Well we finally have decided to come out of hibernation and show ourselves again. It has been winter over here and very chilly. Most of these crazy Kiwis here in New Zealand don't heat their houses very much so now its coming into spring we decided its time to get back into the swing of things. We have a few photos to show you.

This is from a little village in the middle of the North Island called Tirau  You might to check out Tirau's home page http://www.tirauinfo.co.nz/ It is a lovely little village with corrugated iron art and even whole buildings created from corrugated iron like the dog below which is the information centre

Here we are with Tiffany baby Riley, Lauren and Holly We though Holly was trying to get the dog to eat us!!! a little bit scary haha

Here we are with Lee and Dean who we have been staying with

And we also went to stay for a while with Chris and Lynnette

While we were staying with Chris and Lynnette we went and visited a native garden centre

We had a lot of fun while we were here

 This guy was cute but he didn't say much

 These two were very friendly

 Can you spot us here?

  

 And the promise of spring

But that promise of Spring didn't last long as we were driving through the Tongariro National Park it started to snow. That doesn't happen a lot here so when it does the Kiwis get quite excited about it and even if they don't have warm enough gear they usually get out of the car for the experience. We were freezing!! 

 Brrrrr its cold

Chris had a job to do at his daughters house, we went with him to give him a hand

 Chris and Lynnette's daughter work had a competition to grow the largest pumpkin

 This is the view that there daughter has from her house. I don't think we would ever get tired of having a view like this. What do you guys at home think

Well that's the end of our stay with Lee and Dean and Chris and Lynnette. We will be moving on in the next few days. Catch you soon and we will tell you of our new adventures

A holiday at the Davies Dairy Farm.

The Brotons have been so helpful on the farm these past few weeks! The farm is near the West Coast in a place called Maxwell, anout 30mins drive from Wanganui. On the farm there is about 200 cows which get milked every morning around 5.30am and again every afternoon around 3.30pm. Because it's coming up to winter the cows haven't got much longer to milk. In July they will calve and start milking again. One afternoon we hopped in the car with Riley and away we went. Riley tried to eat the Brotons, but fortunately for the Brotons, Mummy said no.

We got the cows in from their paddock, and even had a go at riding the motorbike.

After we got the cows in, we milked them all. We got a little bit dirty, but luckily we were able to have a wash afterwards.

While the cows get milked they have Palm Kernal to eat, they love it!

After milking was finished, we helped hose down.

Unfortunately when we got back to Taupo we realised Mummy Broton had had a wee accident with her hair. We're not sure where, please don't tell the labour department. I'm sure Mummy Broton will have a new and improved do by the time the next blog is up.

Thanks so much for coming to stay, we enjoyed showing you around!

Picnic after the boat trip

It was such a lovely day after we went on the Jet boat ride we went for a picnic with the fantastic Kylee some of her family and Lee her daugher Tiffany children. Would you believe Lee has a little grandson called Riley. We will introduce you to him a little later when we have a bit more time

Wasn't it a lovely day the river was so inviting to go for a swim but we decided we better not.

We have to get going now, we are heading back to the farm. Expect another update soon we are going back to Lee's in Taupo on the weekend and will be able to put the farm photos up

Back in Taupo

 Hi Broton's  We have been staying in the country on a dairy farm with no internet access we have just popped into town so we can do a quick update for you. First of all before we came to the farm we went back to Taupo to stay with Lee and Dean Tindle. We didn't get any photos with them but we will be back there on the weekend so will introduce them to you then. But did we have an exciting time in Taupo!! Lee's son Mike works at Hukafalls Jet and he took us for a trip. We were a little worried that we fall out of the boat but Mike assured us he would keep us safe even though there were no life jackets to fit us. He was so kind and shared his with us and we felt so safe.

Just before we got on the jet boat we had our photos taken with some others from Lee's family that were coming with us 

Here we are with Mike Renee (Mike's partner) Tiffany (Lee's daughter) and  Tiffany's two little girls Holly and Lauren

Heading towards the bridge

Mike telling everybody the rules on the boat

Like how to now he is going to spin the boat and how we have to HANG ON!!

Under the bridge we go

The Huka Falls

Just to prove we did it

Hi Broton Family,

We're so sorry we haven't updated in a while, we've been pretty busy off and about lately.

We have been spending time at youth group, the other week we even tried to break some world records!
I would show you photos, but the internet at the house here is pretty slow at the moment! But we were the judges for lots of the records, and even tried to balance as many tennis balls on our hand as possible, the youth record was 11, the world record was 22, and ours was only 1 (its pretty hard on our cardboard hand!).

Melissa who we're staying with has been going into Auckland City a lot lately for study, so we got to see the sky tower! Its the tallest building in the southern hemisphere (this side of the world!), and i bet there are some great views from there!! Look at this website http://www.skycityauckland.co.nz/Attractions/Skytower.html to see what we mean!!
We were hoping to go the zoo, but we didnt get a chance cos of the weather (its been a bit stormy here lately!). We really wanted to go to see the kiwi!(said like key-wee)! Its the national bird here in NZ, with a long beak that they use to dig in the dirt to find worms to eat. They're nocturnal, which means they only come out at night time, which at the zoo would've meant we'd have to go into the dark room to even be able to see them moving around like they would in the wild. I say moving around, not flying because their wings are pretty little, so they cant even fly! Pretty silly birds!! They are really small actually, and the sad thing is their arent many left though, so they're really protected and looked after now. You should look at this website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi.
Our other favourite bird is the Tui, because its got such a pretty song it sings in the mornings and in the bush. We got to hear it the other day, and it really was a much nicer wake up call then the normal alarm clock! http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/documents/about-doc/concessions-and-permits/conservation-revealed/tui-lowres.pdf will give you pictures and more info about the Tui (said like two-e).

We're really sorry its been so slow to update, we are having so much fun here exploring the bush and things like that!! We really miss you guys tho, we hope everything is going ok over there!

Lots of love, The Flat Brotons xoxoxo

Hey Broton Family!
Its been a fun weekend, after our night of playing ukuleles and trying L&P, our new friend Tash took us home to hang out with her for the weekend.
On Saturday we went to the mall to go shopping!

We saw lots of clothes and toys, all sorts of stuff to spend our money on! We ended up leaving empty handed tho, but it was still a lot of fun!
Then after shopping we decided to go to the beach 'cause it was really hot and muggy! It was a great way to cool off and end the day   

                            

We could even see Rangitoto Island from the beach! We took a photo pretending we were standing on the top hehe.
                              
We found out that Rangitoto Island is actually a volcano! Lots of people like to take the ferry boat over to the island to climb all the way to the top!
                              

If you want to learn any more about Rangitoto, you should look at this website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangitoto_Island

Having lots of fun in New Zealand, miss you very much!
Love from the flat Broton family

Hi Broton Family,
On Friday night, we were supposed to be going to the park with the youth group which would’ve been fun! However the weather had other plans, and in our part of Auckland there was TORRENTIAL rain, that didn’t stop for hours, and even caused some flash flooding that made the top of the late night news that night!! So obviously, the park didn’t happen! Instead we did this…

We learnt to play the ukeleles with all the teenagers, and man did it make a racket!! We played a whole bunch of songs, and even tried strumming with our feet (just us, not the teenagers hehe). It was pretty fun!

We also explored the space the youth hang out in every week, like reading their comic book wall, and drawing on the chalkboard wall.

We even played a game of pool, and meet the youth group mascot “Freddie the spider”.

The best thing of the night was trying some “L&P” New Zealands very own fizzy drink (as the label says “world famous in New Zealand since ages ago”.

 Its called L&P because that stands for Lemon and Paeroa. Paeroa is the town its made in, and kind of is like the cover up for whatever the secret ingredient is. Its pretty yummy, we wish we could bring some home to let you try it!

Will update again soon,

Love the Flat Broton Family

Our trip to Auckland

Hi Broton family,

Well we've had an exciting week, and travelled up the country to Auckland (That's New Zealands biggest city). We're staying with Melissa and her youth group (she's a youth pastor you see), although we're still waiting to meet the youth (we got here too late to meet them last week!). You should've seen Melissa's face when she opened the envelope we travelled in, she was so excited!
We havent gotten any photos done yet, its been a funny old week around here, but we're excited about some of the plans for the next week, so you'll have to watch this space!!
Cant wait to meet more people and share our adventures with you! Think of you lots, miss you heaps

Love from the Flat Broton Family xoxoxo

Today we had another lake day, at our lake which is just down the road.  We have managed to slowly build up our own little spot where only certain locals can enjoy it.  We leave our kayaks there outside a lake house and bike down whenever.  Today we took the car because we had to take the grill for our BBQ dinner also.                          Lake Rerewhakaaitu fun with our neighbours.  The Broton's almost got away with taking off on the jetski, but they forgot the key!  

Who's up for some jetski and biscuit fun?????

Time for a play on the biscuit, not going fast enough for these 2 girls...they have a need for speed.  I am sure that can by tamed by getting them to come off!  Had a lovely lake day with yall...again.