NZ: The first hurdle

Now came the part that we were dreading for almost a year and a half. The long day of travel to get to New Zealand. We had to fly to Los Angles, have a 8 hour lay over before catching the 13 hour flight to Auckland. But that is not all - once there we had to catch a flight to Christchurch and then on Dunedin. Then get to the rental house. All told 36 hours door to door. With Connor, a very active and busy 20 month old. On an infant ticket, which means we held him the whole way. Crazy? Yes.

But overall it was not nearly as bad as we anticipated. Amazing how much pity airline people take on you traveling with a toddler. With their help, we managed to score an empty seat on all 4 our our flights to our final destination. The 8 hour layover at LAX really helped to tire him out through a combination of overstimulation and lots of running around. He adopted a family at the airport too - somehow he wandered over and flirted and played shy, then would run around some more, and repeat. Over the next few hours we got to know these people really well, and Connor got to the point he would comfortably settle in their laps and hang out. This kid is certainly not shy! It also helped immensely that my parents were traveling with us on the same flight to Auckland, and then were landing in Dunedin about an hour after we did. So extra hands to help out.

He fell asleep about an hour after we took off from LA, and we slept fitfully for about 8 hours (because honestly, even when you don't have a toddler sleeping across your laps, you never sleep very well traveling coach), than he was up and ready to go. Strangely, almost all the toddlers woke up at the same time, so I spent a lot of time walking up and down the aisles with other exhausted looking adults being drug along by energized little ones.

The rest of the day passed in that travelers haze. Two more airports and we were there. He was good though - not a single melt down the whole trip. Played a lot in the playgrounds in the airports (US take note, this the best invention ever!). We arrived in Dunedin, and were picked up by our amazing host Jan in our rental van who drove the five of us to our rental house and got us settled. After Connor went to bed, we all passed out! But we made it and were in New Zealand at last.