Good Morning! Today is Friday here. I had a great day yesterday despite it being rainy. It rained most of the day and certainly felt wintry. This picture is looking at the Auckland Harbor. I went with some others down to the harbor today to the Maritime Museum called - Voyager. We changed plans from doing our hike for maybe on Saturday instead. It was a really nice museum. Since New Zealand is an island, shipping and boats have played a major part in its history. The museum showed artifacts and displays from when the first Mauri Indians came to New Zealand to modern day. A highlight was seeing the 1995 America's Cup boat that won for New Zealand. It is on display inside the museum and is really spectacular.

Tim keeps asking me what I've been eating while here. Of course, lamb is on the menu. There is also a lot of fish and seafood items. The funny thing is that there seems in Auckland to be more international restaurants then local flavor ones. There is a real mixture of people here - many immigrants from all over the world. Our cab driver said that true Kiwis - as New Zealanders are called - only make up about 18% of the population. Not sure if that is accurate but I would agree based on what we've seen so far. So, I have eated at a Continental restaurant with many choices and also a Brazilian restaurant. I know, interesting! Haven't tried too many different kinds of foods because I wanted to recover from jet lag first.

Today the sun is coming out and it is a great day so far. No rain. The entire group of 12 of us along with Lucy's family are taking a ferry to an island where we will be having lunch at a winery and taking a tour of the island as well. I'm hoping to do some shopping and enjoying the sights. After, we are heading back for the rehearsal at the church and then dinner. It seems that we'll have a full day.

Hope all is well with all of you. Thanks Lori and Emma for sending a note back! Hope everyone is enjoying the blog and keeping up with me from Down Under.
God Bless!