We're Here!!!!

We made it to New Zealand!!!! Looooong flight- nearly 13 hours! Kids were terrific!!! Yay!!! Arrived in Auckland minus one checked bag. Billy hung back to file a claim so the kids and I went on through customs; me, 6 kids (ok, so Kai and Mik don't really count as "kids"), 16 checked bags, 12 hand bags- 3 luggage carts! Somehow we missed Billy and he wound up at the terminal for our flight to New Plymouth before us. With only one NZ cell phone from our last visit we couldn't just call to meet up. I checked the 16 bags through to New Plymouth and the kids and I shuttled over to the proper terminal where we reunited with Billy. Lunch, it pains me to say... McDonalds. Though  a much different McDonalds. No pieces parts for chicken McNuggets. In fact, they call them McBites. Real white meat chicken! New Zealand requires their McDonalds to use all New Zealand products unless it's not available from within the country. Great, fresh lettuce. Grass-fed, NZ beef. Etc.
Because of the missing bag we missed our flight to New Plymouth so we were booked on the next flight which was to leave nearly 3 hours later.
Finally, we boarded the prop plane and flew the 35 minutes to NP. Nani kept asking, "Are we almost home???"  We were greeted at the airport by 2 wives of physicians Billy will be working with and the hospital administrator that facilitated his employment. We also had a rented minivan waiting for our use for the next 2 weeks and a hospital cargo van to transport our luggage.
Per the children's insistence, we went directly to our new home where we were met by Linda, our attorney who had the keys. The kids were ecstatic!!! Especially Mikaylie. Linda had brought us a gift box of gourmet snacks and a bottle of wine and Vicky, our realtor, had left a lovely serving platter with 6 matching snack plates and a pile of gourmet snacks. We left the 6 footlockers (one more is still MIA) in our garage (accent on the first syllable- Kiwi 101). We practically had to drag the kids from the house. The kids soooo did not want to go to another rental/loaner house. Neither did we but sleeping on the floor was not so appealing. We arrived at the hospital's loaner houses, a duplex, both of which we are using. Elise and Victoria (the wives) had the house stocked with some basic food as well as two nights of dinner, a lasagna and 2 baked chickens. Wow! What a reception!
We grabbed some longed for showers then headed to the bank to open a chequing (again, Kiwi 101) account and to the grocery store for some additional items we still needed to get us through to tomorrow. Back at the hospital house we ate delicious lasagna, had a glass of wine, and barely eked out this post before hitting the pillow.
It's all quite overwhelming! Very surreal... like we'll wake up back on the farm in the states, the last year a dream. Guess I'll see in the morning. For now... good night!