Author: helvrum@hotmail.com

We’re here, in New Zealand. All of it, every single bit, seems super unbelievable. How we got here, where we’re headed and why we came. Dreaming is worth it and making them come true is even more worth it.

Before the smattering of photos starts, I want to document the adventure/non-adventure of getting here. We’d rented a private shuttle service to drop us directly at the airport to leave at o’dark thirty and it worked seamlessly. We did everything that we needed to in order to get on the plane and a couple hours into the first flight our trip, we were to have a short lay over in Hawaii, I even drew a smug self-portrait in my journal about how we’re planning CHAMPIONS. I even included in my drawing a picture of what I was wearing, down to my favorite cowboy boots.

If I’ve ever learned anything from parenting, it’s this: NEVER FEEL SMUG ABOUT ANYTHING. I was that smug mother on the plane, happy with my quite-ish children heading on a grand adventure. And then. AND THEN. About an hour before we touched down in Hawaii, Audrey mentioned that her tummy hurt.

Being the smug mother that I am, I headed to the middle of the aircraft to find the bathroom and get her the relief I thought she needed. We stood there for a very short time and she complained again that her tummy hurt. I picked her up and that’s when it started.

That’s when the barf started.

So much barf all over me. Directly down my dress.  On my hair. Covering my leggings. In my bra. On my face.

I yelped and headed towards the back of the plane, where Maggie and Barry had decided to take a bathroom break of their own, theirs being infinitely more successful than ours. Meaning that they actually got inside the little hot box and peed into the toilet.

When we made it to the back of the plane, because I was sprinting and poor Audrey was puking, we happened to rub ourselves up against the cutest flight attendant. She wasn’t super pleased to discover the pile of puke on her uniform, but I had other concerns and only half-heartedly apologized. Sorry, Darling, wherever you may be.

Meanwhile, Audrey was a bit dazed and shell shocked, standing in her adorable jammies while I wiped puke off of her. At this very moment Barry and Maggie came out of the bathroom they’d been in and their eyes bugged out of their head at us standing there. A flight attendant gave us garbage bags and Barry went and found a change of clothes for Audrey and some wet wipes.

At one point during this mess, Audrey and I ended up back in the bathroom where she totally and completely emptied her belly like a champ. Not one complaint. We stood in the back of the plane and waited a few minutes before Barry came and grabbed her, delivering to me his hipster plaid collared shirt.

It should be noted, at this point, that Audrey was fine. So, if it seems like I’m ignoring her at this point, don’t worry. She perked right up and was chatting away, doing ‘fake stretches’ on her seat again, just to check out the other passengers in front of us.

Because I just want to say that when I finally looked at myself in the mirror I burst out into an ugly laugh-cry. I peeled off my sweater, and my dress….and there I was bleary-eyed staring back at a puke-covered me in the mirror, wearing leggings and my favorite bra.

I knew the bra had to go. I just knew it, but it was my favorite bra. Girls like me, you know a girl with boobs, don’t just fling their bra off and prowl around in public. So, I was a bit hesitant to see that girl come off. Off she went….

I squeezed in to Barry’s shirt, and Hello Boobs.

So, there I was, again.

Wearing Barry’s tiny plaid hipster shirt, leggings, and cowboy boots. THAT IS ALL.

I totally broke the Leggings as Pants rule 1 million times over.

Anyhow, once I got back to my seat I dug out my down vest and put it on, and spent the rest of the flight holding a huge garbage bag next to Audrey’s lap.  Our neighbor had also given us a smell stick to help with queasiness and Audrey spent the rest of the flight looking like she was sniffing something inappropriate like a vape pen.

Lucky for me there was no more puke that flight, but when we touched down I went on my merry way to find something, anything, else to wear besides puked-on leggings and a shirt where my boobs were falling out, not to mention my muffin top. Barry made the exetuive decision to leave the puke-clothes (and my favorite bra) on the plane in a sealed garbage bag, a good decision.

Once we got to the terminal, we split ways and I made my way towards a Victoria’s Secret that the flight attendants told me about, from a safe distance, of course. Turns out the Victoria’s Secret only sold perfume and NO clothing. I had a very limited time before our NINE hour flight to New Zealand departed, so I swung into the next shop I found and bought a $27 Hawaii Football t-shirt.

They’re the Warriors, so it seemed like a good match for me at the moment, seeing as I was wearing what I was wearing. I found the next bathroom and peeled off Barry’s shirt and put on my warrior t-shirt, along with a sweatshirt cardigan that Barry literally gave to me off is back. (He’s the best, if you didn’t already know this)

I then stomp-walked my way through the Hawaiian terminal and found Barry and the girls just leaving a different t-shirt shop. Since we’d pretty much burned through our stash of extra clothes for the girls and we had another long flight, he’d decided to buy the girls $27 t-shirts out of fear for more puke.

I’d have paid $56 per shirt, but at the time $27 seemed perfectly reasonable in my puke-induced state. I also bought as many wipes as the tiny shop had, but we were lucky in the way that there was NO more puke to be had at all.

At least until we took our compact car on an off-road adventure.

But that’s a different post for a different day.

I give you $27 t-shirts the morning after our arrival in this glorious place called New Zealand: