Underground Sewage, Stingrays, and Rain

July 26th was my birthday! So what does a 53 year old do in the rainy season in New Zealand? We found a place called Kelly Tarlton's that offered free admission if it was your birthday. I couldn't pass that up! We invited some people to go with us but for some reason they didn't think it was a good idea to go out when the storm of the decade was bearing down on us. But hey! We are talking about free admission to Kelly Tarlton so Mir and I braved the storm (they called it a cyclone) and off we went. Kelly Tarlton was a man that loved the ocean and everything in it. He had a vision to provide an aquarium experience for people. He found these abandoned huge underground sewage tanks . He went in cleaned the place up, and figured out a way to allow people to be inside the aquarium without getting wet. He came up with this glass tunnel that goes through his aquarium. The aquarium has turtles, sharks, stingrays, fish, etc. They have a large stingray pond and the employee got in with them and fed them. The stingrays were huge and they were all over her looking for food. It reminded us of the fun cruise we took with Dan and Joey where we fed the Stingrays. After all this work to do this project, Kelly Tarlton died in his sleep 2 months after his aquarium opened. It is a very popular place for kids. Oh yea! I nearly forgot...It also has King Penguins and they make over 2 ton of snow each day for the critters. Pretty cool place. When we came out the storm was even stronger but even with a huge storm there were adrenalin junkies trying to wind surf out in the harbor. They weren't doing very well because the swells were so big they kept falling over.

Miriam and I came back to Takapuna and drove down to Takapuna Beach to watch the storm. A lot of people had the same idea and beach had quite a few people just walking around (being blown around) and watching the ocean. We put on our rain gear and walked to the beach. We got our picture taken by another person watching the storm...check it out at the album. As I am blogging this the news is on and reporting that another big storm is on its way tonight. More flooding and power outages expected. (We lost 5 people last weekend, hopefully people will not be so risky) The lawns and parks are so soaked that the weekly soccer and rugby games that go on can't be playes because the fields are just mushy from all of the rain. They haven't been able to play for 6-8 weeks. So that's winter in the North Island of New Zealand. Rain, rain, and more rain.

That evening we visited with some Senior Missionaries that are being transfered here from Australia. Their furniture hasn't arrived so we sat on camp chairs and played games using their suitcase as a table. That was our day MY BIRTHDAY in New Zealand. I received nice cards, e-mails and phonecalls from my kids so I'm a happy guy!

Today was a special day in our Area Office. It was a farwell devotional for Elder Spencer Condie. He has lived outside of the United States for a grand total of 16 years for the Church. He and his sweet wife are excited about returning to the USA to be with children and grandchildren. He is a wonderful man with an incredible sense of humor. Whenever he speaks he always delivers a wonderful message usually mixed with extreme humor. We love Elder Condie.

CHEERS! OH..I can't forget my mother. Happy Birthday Mom! We all love you and miss you. (This is the only year in my 53 years that it is not on the same day) GO TO THE PICTURE ALBUMS!