The Southern Cross: Day 0 - Getting There

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

-Lord of the Rings

I love going to airports. And train stations, and probably bus terminals and ports/harbors too. Even if I'm not the one who's going anywhere, there's something about the idea of traveling that gets me excited.

After months of preparing, planning, and waiting, and several months after seeing my husband off at the airport for his own journey, we were back at the Will Rogers airport in OKC, getting ready to embark on the first leg of our trip.

My husband had taken a 6-month position as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, only 4 months before. I was traveling to join him for the last few months of his stay, along with our 7-month-old son, my husband's sister, and a family friend, both of whom were staying for about 10 days. My sister-in-law has always, always, wanted to go to New Zealand, long before LOTR, and what better opportunity than to visit her brother? And I was extremely grateful to have her help with our little Munchkin. I've done plenty of trans-oceanic flights, but this was the first time with a baby, and I wasn't really sure how it would go.

I was already getting excited (and a bit anxious) when we all got to the airport. Being the most seasoned traveler of the group, I had offered to take the lead in getting the tickets, getting us checked in, etc. So we all went up to the ticket counter together, presented our e-tickets and passports, no problem...Until...

Now, I had purchased all our tickets together online, so that we could all sit together. It was the best way to go. But for some reason, I guess because we ended up flying with two different airlines, something wasn't showing up right in the system at the airport. So, to my knowledge, I had already purchased these tickets and we were all ready to go, but the folks at the check in counter were telling me that we had to pay a $200 "airport tax" for the baby...wait....what?? Um....you're telling me that I have to pay the government if I want to take my child out of the country???

Well, after several minutes of going around in circles, with me patiently and exasperatedly explaining over and over that I had already bought his ticket, eventually the check-in counter folks figured out that something just hadn't gone through correctly on their end. I guess it looked to them like we hadn't purchased his ticket, or something. In any case, we didn't have to pay the tax, but it was shaping up to be a regular fiasco there for a few minutes.

I was most apprehensive about how our 7-month-old would do on the flights. We had a layover in Denver, then in LAX where we would catch our trans-Pacific flight. Three flights altogether. The change in pressure can even get to me every once in a while, so I couldn't imagine what it was do to him. But he was a real trooper! He slept through the first flight, and didn't do too bad on the second either.

Our next adventure happened before we left the country. If you've ever been to LAX, you'll understand. If you haven't been to LAX, save yourself a headache and find a different airport. We arrived in the Domestic terminal, but of course we were going to leave from the international terminal. Now, that in and of itself is no great feat, but unfortunately there weren't very good directions at LAX for getting from our arrival gate to our departure gate. That, and we had to re-check our luggage. Oh, and carry our luggage between the two terminals. And ask several airport workers how to get to the international terminal (including one who told us to go in the complete opposite direction of where we needed to go). We ended up having to go outside, take a shuttle to the other side of the airport, re-check our bags, go through security again, and get to our gate.

Yep, that's where we have to get to - the other side of the airport. Outside. Carrying all our luggage and a baby.

At least the shuttle had air conditioning!

Well, suffice it say we made it to our gate and safely onto our Air New Zealand flight.

Now all we had ahead of us was a 13-hour flight!

One of the coolest things about this flight was that they had special bulkhead cots for infants (up to 9 months I think). Here's our bundle of joy taking advantage of his special bed - and giving Mommy a break!

It was a long, long trip. 

But the end result was totally worth it - 

- a happy reunion.

My Pinterest Project

How boring am I? I'm living in one of the most naturally beautiful places on earth, having my own little adventure, spending every day with a little one-year-old bundle of mischief, and what do I decide to write about? Pinterest.

Something's wrong with this picture....

But seriously, I do have a project I've been working on for a little while now. Every once in a while I tend to go overboard when it comes to my interests. That's the reason I have so many wallpapers on my phone, and it's the reason I have so many recipes to try on Pinterest. So I thought, "why not put all of my Pinterest recipes in one place, so I can have easy access to them, and look them up by ingredient, or by prep time, or whatever?" Well, it was a good plan in theory, but I wasn't really able to find exactly what I was looking for - a centralized (online or software) database that I could create for my recipes. No frills necessary, just a place I could input all these recipes. I ended up using good ol' Microsoft Word. I feel so old school....

Anyway, I say all of that by way of introduction. What I really want to do is try all of these recipes. That's the end goal. And hopefully before too long I'll be able to do just that.

My plan is, every time I try a new "Pinterest" recipe (i.e. a recipe I found on Pinterest), to write a post about it. I'm not a food critic by any means, and this is not going to become a food blog. But since this is a big project for me, I wanted to introduce it before jumping in. I will not be posting any recipes on my blog directly, but any time I try a specific one, I plan to link to the original (or the one I used). What I want to write about is what I thought of the recipe, whether or not I liked it, whether or not I would change anything, whether it was easy or hard, etc. You know, that sort of thing. I may or may not post pictures. Hopefully this will be a fun project that people might even enjoy reading about as much as I enjoy trying the food!

And since I'm terrible about blogging regularly, hopefully this will help me get my butt in gear and blog more often. Cheers! Or, as they like to say here, "Sweet As!"

The Southern Cross

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time 

You understand now why you came this way
-Crosby, Stills and Nash

Several years ago now, I had the good fortune (and the willpower and motivation to save) to be able to take a vacation to one of the most beautiful places I’ve been – New Zealand. On that journey, I vowed that I would return one day, but of course that was more like the promise you make to keep in touch with people at camp, or, say the promise to win the lottery – it’s a nice thought, but unlikely to actually happen. What I didn’t expect was that I would one day actually be living in New Zealand – as in, have an actual New Zealand address where I actually go to sleep and actually receive mail. Yet, here I am. God has a wonderful sense of humor. 

Of course, moving to NZ isn’t the only (or the biggest) life change that’s happened since my last lonely post. I don’t have the time or desire to list all the reasons my poor blog has suffered in the past year and a half, but I do have plenty to post about. So, interspersed with my ramblings about living overseas again, this time in a westernized country, I also plan to blog about motherhood, pregnancy, child development, food, music, books, movies, and whatever tickles my fancy. 

I know much better than to make promises about keeping up with this blog, so I make no promises to post every day. I do, however, sincerely want to post about every day that we’ve been here so far, and hopefully every day that we stay here. And even if I don't quite meet that goal, I hope to make it worthwhile to visit this blog, and give me something to look back on and read when I want to remember the time spent here. 

On that note, here is a brief overview of what has brought me to this little corner of the world… 

A year ago today, I lived in Tucson, Arizona, with my husband and our dog. I had a good job at a good company, rising in the ranks, and ... I was pregnant with our first child. In fact, I was just about ready to pop. Funny side note, I think a year ago today we actually were attending a child birthing class... 

Anyway, to make a long story short, we had our first child a week after that class (more details in a future post), spent my maternity leave visiting family in Indiana and Oklahoma, and planned to return to my job in Arizona after Christmas. It wasn't until probably mid-December that we found out Tory was offered a job as a Research Fellow at Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand, giving us just about six weeks to get our visas and everything else together before they wanted him to start. 

Tory ended up coming to Hamilton first (the day after his visa came through), and I followed with our son a few months later. I remember when we were dating and engaged, we lived in different states and were only able to see each other once or twice a month, and that was hard. But that was nothing compared to being on the other side of the world, unable to see each other except on skype/facetime, for several months, and having to take care of a new baby on my own. Thank the Lord I was with Tory's family - I couldn't have done it alone. 

The day finally arrived in late May when we - Tory's sister, a family friend, our baby, and I - got on a plane and headed across the country, across the Pacific Ocean, and landed safely in Auckland. And here we are now.... 

One of the definitions for "cross" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is: the intersection of two ways or lines. In some ways I see my life now as being at a cross. We're not entirely sure in which direction we'll be going over the next year. I suppose all of life is like that in a way - we always have a choice of directions, and each choice we make will take us in a direction that excludes other possible choices. 

I would never have imagined, lo those many years ago, that the choices I would make would bring me back here, with a husband and a child. But I'm thankful to be here. And I'm looking forward to where our choices will lead us, and to what new crosses we will come.