Day 1: Packing and playing

Hello there!  We're off to the States.  Today (17th in NZ, 16th in USA) was wild.  We didn't have to leave for the airport until 3:30, but all day was one of constantly forcing myself (Dan) to refocus on what absolutely needed to be done before we left and writing down what I could do later.

We had a great send off at the airport.  I buy dinner for whoever comes [family only :-)], and everyone came (except for Thomas, July & Jordan's little 8-month old boy) - I'm sure it's because they like us :-).  So we bought 10 Happy Meals (for 9 adults & 1 child).  It was a great time and we all got little Despicable Me 2 toys (a minion named Jerry holding a big gun that was actually a whistle).  When we all blew the whistle... I didn't want to look around to see who was watching us!

Only 2 flights (sometimes we have 4 or 5): 12 hours to San Francisco and then 2 hours to Portland.