Celebrating in a Land Down Under

The last several years we have spent Christmas in many different lands.....London, Caribbean, Malaysia, Phillipines, and Guam.  In some of these countries, many of the people who live there don't even have a belief in "Christ", or celebrate the Christmas holiday.  However, we haven't let this stop us.....we believe the spirit of Christmas can be found anywhere, can be celebrated ANYWHERE,  and Santa's navigation skills are top notch!  This year we headed to the "Land Down Under."  Soon after we exited the airport in Auckland, New Zealand, Tyson was grateful to know that Santa was a welcome guest in this wonderful country.  In fact, can Santa or Christmas trees actually get any bigger than this?

Tyson had counted down the days until Christmas not only for Santa's visit this year, but also because this year we were lucky enough to celebrate our holidays with Grandma and Grandpa Copeland.  They traveled for over 28 hours from Jacksonville, Florida to Auckland, New Zealand in order to spend the holidays with our family---(and we thought our 12 hour flight from Shanghai to Auckland was long)!!  Together we would tour New Zealand and Australia on a two week cruise from Auckland to Sydney.  A vacation we have dreamed of for a long time.

Before we boarded the cruise ship, we spent a few days in Auckland where we were able to see a good part of the city.  We were excited to be our OWN drivers, and even more excited to have Dad be our driver, taking on driving on the opposite side of the road.  We were a little nervous at first, but he did a mighty fine job!

Not only were we excited to drive our own car, but also very excited we were again in an English speaking country---or was it?  Some of the New Zealand accents were as difficult to understand as Chinese.  We must have understood it well enough, as we made it to all our destinations perfectly!

Our first stop were the "Glow Worm" caves a couple hours out of the city.  We took tours through these amazing caves-- the cave seemed to go on inside forever.

Our favorite part of the caves were actually seeing the "glow worms" on a relaxing boat ride through the cave.  Millions of them lit up the pitch black caves like tiny stars.  We all thought they were beautiful and magical until we found out the glow was actually "worm poo." The tour guide told us they always wait until after the ticket money is collected to explain to the tourists what they are really  paying to see!

The next day in Auckland, the older boys and dad hit a high ropes course which was extremely physically demanding, while mom and the two younger boys visited the Auckland Aquarium.  Tyson was our own tour

guide as he knows just about as many interesting facts as a marine biologist---Thanks Tyson!

And last but definitely not least, our favorite day in Auckland we spent at "Sheep World" located in the beautiful countryside outside the city.  Here we learned all about sheep herding and shearing. 

Looked easy enough, Alison even volunteered to give it a try.....

Ok, maybe a bit harder than it looks----and boy are those furry little creatures HEAVY!!

Tyson and Preston did a lot better job with the little guys

And just when we thought the shearing was the hard work, we learned what the sheep dogs responsibilities were.  This was some SERIOUS BUSINESS.....

We were impressed that these sheep KNEW the dog meant business, and even better how the sheep were completely obedient, and followed his orders!! Note:  Alison took good notes on how the sheep dog gave orders, and how the sheep were perfectly obedient.  However, she definitely did not volunteer to assist with this part of the tour until she perfects this type of behavior at her own home!

The sheep were great, as well as all the other animals on the farm whom we didn't want to forget...

We could easily agree, a fabulous day for all on a beautiful, New Zealand farm!