Easter--Bigger than Christmas?

I think this Easter comic is so funny. It cracks me up every year. Anyway...Ashton and I have just experienced, along with the rest of the Christian world, the divine holiday of Easter.

Here in New Zealand, this holiday is right up there with Christmas-just as it should be. The government has a mandatory declaration stating that all shops be closed on a few holidays-Christmas, Boxing Day, Good Friday and Easter. I also think they might be closed on ANZAC day or something. I'm not sure. (You can apply for a permit to be open, but it is extremely hard to get. You can only get one if you are the only shop around for 50 miles and you have essential life supplies.) It was incredible.

The day before Good Friday, all the shops were packed. And then Good Friday came around and all the world was dead. Nobody was out.

Saturday shops opened again and then Sunday they were closed. Some places are even closed Easter Monday. Schools are not in session from Good Friday to Easter Tuesday.

Many people go out of town for Easter. We stayed where we were and enjoyed pondering our Savior and the gift that he has given all men if they choose to come unto Him. We enjoyed a marvelous fireside where the spirit was strong. We had a great Easter and are grateful for the holiday as a reminder of what the Savior has done for us.

A Piha Picnic

Ashton and I love to go to the beach for an evening picnic, especially since we live to close to water all around us. Just last night we went to Piha beach, which is on the western coast, so we could watch a lovely sunset. Piha is known aournd here for its massive and dangerous waves. Just watching from the shore we could see waves that must have been around 10 feet high. They all came crashing down at once, row after row of waves. We thought it was neat because the light from the sun would beam through the waves and make them clear-ish, some might say opaque.

We even had a little adventure losing the key in the sand. I had put the key on the blanket and forgot to pick it up before we left. We scooped up the blanket and walked back to the car not realizing we had lost the key until the moment arrived to open the car door. This was not so bad except for the fact that when we left the beach it was pitch black, so looking for a key in the sand was not going to be that easy. We said a quick prayer, went back to where we were sitting and withing 5 minutes of hopeful searching, Ashton spotted a shiny spot that just happened to be our needle in a haystack. How grateful we were to have found our key, saying another prayer of gratitude all the way home!

Polyfest '08

This past weekend we had the privilege of attending Polyfest. It was spectacular! All of the colleges (high schools here) from the area compete through song and dance from their different cultures. There were 5 different stages--the Maori stage, the Tongan stage, the Samoan stage, the Niue stage and the Cook Island stage. The Maoris compete against Maoris, Tongans against Tongans, etc. We were mostly at the Maori stage. After each performance the Maoris in the crowd would get up and do the haka to those who had performed on stage as a way of cheering. It was incredible. All of a sudden 5 groups of people would stand up and start shouting the haka with so much passion. It was so awesome.
We saw a Tongan performance and they have incredible voices. I remember last year we went to a Tongan ward just to hear them sing. It is so lovely.
It was an incredible opportunity to be completely surrounded by the islanders. We were practically the only white people there. Seriously we probably saw about 5 other white people and half of them were cops.


Here are the real deal Maoris in the audience doing the haka. Too bad we can't see their faces. We did get a shot of some of the Maoris behind us, but there were definitely more in the front.

Accepted....Again

I found out today that I have officially been accepted into a masters degree program. This time to BYU in their Family Recreation Program. And Ashton is much happier this time than the time before. Last time I was accepted, Ashton and I were just dating and I was on the brink of graduating. I planned on moving back to the blessed state of Arizona where everything is brown and beautiful to do graduate school. We made a small trip to AZ so Ashton could meet my family. When we got there, a letter of acceptance was on my bed awaiting my arrival. When I opened it, I was so excited. Ashton on the other hand was not so excited. He was just like, "Oh, that's cool Lyd." I think he must have had other plans for me beyond my knowledge--like to get married or something. He did always say that we had a lot of potential for the "M word." A month or so later he made these intentions known to me and needless to say I married the man of my dreams still yearning to go to graduate school. From then until now I have filled my time with jobs I never thought I would ever have which left me still wishing I was back in school listening and learning. I hate working. I love school. I really liked school while I was in it, and love it now that I'm done. (But by the end of my senior year I was definitely ready to be done and do something else so these 2 years have been a nice little break.) And now, two years later, it is my turn to go back! BYU here I come! I hope this post will remind me of how much I liked school before I went back when I am in the grind.

Architectural Wonder

Ashton and I went to the Sky Tower for the first time last night. It was amazing. The Sky Tower is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere and at the top there is a restaurant that spins around giving an amazing view of the entire city and miles beyond over ocean and land. It was phenomenal. There was not a bad seat or view in there!

Sky Tower Facts:
--Sky Tower has three circular public observation levels - Sky Deck, Main Observation level and Sky Lounge - from each of which you can get a 360-degree view of Auckland.
--Three glass-fronted elevators can take 225 people to the observation levels every 15 minutes. The elevators travel at 18km per hour and the ride takes only 40 seconds.**There is a glass bottom in the elevator so you can see the ground getting smaller as you go up! It is crazy!
--There are 1,267 steps from the base of Sky Tower to Sky Deck. It would take someone 29 minutes to reach Sky Deck walking at 4km (2.5 mph)
--On a clear day you can see approximately 82 kilometres (51 miles) from Sky Tower.
--During one Sky Tower Vertical Challenge race a contestant ran up over 1000 steps in only five minutes and 17 seconds.
--At 328 metres tall Sky Tower stands above any other tower in the Southern Hemisphere and is the 12th tallest tower in the world (taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Sydney's AMP Tower). Sky Tower is about as tall as 37 buses end on end!
--Sky Tower weighs 21 million kilos (20,000 tonnes) which is equivalent to 6,000 elephants.
--It took two years and nine months to build Sky Tower.