THE MCVEY FAMILY: January 2012

Hello Everyone-
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. We are doing well here. The girls enjoyed their Christmas break and we had a great Christmas.

Blake is doing well. Growing and being loved every day. He is now only on oxygen at night which makes life easier, but we still need to be careful with him.

Blake has got the biggest eyes. Every one comments on his long eyelashes. They say, "It is just not fair for a boy to have eyelashes like that. "

He spends a lot of time in his bouncer, especially after he eats because if you lay him down on his back, he spits everything up.

Kaylee loves snuggling with him during her stay up time at night.

Seriously - he is about the cutest baby I have ever seen. He has got Nicole's eyes, Kaylee's nose, and Taylor's mouth.

Don't you agree?!

Mollie and Paul came down for part of Christmas day and we had a wonderful time with them. Warren showed off our new projector and screen downstairs, and Mollie played Dance Revolution with us.

The girls got a huge thing of polly pockets to share and have surprisingly done well with sharing and not losing them.

Kaylee got an architecture kit and has loved designing floor plans for us.

Blake lasted about 15 minutes...enough time for us to get this picture taken.

Taylor's favorite gift was her kitty, Rapunzel doll, and ballet outfit. She actually loved everything..

Nicole loved her new hat and Apple Jack from "My Little Pony."

Christmas Eve Nativity...this was the first year Nicole was not Mary. She was a Wise Woman and of course, we had a wonderful Baby Jesus.

The girls made gingerbread houses this year. Taylor filled her house with candy. She had candy everywhere. Kaylee was very detailed and put a bench outside of her house. Nicole liked to lick the frosting instead of put it on her house. Her favorite treat were the tiny oreo cookies.

Warren, Kaylee, and Nicole went to California for his Steve's wedding. They were grateful for a wonderful trip and the opportunity to see Great Grandma and Grandpa. Taylor and I spent alot of time watching My Little Pony and painting nails.

This picture cracks me up. They loved riding on the rides at Disneyland, especially Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain. Fun times!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful January. It is a big month at our house...Kaylee becomes a doube digit in her age and I will be the big 34!!

Love ya,
Johnson Family

Happy New Year Everyone! There are going to be lots of pictures, Christmas and a very amazing trip add up to pictures. It was hard being away from family, but we kept very busy, and that helped a lot. We went grocery shopping a Countdown, and the Salvation Army wasn't setting up. I had to get a picture, I have never seen the band and of course this in only part of it. The Salvation Army is very big here in Wellington.

On Dec 22, we had a North Island Christmas Conference with all of the missionaries serving on the North Island. We had a great program, lunch and then skits from the elders and sisters.

This is our district performing the Haka to Old MacDonald had a farm. These are the elders we see most of the time. Front left to right Elder Lamalu (Australia) , Elder Aiona (Samoa), Elder Lott (Idaho), back row, Elder Masalu (Tonga), Elder Finlinsen (Utah), and Elder Armstrong (Virginia and Minnesota).

Our beautiful tree on Christmas Eve.

We took a trip to the Mall in Porirua. It is about 20 minutes from our apartment. People in Wellington, don't or didn't this year decorate for Christmas. There were a few lights displayed and a few Christmas trees around the city, but other then that pretty plain. So we decided to see how the mall was decorated. We found this store in the Mall, a little different spelling then Kim's name, but thought it was cute. The prices inside aren't though, a shirt is about $170.00 and the jeans were about the same price. So I just took a picture and left it at that.

The Tree and Santa Claus in the Mall. The Santa almost looks like a picture, but he is real.

Next stop was the Botanical Gardens in Wellington. It was a beautiful summer day, so we spent a couple of hours there. View of the rose garden

Inside the hot house. Beautiful flowers and plants everywhere.

Roses where a little past their prime, but this one was still gorgeous. It is the Fellowship Rose.

After the Gardens, we went to the movies, Mission Impossible, not to bad. Then home to open our gifts. We opened them all on Christmas Eve because we were leaving for the big trip Christmas morning. Dad got a new Rummikub game because the little was hard to see for both of us, a New Zealand Rugby hat, some knives to carve a design on a walking stick and thanks to everyone sunflower seeds. My Christmas was great. I got a rice cooker, sheets, plastic food storage containers, and an electric frying pan. I also have a supply of vanilla oreos.

On Christmas Day we started our big trip to the South Island. I will only show a few pictures to hit the high lights, on the mission blog dad will have alot more pictures and details. We flew into Christchurch, picked up our rental car and we were off. Since we started on Christmas Day and a Sunday alot of things were closed, but in a very small town, we found one store opened that had sausage rolls and meat pies (both staples here), The Udder Dairy. Needless to say there were alot a cows around. Many stops along the way to see beautiful scenery, but the main stop was the the church of the good shepherd. A beautiful little church that overlooks a huge lake and mountains.

Along the road were thousands and thousands of lupins. Dad is in a field across from the church.

Our next stop was Mt Cook. We stayed in the only hotel there, The Heritage. We were told that you can really only see Mt Cook 1 in every 3 or 4 days because of the clouds, but we saw it when we drove in and in the morning when we left. It is stunning. Mountain climbers use Mt Cook for practice before moving on the bigger mountain. Sir Edmund Hillary used this mountain to practice and there is a museum inside the hotel the tells the story of Hillary.

From Mt Cook we are on the road to Queenstown. We drove, again through many small towns, saw lots and lots of sheep, and vineyards. We stopped in Cromwell, a town known for fresh fruits and their produce and their fresh fruit ice cream. They have Tip Top Ice Cream, some of the best in the world, they put it into a machine add fresh fruit or berries of your choice and swirl the two together. Probably the best buy in expensive New Zealand, $4.oo.

On to Queenstown. A beautiful vacation spot year around. In the mountian in the back ground there is skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer. Boating, not as much as I thought there would be with this huge lake, and lots of people on summer vacation. I took this picture near the restaurant where we ate dinner.

In the morning we drove over to an old gold mining town, Arrowtown. Twice a year they have a market (craft show) and we just happened to hit the one day during the summer they have it. It was wonderful! Brought back great memories of our craft show days. No wood crafts, but alot of jewelry, clothes and knitted items, especially from merino wool. We found a map of New Zealand we really liked and bought that.

The next adventure was the jet boat ride down the Shotover River, very exciting. We went about 65 miles an hour down the river, getting very close to the canyon walls and doing 360's along the way.

Drove down to the bottom of the South Island to Invercargill. We had to go down to see this sign.

Then on to TeAnau for the night before we caught the boat to Milford Sound. We had beautitful weather the whole trip, but on the bus ride to Milford Sound it rained, and that is exactly what you want so all of the waterfalls appear. I don't have many pictures because of the rain, again dad will have alot on the mission blog. But this is dad on the boat after the rain.

One of the thousands of waterfall after a rain storm.

We spent the night on the boat in Milford Sound,went out to the Tasman Sea then back to port. Then on the Fox Glacier. It doesn't look very impressive, but it is if you can see it from the top or far away. It was a pretty good hike to there, but worth it

The Pancake Rocks were not on our agenda, but decided we really need to see them, so we did. We got there at low tide and you really need to be there at high tide to get the full affect. So we might have to go back another time at high tide. The water will come crashing through between the rocks. It was still very beautiful.

Drove back towards Fox Glacier and stopped at Franz Josef Glacier, again amazing. We could walk almost up to the very front. There is a glacier river coming out from underneath the glacier, on the other side near the mountain a beautiful clear waterfall and river going down the same valley.

Back to the town of Fox Glacier and out to Lake Matheson, which is suppose to be a reflecting lake of the mountians, including Fox Glacier and Mt Cook, but there was a slight breeze, so not much of a reflection, but Dad tried to get a picture.

We left Fox Glacier and drove to Christchurch through the mountains and Arthur's Pass. We stopped at Flock Hill for lunch and to get gas. On the trip we decided to taste test hot chocolate. They all had things in common, foam on the top, chocolate sprinkled on the foam and two marshmellow on the side, one pink and one white. But they did taste different.

Twizal- a town near Mt Cook-small serving but very good and chocolatey

Arrowtown-OK, a little watery

Kingston, a small town outside of Queenstown, very good, but Twizal still wins

TeAnau-excellent, large, and the less expensive, very good chocolate taste, it takes over from Twizal

Wanaka- outside of Queenstown- OK, a little watery

FlockHill- again, OK

So the winner was TeAnau. So when ever you are in the South Island, you now know where to get good Hot Chocolate.

We drove around Christchurch and it was very sad. I guess it was a beautiful city, now the city center is all blocked off, buildings abandoned, and nothing looks like it is getting repaired. We were in the airport waiting for our plane, and they was an earthquake or after shock, the 5th of the day. All and all we had a wonderful December and hope for a great New Year, Love to you all.