Travel, First Few Days in Ohio

We’re home from our trip to America! I’ll share a few of the pictures we took while there, but I can’t share most of them because they include people who aren’t in our immediate family.

We had a beautiful trip over the mountains to get to Christchurch to the airport. The morning was frosty and clear, which promises a gorgeous day. We made a brief stop at an overlook with a view of the Otira Viaduct, built about 25 years ago to get the highway off a very dangerous part of the mountainside. We also stopped in Moana where Simon works, to say goodbye to him and to see the workshop.

Our first flight, from Christchurch to Auckland, was only about an hour long. Miss Joy had never flown before, and she was delighted to have a window seat. I let her borrow my phone, and she took a lot of pictures out the window. The Kaikoura Peninsula is visible in this one.

Both the long flight, from Auckland to Houston, and the last one, from Houston to Cincinnati, went smoothly. We won’t talk about the shock to our systems to land in 94*F Houston, with high humidity, or the three very long lines we had to wait in there to get to our gate. We were relieved to reach the end of our journey in the wee hours of the morning!

Mr. Imagination loved trapping kittens for his grandfather. These kittens are fed daily, but are quite wild. They like to get into the garage and make a mess, though.

The girls enjoyed playing with a tea set their aunt had for them.

A bat was discovered inside a house we spent a lot of time in. The owner of the house was aghast, but Mr. Imagination said he thought it was cute and wanted one for a pet! He enjoyed helping get it out of the house at dusk, though.

He also enjoyed riding the pedal cart his grandfather built years ago.

The children all loved playing in their aunt’s creek. They were fascinated with the raccoon tracks, since we don’t have coons.

They also found these structures by the creek, and Mr. Imagination caught a minnow.