last full day in auckland, penguins, stingrays, sharks, memorial day, and roast lamb

today was another day of rain, so we headed for the indoor activities we'd yet to do, kelly tarlton's antarctic adventure which was SO cool (pun intended, they have penguins!) and the auckland museum which was a great look at new zealand history. at kelly tarlton's, we got to see the stingray and penguin feedings. the stingrays were huge! and check out the pics, one was splashing me from the edge while smiling at me (at least it looked like it to me)! and we saw nemo and dory (yeah, the kids will like that one). and we walked beside, under, around sharks, turtles, stingray, and tons of fish in their very neat walk through aquarium. we rode a little snow trac through the penguin area, which is kept very close to the conditions of antarctica. a very fun place!
then we went to the museum and saw lots, from maori history, to wartime, to volcanoes, and much in between. a neat exhibit was sitting in a living room of a typical auckland home, looking out the window and watching tv as they report a likely volcano. then you see it erupt from the bay and lose the tv, and it gets closer and just destroys everything. pretty freaky! the museum also flew the US flag and had a nice world war 2 monument that was surrounded by flowers and notes. i thought that was a great touch for this memorial day away from home.
tonight we had a fabulous dinner with all of the bavins, including lauren's mom and steve's dad (who were both very fun to talk to and so sweet). we had roast lamb (sorry lizzy!) and a big feast, all of which was very yummy!
tomorrow we have a few more things to see and then we'll be packing up and heading for our time machine, where we'll cross the time space continuum, and fly to the cooks islands and repeat tuesday! here are today's pics...