Heading South for the Winter
July 25th
July 18th 2:00 p.m.
With 11 large duffels, 5 rollers, 2 strollers, 2 car seats and 6 backpacks we required two family trucksters for the 2 1/2 hour trip to Dulles Airport.
Happy to be done packing!
Happy to be done packing!
We started gate checking our roller bags, after accidentally leaving one on the jetway on this first flight.
July 19th - Flight #2 Departed San Francisco for, 5 hour flight to Honolulu..
Aloha Hawaii! So thankful we decided to take a half-time break. We decided to store some luggage while enjoying a stopover in Hawaii.
Even after storing most of our luggage, our remaining bags were still enough to fill up our rental mini-van. There are 4 kids back there somewhere, we took a verbal roll call.
Flight #1 - Departed D.C. shortly before 7 p.m. for a 6 hour fight to San Francisco. We stayed overnight in California before boarding a flight to Hawaii.
Kids were excellent travelers and all smiles.
We spent 5 hours sleeping in California.
July 25th - Flight #3 takes us from Hawaii to Kirabati in just about 5 hours.
Excited to have a short layover in Kirabati, even though it appeared we would be landing on a sandbar.
July 25th - Flight #4 takes us from Kirabati to Fiji in 5 1/2 hours.
Once again, Carrie deftly positions herself to sit with Jack and Lilly and leave me with the Littles. However, steward quickly counters by placing an after breakfast beer in my hand. Love FijiAir!
After a night in Fiji, Slap-Happy kids ready for another early morning flight.
July 27th - Flight #5 takes us from Fiji to Auckland in just over 3 hours.
The moment you realize they put ketchup on breakfast sandwiches in Fiji.
William loved the sound of the droning jet engines. So did we!
From Auckland on the North Island, we boarded our sixth and final flight to Blenheim on the South Island. Flight #6 was a short 1 1/2 hours.
Meredith is checking out the South Island.
First sight of New Zealand
This amazing lady saw us in all of our glory upon arrival at the Auckland Airport Baggage claim area and immediately offered to assist us.. She called over two more of her coworkers and the three of them helped us move all of our luggage through customs, bio-security and ticketing. She was with us for nearly two hours chatting up the kids and kick-starting their Kiwi vocabulary. An absolute saint of a person!
July 27th - 8 p.m. WE MADE IT!
