good bye pork pies, meat pies, and the land of kiwis

I can say in no uncertain terms that we have 2 amazing little travelers.  There were points when we were close to tears but they were mine not theirs.  We started out the day at a not-so-bright and early 4am to leave the house by 5am for our 7am flight.  After 2 long lines (one to check in the other to pay the New Zealand departure tax) we left on the first leg of our 3 legged flight.  I honestly can't remember anything about the flight other than they played the movie Enchanted.. which is only memorable because we RARELY get out to see movies anymore and we'd seen this one over Christmas in Nebraska. 

Getting on and off airplanes is quite the ordeal with 2 little ones.  We basically need a stroller for Grant for containment as he is still quite the flight risk.  Grant's car seat for the plane because airplane buckles are no match for Senor Busybutt and he is again a flight risk (pun intended).  He's also able to sleep in his car seat and we need it on the other end.  Then we have the car seat and snap and go stroller thingy for Henry.  Add to this my diaper bag, Peter's laptop bag, a back pack and Grant's carry on Spiderman rolling suitcase which was both a blessing and a curse.  It wouldn't seem like we'd NEED all of this stuff until you realize after this initial 3 hour flight that we were due to have an 8 hr layover followed by a 13.5 hour flight another 2 hour layover and then finally our 3 hour flight home. 

So imagine our surprise when we arrived at Sydney for our 8 hour layover and they told Peter they didn't return any strollers that had been gate checked at their airport and that our stuff would be waiting for us back in Seattle (Peter Edit: Actually worse than that - At Christchurch the strollers had only been checked as far as Sydney cos we'd collect them getting off the plane per a usual gate check - since Sydney airport "doesn't do that" we were stuck with strollers that would neither get to us there nor get to Seattle).  So a 45 min argument ensued on the plane between Peter and the airline crew, while I was in the terminal with both kids cursing Pete and wondering what was going on.  So we finally got all of our junk and started out on the 8 hr layover which amazingly ended up being the easiest part of the flight. 

We decided about an hour after hanging around the airport that we'd pay for a day pass to Air New Zealand's 1st class lounge.  This is bar-none the BEST money and smartest thing we've ever done on a flight.  Our flight ended up being delayed so the layover was 10 hours but we were in the Family Room enjoying really -nice complimentary food and drinks all day -(Peter: I owe my very survival to the champagne there).  We finally boarded the SYD to SFO flight and settled in for the 13.5 hours.  I decided to purposely avert my eyes every time the little onscreen map came up to show where we were thinking along the "watched pot never boils" line.  After our FIFTH movie (including Enchanted again and Dan in Real life -saw that one in Cozad over Xmas as well! Typical!) I decided to go ahead and check where we were and let myself have a peek at the little onscreen airplane.  How depressing it was to find that we still had 3.5 hours to go. 

Grant had a few squeals but overall was really really good  & Henry just slept and ate.  But it was obvious we were going to miss our SFO to SEA flight.  I tried to remain positive but after the clerk told us we'd have to be booked on the 8:30pm flight (it was noon) I nearly started to cry.  They did offer to put us in a hotel for the evening but we thought we could tough it out and make it.  So after that huge ordeal we finally got our bags rechecked in and braced ourselves for another huge layover, minus the nice drinks and food and lounge.  It was at this moment when wee little Henry decided to barf all down the front of Peter's shirt.  Henry has never in his 4 months of living spit up ONCE.. not even barfed a bit into his mouth.. nothing until this.  :)  Nothing like feeling gross after living in the same clothes for that long but then adding baby puke to it just tops it all off.  It did make me laugh out loud though.  In the end we ended up realizing we'd made an error about 2 hours later when we couldn't see straight and went back and took them up on their hotel offer.   We got back the next day around 2 in the afternoon. 

It was all worth it to get back to New Zealand and spend time with family (thanks to Jennie ("Granny") for being a great and patient host to us with our very rambunctious Grant and ever hungry Henry.  And thanks to Sarah and Crispin & co for having us at their bach over Easter and for taking Grant and Peter out on their boat - GO GO GO as Grant would scream!  He loved it! Also many many thanks to Bryan for all the help while we were there - hats, cell phones, nintendo chargers, getting up at 4am to help take us to the airport - you name it and Bryan did it... 

Since our trip Grant has been refusing to sleep in his bed & falling asleep on the floor inside his gate every night.  Henry has been to the doctor and has dropped from the 5th percentile in weight to the 3rd percentile so we're now giving him a bottle of formula after his night feeding.  Between the traveling and the change with eating he's now starting to wake about every 2-3 hours.. which are oddly timed with Grant's night waking's.  I'm not getting much sleep at all.  Speaking of which it's 9:30pm so I'm going to sign out.

 

If you're bored all 402 or so photos are now on our flickr web site in this set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dampier/sets/72157604120794941/

 

-misty