Uretiti (sounds like it looks)

Uretiti Beach - January 2016

Lance here.  After getting back into Auckland from our Christmas break with the Jespersens we decided to head up north to go camping with our friends Kevin and Katie and their kids Elliot and Whitney.

We stayed at a really nice campsite right on top of the beach, where James did his normal thing of loving playing around on the beach and destroying our sand castles.

 

As always the day was spent with the boys chasing each other around the beach.

The boys had a really fun time playing in the tents and jumping on the air mattress.  We got this perfectly timed picture of Elliot's face plant.

 

The next morning, as always, James had us up before the crack of dawn.  It wasn't a completely bad thing in this case as we got to see the sun rise over the Pacific ocean.  That's right, we watched the sun rise over the Pacific- how many of you guys back home say that? (Hands down everyone who's ever lived in Hawaii.)

We then set off for a hike around Mangawhai Heads to take in a beautiful January summer day.  The trail was about 30 minutes south of the campsite along a beautiful, coastal drive.  The boys had a great time playing in the parking lot with the birds, and we had a tough time corralling them when it was time to start the hike.

Unfortunately for us we missed the tide marking by about an hour and weren't able to do the circular route, so we headed back along the gorgeous beach.  Tough life, eh?

We passed a sand dune on the way back from the hike.  Since James was awake I had to run up it with him so he could get his fix of seeing Dada struggle for breath.  He was quite happy running down the hill and really wanted me to go up again.  However, once a month is about all the old legs can take at this point.

Lance and James at the very top