Too Much Information: April 13th New Zealand

Up at 6 am to get ready for the temple dedication.

Breakfast of yogurt and fruit.

We had a parking spot for one car in the church parking lot and the other car needs to park on side streets. We weren't sure how hard this would be so wanted to be early.

Diane, Ryan, Dad and Danielle parked in the parking lot. No issues. We drove around behind the MTC and found parking pretty easily and walked up to the temple.

The morning is lovely with perfect weather.

Before going in we ended up chatting with a lady who was a reporter for the Church Newsroom. She liked the story of us bringing Dad back here to see this temple dedication and asked if she could talk to him after the dedication. We figured she was just being nice but it was a fun idea to have Dad get interviewed.

We were seated in the chapel of the church next door to the temple. The dedication was lovely.

Afterwards we went over toward the temple to take some pictures together. Sure enough, the reporter finds us and talks to Dad for a bit and even gets some pictures.

a little sunny...trying to get the temple in the background

There was a large group of people in sort of a semi-circle around the temple entrance. They were all waiting for the general Authority, Elder Kearon, to come out. Danielle really wanted to shake his hand so she got in line.

We were all excited to see him exit and I was just sort of standing back in the group. Surprisingly, he and his wife went around the circle and shook every single person's hand! Even those of us standing back a bit.

He really made us all feel like he was super glad to see us there. It was impressive.

Doneen and I were near each other and we shook his hand. I then went to the back of the line so I could get a picture of Danielle shaking his hand. I did get one (not that good) but then he reaches out to shake my hand again. I laughed and said, "You already shook my hand back there" and he said "I thought you looked familiar!" But shook my hand again.

Next we were off to the Ardmore Airport (very close to the temple). They are known for having a large collection of WWI and WWII airplanes many of which are still flying!

We first had lunch at the cafe there which was yummy. Then we went to the museum for bit.

Dion and Ryan decided to fly a WWII plane!

The people there were super friendly and basically gave us a private tour of the planes.

We got to watch Dion get prepped for his flight

One of the guys told me to stand in a certain spot to feel the wash of the plane when they started the propeller. It was shockingly strong! I loved it!

When it was time for Dion's flight they took us an another building that had an overlook so we could watch the take-off and landing.

That's Dion!

We were lucky to see a group of planes take off for a practice for an upcoming airshow.

Then while Dion was flying we were given a tour of the WWI planes.

Next was Ryan's turn to fly

The guys at the airport were just so friendly. They offered to have us for a drink (we declined) and then gave us ideas for where to eat dinner. We were actually walking to the car chatting with the guy (I wish I could remember his name!) and Dion said," Shouldn't I pay someone?" LOL the guy laughed at his oversight and we did go in and pay.

He even pulled his boss out of the club to get here opinions on best restaurants

We had a few minutes before Dinner so we stopped at a local park and walked around. We were intrigued by the high tech bathrooms

Dinner was at Volare Restaurant.

We had a table upstairs where there was only one other table. We had a lovely time and lived it up with starters, main and dessert!

We struggled a bit whenever we tried to make reservations by phone. The connection never seemed very good and they wanted a phone number but none of us had a New Zealand number which frustrated people to varying levels.

Once we were in the restaurants though, everyone was super nice.