Flying!

Grab a cup of tea, it's a long blog post (sorry for those on dial-up)

Finally I'm back :), it has taken a while to get the Internet up and running and the house organised. In this blog post I'm sharing with our journey on the plane. I've got plenty more photo's and stories to tell.........

At Palmerston North airport

Watching 'our' plane land

Grace and Murray

Kate and Murray

Cousins at the airport. (sorry didn't get a photo of the other cousins :( )

There go our suitcases.

'Our' plane

No seat for Murray

Zara! She LOVED it and chatted the whole way

Michaela and Grace. Grace was still a bit sad :(

Kate and Albert

Mt Taranaki

Mt Rahapehu

I wonder who?
(on the bus from domestic to international in Auckland)

In Auckland international terminal

Zara chatting to Murray

and Kate

Me and Brydie (my AWESOME friend!)

The H family met us at the Auckland airport

Zara and Blanket on the BIG plane!

Kate, and Murray in my seat.
Albert and M & G were sitting in front of us. 

'Our' plane from SanF to Chicago

Michaela - I wonder what she is saying?

Our hand luggage 

Michaela in the seat across the isle 

Albert and girls at the front of the plane. 

The whole journey went very well. The girls adapted very quickly to flying. It helped that everything was 'new' to them and so that kept them occupied for quite a while. 


Palmerston North to Auckland - I'm very grateful that we had this 'little' flight as it gave the girls an idea of what was to come. The views were amazing and some nice photo's of the mountains were taken. In Auckland the H family were waiting to meet us. It was very nice to see them before we went and we ate our lovely wraps (thanks Mama) before we got on the plane. I'm glad we had food before we got on as it was a long wait before we got dinner on the plane. Brydie and family are very good friends of ours and Brydie is my 'mad' running buddy. I will miss you :(. They took the bus with us to the international terminal and saw us off. Thanks so much for coming, we really appreciated it!


Auckland to SanF - We went through international terminal which went without a glitch. We ended up running to the boarding gate as we didn't realise that our plane was boarding. It wasn't a big deal, just nerves probably, not wanting to miss the plane. I filled my drinkbottle up as we went to the toilets in the shopping area, bad idea. When we got to customs, I got out my plastic bags with all our toiletries etc. Once it went through the x-ray machine, the custom officer pulled me over. "You've got some liquids in your drinkbottle" "Please drink it all in front of me". I asked him whether he was serious, he replied that he was VERY serious. Remember I had just filled it up. Ah well just a very minor glitch in the whole process. 
The girls did very well on the flight, they didn't eat much and so instead of wasting very nice vanilla Kapiti icecream I ate four helpings! Our family had a bit of a tummy bug just before we flew out and so Kate wasn't feeling very well and threw up on the plane, as they were serving breakfast. Nothing spare clothes and babywipes can't fix! After Albert and I cleaned Kate up, we continued with our breakfast, we weren't let good food going to waste! 
Sleeping was no problem for the girls and they managed to get a good amount of sleep. The plane was very full. Albert and I managed to sleep some too and watch a few movies. I watched 'The Help' which I really enjoyed. (thanks for the recommendation Monique!). 


SanF to Chicago - Once we got off the plane there was a LONG wait to go through customs. We probably waited about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. The girls again were absolutely excellent. There was another girl there which they played with. Once we cleared customs and picked up our suitcases (phew they were all there!) we tried to get our seats rearranged for the next flight. They had us in 6 different seats, not that great when you are a family with little kids. Albert managed to get a row of three seats in the front and 2 seats in the back, Michaela was going to sit by herself but ended up sitting across the isle from me. God again looked after us! The wait at the airport at San Francisco was very short, our bags went through x-rays again, this time we needed to take off our shoes. This flight didn't have in-flight in-seat entertainment and so the colouring in books came out, and so did our NZ muesli bars. It's a four hour flight but again girls did well. They got a free drink and chose Coke which was a huge treat in it self. 
We flew over Chicago area as the sun went down, very beautiful, I was unable to take a photo as I didn't have a window seat. :(. Once we got out of the security area, Florence and Grant from Mid America were waiting for us. It was very lovely to finally meet them after having a lot of correspondence with them. 


Chicago airport to our Motel - next post!