7. Final Destination

We arrived at Wellington International Airport on April, 11th 2016. A significant milestone. We’d finally arrived. All the anxiety, all the waiting, all the tears and stress had led to this: our new home.

In the black of midnight, a dear friend had hired a trailer for our tons of luggage and driven the hour long drive to collect us from the airport. The drive back to our newly rented home on the Kapiti Coast was surreal. I know I will never forget the feeling of knowing that we were not merely coming on vacation. This was no temporary arrangement. THIS, was home. Every sight and sound was magnified. These were all sights and sounds we would one day grow accustomed to. Home. Wow.

Arriving in the driveway of our little house, nestled in a valley between forest and ocean, even in the darkness was picture perfect. I remember thinking that the Americans have nothing on this “dream”. We had everything but the little white picket fence.

And so we unpacked our heavy bags one by one, dragging them into the entrance hall. While we flew almost a full day to reach our destination, our same amazing friends (who had taken this same journey many years before us) had gone the extra mile… Inside our oven were “ready to bake” fresh croissants, inside our kitchen cupboards and drawers were all the basic essentials and in a ready cooled, cooler box some much-needed groceries for the next few days. I cannot emphasise enough how much of a difference these gestures made to us getting started, how much they helped us to adjust (psychologically and practically) over the next few days. We will always be grateful for our kind, generous friends and are inspired to pay it forward!

It wasn’t long before all four of us fell asleep. Of course, after the trip we could not help but feel exhausted, even through the overwhelming relief we felt to finally be spending our first of many nights in our New Zealand home.

(Did I mention that we arrived to 1 x Queen sized bed + 1 x Inflatable mattress for the kids, also provided on loan by and prepared by our friends?)