FIFTY??

Turning fifty wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. 

We had a really low key day...it was P-day.

Frances and Peter Burt were traveling through Taupo, so they stopped by.

I opened the packages I had received in the mail.

My friends sent me a Party in a Box...plates, banner, napkins etc..

Even candles, and black balloons.

They also sent a darling watch with a card that said

"We will 'watch' for the 'time' when you return home, because

we are looking forward to the 'time' that we are all back together again!"

Such a cute, thoughtful present;)

We went to a nice steak dinner with the Burts.

Lonne even ran up the street to the only market in town that carries

DR.PEPPER!!

He brought a can back for all of us!

Frances and Peter had never tasted Dr. Pepper.

They liked it!

I still can't believe I am 50!!

Seriously....

Where did all that time go??

Cooking our steaks at the Lava Rock Grill...

The next day, we traveled to Hamilton to work at the Temple Visitor's Center.

My best present of all arrived at about 8:00 p.m.

It came in a Subaru rental station wagon!

Yay! LeAnn came to see me!

She, Tyson, Christy (her sister) and niece, Ashley.

It was so good to see my friend!!

We had asked our mission president if it would be ok for us to show them around for a couple

of days...and we asked him if I could have permission to Skydive for my 50th birthday.

Lonne never thought if would get approved, but he was wrong!

President Lekias said he thinks it might be the only time a 

"Senior Missionary"

asked to go skydiving! He might be right.

Our adventurous day started at the Waitomo Glow Work Caves.

There are two ways to explore the caves.  There's the "walk" through the caves,

or for the more adventurous people, there is the

"Black Water Rafting" tour.

Lonne, LeAnn, and Christy chose the WALK.

Lonne hates cold water ... LeAnn & Christy 

just weren't feeling very adventurous!

Me, Tyson, and Ashley chose the Black Water Raft trip!

We got our wet suits & tubes and we headed for the caves!

They gave us a little drill about how to stay together...

how to make a train...

and how to jump off the water falls!

This is our guide showing us how we were suppose to jump backwards

off of the water falls.  She stood us up on the platform,

and PUSHED us in!

Let me just tell you...no wet suit can protect you from 40 degree water!

It was freezing!  We decided that the reason they do this before you enter

in to the caves, is because it weans out the wimps! 

It did give us a chance to get the water in our wet suits a chance to start

heating up before we went down into the cave.

Yes, that is a look of total shock!

I swear I didn't catch my breath for about 30 seconds!!

We laughed so hard! It was fun to see everyone's faces as they hit that freezing cold water!

Ready to go down into the hole!!

Why do I like this kind of stuff??

Making sure all of our lights work...

it was so dark in there!

I put my hand right up to my face, and couldn't see it!

The water was definitely black....just like it says!

They waited until we were about halfway through the caves to tell us

there were EELS in there! Ahhhhhhh!

I kind of freaked out for a minute, but I figured the wet suit

would protect me from feeling anything in the water!

Ewwww!

The glow worms were really cool.  We would all turn our lights off and look at them.

They were all different colors. They were all over the ceiling of the caves.

The tour took 3 hours total.  

I don't think our bodies could have been in that cold water much longer! Ha!

It was cool to come around the corner and see light coming in!

I can't imagine being the first one to explore that huge cave!

There were lots of water falls...it was fun to jump off them!

One last picture of the group before we headed to the HOT showers!

They also fed us some hot soup to get us warmed up...

This was just the beginning of our adventurous day!

I am so glad I opted to do the black water rafting!

It was awesome!