Where Exactly Are We Going?

So how far is New Zealand from Texas?

There are approximately 7,392 miles between Texas & Auckland, NZ! By the numbers:

*3 1/2 hour flight to LAX, 12 hour flight to Auckland from LAX

*NZ is 17 hours ahead of our time zone at home. Can you do the math quickly on that one to figure out what time it is? Because I can't! To make it easier, I try to remember NZ is a day ahead & 7 hours behind our time. So if it's Monday 7:00pm in Texas, it is Tuesday Noon in NZ. Don't ask me about daylight savings time. I have no idea how that comes into play.

We will be staying on the North Island, in the Bay of Plenty...Google some pictures...it's beautiful!!

Goal This Week

My goal this week is to find a bach (pronounced "batch) for us to stay in for our visit in March/April. A bach is just a beach or holiday home with a cuter name :)

There are so many options for renting a bach in the Bay of Plenty it's almost overwhelming. To try and find a place that is smallish (some sleep 10-16 people!) for just the three of us, and someplace that has amenities we are looking for during our stay still turns up a ton of search results. Guess it's better to have too many choices than not enough!

We've never rented a holiday house before anywhere, so I am a little nervous to stay somewhere other than a hotel. This will be something new for us!

I think we've decided to go for a 10 day visit. It started with 3 weeks, but after we talked a bit, we questioned what exactly we would do for 3 weeks away from home. After 7 days in Hawaii, we are usually getting ready to head home. The flight to NZ from LAX is approx. 12 hours, so we wanted to stay more than just 1 week.

So 10 days seemed to be a good compromise. I feel certain we can check out what we need to check out and have plenty of time for exploring as well!

Last night Big Daddy actually found some builders in NZ who build the type of home we are interested in and one of them has a model home in the Bay of Plenty I'd like to check out.

So...my goal this week in making our Dream Come True is to find a rental bach in the BoP!