Last week we all drove up to Paihia to visit Simon, Jolene, Adam & Regan, who spent the week up there. Sam did quite well with the 4.5 hour trip (probably his longest so far), with just a little stop at Wellsford for some lunch. We didn’t really do anything on Wednesday night, but on Thursday we took the ferry to Russell.

As far as we can recall, this was Sam’s first trip (and second, on the way back) on a boat. He didn’t seem to know quite what to make of it, but had a good time anyway. He did a lot of walking around Paihia and Russell – hardly used the stroller at all. We had lunch at a little restaurant in Russell, and Sam & Adam had lots of fun running around and playing. The weather started to turn bad (and there isn’t really that much to do in Russell anyway!) so we headed back after that.

After a quick swim and spa, we headed back south, with a brief overnight stop at the grandparent’s place in Whangarei (where Samuel tricked Grandma into staying up an extra hour and Olyvia and I were of limited use to Granddad’s quiz team). Back to Auckland the next morning to rescue the lonely dog (who did have great fun at Aunty Brenda’s, apparently). Short in time, but somewhat long in distance!