We are here!!

The flight actually went a lot more smoothly than expected. Kiddos slept 8 hours out the 12 we flew, so the 4 hours they were awake they watched movies our played Nintendo. They served us dinner and breakfast which were both delicious. Getting through security and customs went really fast. I wasn't expecting it to be that easy, so we were happy with how quickly it went. We arrived at the Aukland airport Thursday September 13 at 5:07 am NZ time (Wednesday, September 12 at 10:07 am PST), so we lost  day. A shuttle picked us up at 8:15 and took us to get our Camper van. We got a 6 berth camper van. It has 3 double beds in the back, a kitchen area, and a toilet and shower. One of the double beds is up top above the driver seats, so the two big boys called dibs on that bed right away! Once we got all set up in the camper van we went on our way. Dan is driving the van since it is manual (I never learned to drive stick). Today I am laughing about the experience of driving on the opposite side of the road, but yesterday was a different story. As if it weren't tricky enough to get the hang of driving on the other side of the road,  having a very huge and extra wide camper van and not having a clue where you are going made it extremely challenging. We almost took off a few side mirrors on other cars and were close to hitting people a few times. My heart was racing the whole time we were driving. It was super stressful, but we made it to a Holiday Park in Orewa around 3 pm and got a beachfront spot. The view is gorgeous and the boys really enjoyed playing on the beach. The Holiday Parks are areas for people with motor homes or camper vans to camp. Most of them provide electric hook-ups, waste areas, and fresh water. The one we are at now has bathrooms, showers, a laundry room, two parks for the kids and a giant trampoline which the boys were quite happy about. This morning we woke up at 5am which would normally be 10 am our time, so it was still dark here. I pulled up the curtains around our bed and was amazed by how big and bright the stars are. It was a beautiful sight to wake up to. Then we got to watch the sunrise over the ocean which I have never seen since I have always lived on the west coast. Now we are just getting ready to plan our route for the day. We are going to keep going north and eventually make it all the way up to Spirits Bay which is at the way top of the North Island then start the trek back down until we end up in Wellington where we will be looking for a house to rent. Here are some pictures from the past few days and we will continue to update as often as we can. Love to all!!
Blessings,
Danielle