sv evi

We made it to SeaTac, managed to check our 7 bags of 66 lbs each all the way to Auckland (for free, thanks to Riki sweet-talking the agent Ricky!!) , made it through security, and breathed a sigh of relief at the gate.

I figured I would need all my strength and patience to make it to Opua, so the girls and I put on some temporary cheetah tattoos for good travel mojo.

One last family FaceTime at the gate:

And we were off. The first flight we played Yahtzee and I read aloud to Jade, while Riki and Luz played backgammon. LAX involved a looong walk to the International Terminal and a scare when they didn’t want to let us on the plane because we didn’t have return tickets. The Fiji Airlines employee had to call his boss, who then had to call his boss. On the 10 hour overnight flight to Nadi the kids were thrilled to see that they had individual screens at their seats, and that we let them watch movies. Tomu stayed up until 3:30 am watching movies and playing video games!

When we arrived in Auckland Tom, who has been looking after our boat, picked us up in a rental van, and drove us the 4 hours north to Opua. This really saved us!! We stopped for pizza en route.

The kids all fell asleep in the car and Riki carried them up to their beds in the motel room. I stumbled up and collapsed on my bed. Riki and Tom then took the bags to the boat and unloaded them. Yay! We made it!