Arrival Day!

My journey was long one, starting out in Hartford, flying down to Baltimore, changing planes, then flying out to LA.  I realized while in Baltimore that my plane also stopped in St. Louis, but only long enough to let people off and add more people, so we weren't allowed to get off for any reason.  Finally I arrived in LA around 5:30 (so 8:30pm east coast time).  Luckily, Arash picked me up and we did a quick tour of Hollywood and had dinner outside with the Hollywood sign in the background.  A MUCH more enjoyable way to spend 5 hours in LA. 

If you zoom way in you can see the Hollywood sign up on the hill in the background!

While checking in with Air New Zealand we tried convincing the woman that she wanted to upgrade me...unfortunately she was only willing to do this for $2000 more.  I was even unlucky enough to be assigned the middle seat of the middle row, but then the seat to my left was empty, so it worked out pretty well having some extra space!  So at midnight in LA (3am east coast time) we departed for Auckland.  By this point I was so tired I couldn't wait to get on the plane and try to sleep.  The 13 hour flight wasn't so bad in the end, the entertainment system worked perfectly and offered many different options!

I landed right around 8am Auckland time Thursday morning, so this is now 4pm on Wednesday for me.  Somehow I've managed to stay awake the whole day and will just have an early night.  Luckily the kids go to bed before 8!  Julia was waiting for me when I came through customs (very quick and painless) and we made the 30 min drive back to the house.  Unfortunately it was raining quite a bit so I wasn't able to appreciate all the nice views of the Auckland harbor bridge on our way home to Bayswater.  I was surprised and very excited to see that the house is right on the bay and has a great view from basically every room!  There is a beach in the backyard where they swim, kayak, windsurf and sail from.  Very excited for warmer spring weather and summer time now! 

As for meeting the kids, I was kind of eased into it.  Tessa was first, when she was picked up from day care around 11am.  She'll be 2 in October and is adorable!  I went along at 3pm to pick up Libby (5) and Reuben (7) from school (since I'll be making that trip Mon-Wed) and they weren't kidding when they said things get loud in the house around that time.  Everyone wants to do their own thing and everyone has something different to tell you but they all just talk at the same time.  They were excited for me to get here and enjoyed their knifty knitted hats I made for the family!  I am excited to experience a bit more of a full routine tomorrow as well as see some more of the surrounding area and learn the rules of the road, start my practice driving on the other side!

My new buddy Smudge already on my bed!