What the heck is a Monkeyhouse???

So we are not even out of the US yet and my very concerned family twice commented on their confusion regarding the title of this Blog - what the heck is "Monkeyhouse"?  So to explain the origin of Monkeyhouse - it is a name we gave our house when the kids were young and VERY present. 

We called all of our previous vacation blogs "Adventures of Monkeyhouse" and so it continues, only without the kids this time.  I mean, heck, it is our very belated honeymoon.  We've had votes to change the Blog to "House of Cards" (took my mom a minute to realize that our last name is Card, we live in a house… get it?).  So feel free to weigh in.  For now, I'm sticking with Monkeyhouse.  Enough on that.

This vacation blog is for the benefit of our friends and family who like to keep track of what we are doing.  Plus it saves us from having to remember all of the details of all of our stories - and of course, it is completely up to you if you want to read instead of us forcing you to listen to our travel tales!  So here we go...

Day 1:

 

I'm sitting in our hotel (thank you Hyatt miles) in San Francisco ready to get on the first leg of our 24 hour journey to Auckland  We will spend just over 11 hours on our way to Tokyo, and  after a short layover, another 11 hours to Auckland.  By far the longest flights I've ever been on, which leads me to a necessary commentary on long distance travel fashion.  Right now I’m looking at my hot pink compression socks, my yoga pants (I am an American) and my bright green fleece - a fashionista I am not, but I aim to be comfortable.  We are lucky enough to have first class seats for the first leg (thank you United miles) but will spend the second leg, which is the overnight leg, in coach - with me in a middle seat.  Sleeping pills and alcohol will hopefully do the trick!