Arriving in the USA

We made it to the USA!
We had a reasonably smooth trip from Nelson to Portland, Oregon (via Auckland and Los Angeles). We had a lovely send off from my family in Nelson and Shelly and Marion came to see us off from Auckland.
When we arrived in Portland after our long journey we were greeted at the airport by Karina's sister Lisa, her husband Mike and their two adorable girls, Annika (6) and Eva (2). Karina hadn't seen them since before she left for New Zealand over a year ago and I hadn't seen them since I was in Anchorage, Alaska over Christmas 2004 (before Eva was even born), so it was wonderful to see them all! They live in Battle Ground in Washington, just across the Oregon/Washington border created by the Columbia River and we are lucky enough to get to stay with them until we get settled in our own place in Portland. Battle Ground is about 40 km north of Portland.

A few days after we arrived, we all packed up into a big motor home they had rented and headed north towards the Canadian border for a highly anticipated family reunion at Karina's parent's (Howard and Ingrid) place in Langley, British Columbia (close to Vancouver). On the way up we met up with Karina's brother Kent and his family (his wife Stephanie and their two children Henry, 12, and Emma, 8) who had just flown down from Alaska. We met them at a big water park called Wild Waves (did I mention that it's summer here!) just outside of Seattle and then spent the night in Puyallup.
Today we drove up to Langley, Canada and had a wonderful party dinner with everyone together at Howard and Ingrid's. We also celebrated Annika's 6th birthday (July 4th, the American Independence Day) and my graduation from university, which was very special!