more casual clothes, warm clothes etc. We flew out last Friday. We parked the car at a park and ride which was run by come Indian's that don't speak much English. The van to take us to the airport was really high to get in but did manage it. Our fllight was about 1 1/2 hours down. Christchurch is a lot more driver friendly. We found the streets wider and flater than in Auckland. The map was easy to read and we had no problems finding our way around town. We checked into our motel which was near the college where the conference was and met the VanBallegooies (try that one on) to set up our booth. We found out that there was a kickoff main speaker so we hurried off with another exhibitor for a quick meal at the mall. The speaker was a Jim Warren from the Family HIstory Center in SLC. He and his wife were flown in and spoke and taught all four days. We ran into them later at the grocery store and found out that they were not members of the LDS Church. They did do a good job of what I heard. Our room was in a very cold classroom at the end of the exhibitor rooms. We were able to visit with many interesting and influential people in the Genealogy rhelms here in New Zealand. They people are very serious about it We were warmly received as they all are avid users of Family Search, our libraries and were anxious to see what is new with Family Search. We were able to introduce the indexing and digitizing that the church is doing. For those of you who don't know the church is indexing all the microfilms/microfisch that the LDS church has. It is many millions of records. These are going onto a site that you can get on your computer at home. They are also digitizing all the genealogy books etc. at the Family History Library in SLC, BYU-Provo, Hawaii, Idaho, Business College, Allan County Library in Penn., Clayton Gen. Lib in Houston. These are all the histories etc. You can word search for your ancestors on this site. It was fun to see their eyes open up with delight when they reallized the significance of these additions to their world. We were able to take some time on Sat. afternoon and check out a Cabela's outlet in downtown Christchurch. Woody has discoverered that he can order sale items from Cabela's in the states and pay about $15.00 shipping so he tried on a pair of tennis shoes to see the fit and will order them from home. He can get them for abour $60.00 total with shipping vs. $100-200.00 here. Seems that the guy who owns the store is from South Jordan. We then took a drive through downtown and out the otherside to Sumner to see the water front. The beach was nothing inviting but it is winter here. Few people and dogs. We went to dinner with the VanBallegooies at their favorite (a chuck-a-rama) and it was ok. We got senior discounts for only $22.50 each. It was ok but nothing wonderful. On Sunday we opened the booth and were relieved by the VanBall--, and went to the stake center for Sacrament meeting. People friendly. Beautiful building site as you can see from the pictures. We finished at about 5:00 and hurried to the VanBall.... for soup and quiche before Woody put on a fireside at the stake building on what is on Family Search and also the BYU site. The laptop didn't work quite right but it was good nevertheless. Had about 30 peoplel show up for that. (Guess that was good as the previous Wednesday Elder Oaks was there so the people here have had a few extra meetings lately. Monday was our last day of the conference and were able to leave about two and see some of Cantabury Square, the gift shops and art centers. They do not have any velvet native paintings like Barnes have and have not had them for about 30 years. We took some pictures and ate at the mall again. Not bad food (better than in the states for mall food). We headed out Tuesday morning for Akaroa. We loved the drive over (very twisty but beautiful scenes --Woody thought that the road at times reminded him of the road to Hana if you know what what is like). We loved this little French area--had fish and chips, bought fudge, a warm scarf and headed back as we had to make it to Hanmar Springs which we did barely before dark. That was where we had reservations for the night. Hotel was nice, expensive, but really not much better than the cheap one we had earlier. Both of us slept better at these places than at our home here. Probable due to the King size vis. the Queen one here (with coils under for heat). We had a weird dinner (steak for $10.00) but no service and no steak knives--had to ask so that we could cut the meat. We tried to go over the Lewis Pass to see the snow area but then decided to head back over to the beach areas which we did. Got some sand for Dwight but the beaches were not very inviting. We went back into Christchurch and bought passes on the tram and rode around the square. These passes let you ride, get on and off for two days. That is the way to go if any of you do Christchurch in the future. We saw the Cathedral which is very impressive. They built it to remind them of England and that whole area is England. Now we don't have to go right? We returned the car (Nissan which rattled the whole trip) and caught our flight back. No securityi to speak of. You puinch your name into a machine that prints your seats and gives you lluggage tags. Turn in your luggage and go through a light security. They never did ask for ID's. Woody had a bottle of water in his carry on and no one cared. Our office is piled high with computers again that we are getting ready to ship out to NZ this time. We have 11 of them plus monitors and a few printers. We can almost see over. Our boss came in a few minutes ago and said "my, you are really working" I told him no that Woody was just busy moving them from one stack to another." We enjoy our boss and the people here. Well, we have no plans for the weekend yet. Probable just get back to normal after our trip. We love to get emails from each of you. Feel free to reply to this and look at the picasa site. I may put some of our earlier pictures on it as you can view them at bigger sizes. Let me know if your are interested in some of the earlier pictures. Also want to hear from each of you with an update on what is happening in your lives. We love to get news of home.
Love, Andrea and Woody, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa Wootton
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