Wellington in a minivan

The one issue with having Erin and Ethan visit is not having enough room in the car. For our roadtrip to Wellington we borrowed a friend's mini van - and dare I say, that it was actually really nice. Nice, as in, hmmmm....I kind of want one! Okay, not really, but having all that extra room for strollers, food, diapers, and crap was so nice. I don't think having two kids justifies a mini van, but maybe an upgrade to something just a wee bit bigger than lightning blue would be nice. When we win the lottery.

Our first stop on our whirlwind tour of Wellington was Te Papa - NZ's national musuem. It's free and very, very cool. You could spend a whole day here - but with three little screamers, we had enough after just two hours.

I'm addicted to maps. Te Papa has this ariel map of NZ. I seriously could have stayed there for a few hours, pointing out landmarks and daydreaming about yet to be visited locations. Here I am showing Luca where we live.

Erin in front of Maori carvings - learning a bit about the native NZ people and history of NZ

In front of the Marae, traditional Maori meeting/ceremonial house. Who's that kid in the vest? Not one of ours! ha ha

Wyatt enjoying a snack on my necklace

And more snacking on foam rubber

So many great things for kids of all ages - we will definitly be coming back sometime soon. Here we are in the Pacifica kids zone

Guess who couldn't take his eyes off the motorbike?

Watching the boats come into the harbour - a big Navy boat had just arrived

Next Stop - Lunch along the waterfront at the Mac's Brewery. When we had finally ordered our food and settled down at a table (with all our strollers in tow), Wyatt reaches over and grabs my beer - the whole thing gets tipped out all over the table. My first really nice beer in months. Not just any beer, but expensive brewery yummy beer. Luckily the barman must have felt my pain, and gave me another one for free.

Then we rode the cable car to the top of Wellington and hiked back down to the city through the botanical gardens. Everything was in bloom -gorgeous. Could have spent all day there!

The day was finished off with a walk around Parliment (aka the Beehive).