Hey My Broton Family, its your flat versions updating...
WOW have we been busy, and have spent a lot of time on the road lately, but we have enjoyed seeing different parts of New Zealand. So far we have been to Taupo (obviously), Rotorua, Warkworth, Snells Beach and Sandspit (those last 3 are kind of all in the same area), and we have been on a boat on the sea when Kylee's friend had a wedding the other weekend. We are going to go to Hastings, Napier and to Waipukurau to see Kylees Nana for Christmas soon too. She has a few more adventures set up for us before we head on to our next host family....
The thing we have realised about New Zealand is that IT IS SOOOO GREEN! They say New Zealand is green, but we never realised how green. There is a lot of foresty around where Kylee lives, and up north where she used to come from too. In fact Kylee's family used to own a little plot of land where there were some pine trees. I will post some photos of New Zealand scenery in the next update we do, but when we were heading up to Sandspit for the wedding, Kylee told me a pretty funny story about pine trees and I wanted to share it with you guys for a bit of a laugh.
Kylee's Dad, John, used to go with them as kids to cut a little pine tree from their land to put up as the Christmas tree. The trees were only baby when they first got the land, but as the tree's grew each year they got bigger... The last year that they cut a tree, Kylee and her sister Lauren, who would have been 2 at the time, and her two brothers Nick and Aaron who no longer live at home went out with John and left their Mum (Mom) at home to have some quiet time. They were given heeding warnings by Mum (Mom) to pick a SMALL tree, haha... If only she knew.
Dad talked with the kids about picking a "cool tree" (meaning an awesome tree), not a 'wussy' (weak or wimpy) tree. HAHA. The kids thought this one tree they found would be the "perfect" tree, but Dad didn't think it was "bushy enough" so they picked a slightly bigger tree. "Slightly bigger" was right. HAHA. Kylee said against the other tree's it did "look" small... But when they got it home, their Mum had to cut about an extra two feet off the bottom of the tree because they couldn't get it inside - it was too big to stand up in the high top ceiling in their lounge, HAHA. Even WITH the two foot cut off it, the top of the tree was bending over on the ceiling!! They had to put a ROPE around the tree to keep up upright. John put hooks into the fireplace on one side of the tree, wrapped the rope around the tree, and tied the rope to window on the other side of the tree it was so big... They had to get a special Christmas tree stand to screw the base into. Their Dad's response? "Oops" HAHA! Mum wasnt so impressed at the time, but now ita a bit of a family joke, Dad has never really lived it down It was the last year they got a tree from their land as the sold it that following year. I dont think their Mum would have let Dad go alone again to pick a tree out without her double checking it before it was cut down. It was the biggest Christmas tree they have ever had, they still laugh about it.
Edit: OK, Ok this is too funny! HAHAHA!! Kylee's Mum just came in as I was writing this update, I never realised HOW BIG the tree was.... No WONDER John has YET to live the story down! HAHA! Kylee's Mum, Dianne, just called out to John... They said it was about 12 foot tall AFTER it was trimmed by 2 foot before coming inside and it was STILL bent over by two foot back down on the roof. hehehehe. The Angel on the top of the tree was hanging nearly upside down. :)
Kylee has had a lot of appointments lately, and so we have gone along for the ride seeing the country side... So I have posted some of the photos below... They are mostly in the car! haha.
Us with Kylee on our trip to Rotorua...
Man, it was raining that day... See the truck in front of us?
It was spraying all the water up on our car.
Here is another thing we found out about New Zealand! THEY DRIVE ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ROAD - and their car's are all made back to front as well. Its so weird. Its taken us a bit to get used to it to tell you the truth... We used to get a bit nervous each time we hoped into the car thinking we were going to hit a car cause we were on the wrong side, then we would remember that we were MEANT to drive on the wrong side, so its OK, phew! So in the above picture, we are actually sitting in the passenger seat - NOT the drivers seat! So weird you think?
Hanging out with John, Kylee's Dad.
The day after our trip to Rotorua for Kylees appointments, we had a really quiet day. We all spent it hanging out and just resting... Well, John, Kylee's Dad was on his computer down the hall and we heard some music playing, then he started laughing a lot to himself... He decided to come out and show us the youtube clips he was watching and we had a bit of a giggle. They were pretty funny, I wish we had got the links from here to post the clips here for you to watch too....
We had some more photos to show you, but we thought it would be better to do a few posts over the next few days, instead of one loooong one... So we will update again tomorrow with more photos.
Hey Bailey and Riley, what have you been up to recently?? We love and miss you all!!
Love the Flat Brotons xox
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