Day 15: Homeward Bound

Oct 5th

Our last day in New Zealand. :(

We woke up a little late - whoops! So we all were running around, packing everything up and showering, etc. to check out by 11am (everywhere in NZ, checkout is 10am, and when you ask for a late checkout they say ok, 10:30....yeah, we were late. *sigh*)

Once we checked out we headed back downtown to Vudu Cafe, a joint Jill read about that had a great breakfast. And it WAS good! I got pancakes with lemon butter - super yum! (me being the lemon whore that I am) We bought a few more last minute gifts, took some pics of the lake - of course TODAY the weather was gorgeous! - and then headed out to the airport.

Our check in was painless (we were the only ones in line to check in) and since we left from a small airport, the security check in was REALLY easy and quick (highly suggest leaving out of a small airport when traveling, if you can!)

Our flight to Auckland went okay. Logan was tired but he had trouble falling asleep - and was loud as usual. ;-) And, it was pretty crowded (Jon had the aisle, Logan was on my lap in the middle seat and some poor guy was hunched over trying to sleep and ignore Logan, in the window seat). But, he did finally fall asleep toward the end of the flight and slept through our lunch/dinner (on me in the Ergo carrier) at the Auckland airport. I had another "made to order" sandwich that was again, delish! Too bad I discovered them so late in our trip...

Our flight to SFO was delayed so we sat around the Auckland airport for another 1.5 hours. But we didn't mind too much. It gave us more time to exercise and wear Logan out. :) Sure enough, immediately upon takeoff, he fell asleep....and THIS time he slept a full EIGHT HOURS!

Woohoo!!

The flight wasn't crowded at all, so Jon and I got a full row to ourselves with Eric and Jill in the row behind us. We put Logan in the "far" bassinet (over the seats next to us) and I laid down across three seats to rest my back while Jon reclined in his one. Unfortunately, we still didn't sleep all that well since it was pretty uncomfortable (the arm rests in our row didn't move up so I was playing twister maneuvering my body around them) - but at least Logan was sleeping. :)

Logan woke up about 5:30am NZ time which was about 9:30am SFO time, so others on the plane were starting to stir and wake up too. Perfect! I thought. I won't feel so bad then if he is loud. I didn't have to worry though - he really wasn't that noisy at all. He sat on the floor playing at our feet, crawling around and walking along the seats back and forth between us (Jon sat at one end of the row and I at the other). He was awake for about 1.5 hours before conking out again (on me) - and slept through the last hour or so of the flight.

I think many people were surprised there was a baby in our row. When we landed, several people commented on how great he had behaved. We couldn't have been prouder, or more relieved (we didn't mention how we struggled with him on the flight out).

We gathered our luggage and breezed through customs. We said our goodbyes to Eric and Jill since they had a connecting flight back home to San Diego and were routed down a different path. It was sad to see them go and end our trip, but it was a relief to finally be back home.

Where to next?




Editor's Note: Eric took some AMAZING portraits of us during our trip. Since I don’t have any (good) pics of our last day, I decided to feature a few of his collection instead. I encourage you to check out his entire album when you have the chance. Thank you again Eric - we love them!!