Waitomo Caves.

This morning we slept in, packed up, and got back in our favorite vans. We drove to Waitomo and went Black Water Rafting!

We got into awesome, flattering wetsuits (not) and picked out a tubes. There was a special process to making sure your tube fit your rear, and apparently it involved taking this picture.

We practiced jumping into the river with our tubes. We basically had to do it backwards and blindly because we would be doing it inside a pitch black cave soon enough! It was so scary the first time but I learned to just do it without thinking.

We finally crawled into the caves, literally, and spend a lot of time finding our footing because the water was low. We crawled and shimmied through tiny crevices and gasp as we came out into huge spaces. Every once in a while we would turn out our lights and float with only the glow worms on the ceiling to guide us. The water was freezing cold but the experience was worth it. We had to jump backwards off a waterfall into the black water, hang on to each other as we were pushed by the current, and step carefully in water with eels. We were taught all about the larvae glowworms and their cycles. Heavenly Father has created so many amazing, intriguing things for us to discover and experience.

Our guide asked us to write comments and draw pictures for him in his notebook, and of course we had to make ours better than the others. So here you have it:

We spent the rest of the day driving home and finally got back to the Fitz around 9:30. It was so nice to come home and see this family of mine. I love them so much!

Happy Birthday to my little brother Braden! I can't believe he is 13! He has brought so much laughter and so many smiles to my family. He is such a blessing. I can't wait to tae-kwon-do him when I get home.