Garden Ramblings: Our first few days in New Zealand

January 9th - arrived in Auckland right on time, and Bryan and Peter were there to meet us. The lucky sevens worked beautifully, as we were not only given seat assignments when we checked in, but even got to sit together! A bonus!
The flight was uneventful, just really, really long! We both dozed off and on, but didn't really sleep. The crew was fabulous - very friendly and attentive. We were both very impressed by the level of service.

After we gathered our luggage and got through immigration and customs, we headed off to Hamilton. Bryan and Peter had moved into a new home in town in August, so we were going to a new location. Their home is huge and just beautiful! We have our own master suite with our own bathroom and garden off the french doors - we may never leave!

We had some coffee and breakfast, then we all took a much needed nap! Bryan and Peter had been up at 3:00 am to come and fetch us, so they were ready to catch up on some sleep as well.
In the afternoon we took a lovely walk around Hamilton Lake, which was a great way to ward off jet lag. The weather was cloudy, but nice and warm, and it was great to be outside.

We all slept very well on Saturday night, and we're all on this time zone, and ready to enjoy New Zealand and all of our friends here.

This is the view from our master suite! Bryan has been very busy establishing his garden, as they moved in to a "blank canvas". There was nothing planted before at all, and in a very short time has created a beautiful garden, all around the grounds.

A view from the walk around the lake. There were lots of sail boats out that day.

We spotted a coot sitting on it's nest as we were admiring the water lillies. She was concerned that we had stopped and were looking at her, and Dad quickly swam in to distract us.