wrap up the old year and bring in the new year

the past two months since we arrived home have been busy busy busy! we knew it would be since we were coming home in the midst of the holidays.  in addition to the known busy holidays we have been slammed with unbelievable snow storm after snow storm after snow storm!

our house early on in the snow storm madness

it was really good to be home for the holidays and spend it with the smiling faces of family and friends.  here is a little glimpse of our holidays.....

decorating holiday cookies with the usual suspects....

see santa knew we were home! a timbers outfit for riley and a mermaid tail for lucy

cousins

my 93 year old grandma is still rockin it!

kids table!

ian's table!

my cousin trevor and his sweet little guy james.....he's at that super super cute age!

the new year brought us a visit from todd's dad and step-mom who helped us ring in the new year with a gathering of good friends.

grandpa dierker and grandma lynn visit

happy new year!!!

then we celebrated lucy's 10th birthday!  we are officially a household of double digits now! she is particularly smitten with kittens right now so requested a kitty cat cake....and had friends for a sleep-over help her celebrate.

the next morning found them playing on the trampoline in the snow!

and just a few days after lucy's birthday we celebrated my mom's 70th.  her husband george managed to sneak in a wonderful party between snow storms....and it was a surprise!! a lovely celebration....

mom loves pillows and todd loves veggies....he thought it was a perfect gift!

the rest of january has been snow snow snow.  the kids have been off of school due to the holidays plus weather closures more than they have been in school. however the few days of school they have had planted them back at the table doing homework.

on snow days they have been sledding and making snowmen.

i am getting tired of the snow and ice....but i must admit there is a stunning beauty in it all....

....and that is what our december and january looked like!
cheers!

reflections on turning dreams into memories

i wanted to write one last post on this travel adventure of ours (though i meant to write it awhile ago....man does life get busy quick!).  these are some reflections about travel, but more specifically traveling as a family. 

travel

boy oh boy has travel gotten so much easier than last i donned a backpack!  when todd and i traveled in southern africa twenty years ago there was no internet and our decisions were made on the recommendations of our loney planet guidebook and word of mouth from other travelers.  we carried a tent, sleeping bags and a stove so that we could always sleep wherever if needed.  clearly this method wouldn't fly when traveling with kids. thankfully the internet made it all so easy! we still carried a guide book but in addition i read lots of blogs and reviews of everywhere we planned to go.  i could book rooms at hostels ahead of time so when we arrived in a new place we didn't have to go door to door looking for a affordable place to sleep. i used hostelworld.com for most bookings but often the guidebooks will list an email address so i booked directly with hostels as well. any tours we planned to take i looked up on tripadvisor so i could research companies ahead of time.  overland travel by bus is not online, but still relatively easy to navigate. we would typically show up at the bus station and figure out when the next bus leaves to our next destination. todd and i have tried and true roles. i am in the research department and todd is in the communication dept.  meaning i figure where we need to go and he then executes the plan. its a pretty seamless system really.

marriage

todd and i met traveling and i gotta say we travel really really well together. the last time we traveled together was before we were married and we used it as a litmus test to see if we were a good match.  this time around we are nearly 20 years into our relationship and 16 years into marriage, plus we had two kids in tow.  the kids it turned out were the hardest part for us as a couple.  since we were all together all the time it was really hard for todd and i to have even a conversation without little ears listening. we would make little inside jokes and the kids would want the whole exchange explained.....which makes it far less funny. we also all slept together most of the time so getting any privacy of any kind was challenging.  outside of the kids we rocked it as a couple. we aren't the bickering type and we are almost always on the same page. so if our pre-marriage travels were a litmus test for marriage then these family travels have made us feel pretty solid going into the next 20yrs. 

parenting

this was the most intensive period of parenting we have ever had.  we were with our children constantly. we slept together, we ate together, we did everything together. no school, no work, no play dates, no piano or soccer practice.  and though our kids are pretty good kids they are far from perfect.  the behaviors that can easily be ignored at home were now in front of us constantly.

riley for example has a tendency to poke at his sister both physically and emotionally. he also has a hard time taking ownership of his behaviors. we worked hard on learning to say things such as 'i'm sorry i was wrong'. 

lucy challenges everything and often the first word out of her mouth is 'no'. additionally she frequently uses a tone that comes across as disrespectful. we worked hard on using a respectful voice and pausing to think about what was said or asked before automatically saying 'no'.  

we had a few family meetings along the way to air out grievances which helped.  todd and i were far from perfect parents and we would lose patience and snap at the kids. sometimes (gasp!) yell at them.  todd learned that he was often a better parent if he didn't say anything which riley promptly agreed with. lessons were learned and hopefully we brought back more mature children and more patient parents!!

siblings

the kids bonded with each other huge!   they were all each other had the whole time. that doesn't mean our trip was free of sibling squabbling (far from it) but they did learn to figure stuff out, to compromise and take turns. overall they enjoyed being together.  many many times people would comment on how well they got along, and how much fun they were having together.  i hope they are able to preserve this feeling of closeness going forward into the teenage years. 

family

what a super special period of time for us as a family! as much as being together all the time had some challenges we all truly loved being together.  that experience bonded us together in ways i hope will last a lifetime (or at least help us through the teenage years).  i was aware of the uniqueness of the time together and tried to savor all the moments. it wasn't only sunshine and roses but i can honestly say we had so much fun together.  both todd and i really enjoy being with riley and lucy and they (at least so far) love to be with us too. we recently went for a family walk here in our home town and all of us were immediately cognizant of how much we missed just walking together and being together.  life at home as already started to feel busier than we would like, but we are holding on tight to our family. 

this has been the most amazing adventure. it was a dream for so so long and now it is a collections of wonderful memories. traveling with kids was not nearly as hard as i thought it might be and well worth the effort.   i selfishly hope both my kids have been infected with wanderlust so that i might follow them on their travels someday. and if any of you out there are reading this blog and wondering if you can too can travel with your kids, i say go for it!!  it will be an experience you will never forget and it will enrich your family in ways you can't predict!

thank you for following along on our journey.  after this post i will convert this blog back to our plain old family blog.  you are welcome to continue to follow along but it probably won't be nearly as interesting. 

hasta luego!

the best of...

we have now been home for just over a week.  we are slowly unpacking boxes and moving back into our home.  the kids went back to school and i went back to work.  of course we got home just in time for the first big winter storm....including a couple snow days from school!

every traveler knows that when you arrive home you will be asked a typical set of questions.  'what was your favorite country, food, place?', 'what was the worst?', 'what the craziest thing you did, food you ate?', 'how was learning the language?' etc.

in part knowing this, todd had us all write down some of our best memories (and worst) to share with each other on thanksgiving (which was just a week before we came home).  so here it is....

our favorite places visited (in no order):

• salar de uyuni in bolivia
• the amazon jungle in bolivia
• machu picchu in peru
• cordillera blanca mountains in peru and specifically the refugio we stayed at
• the galapagos islands, all of the them but isla isabella was the favorite
• salento in colombia
• villa de leyva in colombia (on halloween)

our favorite people we met along the way:

• sandro (our guide in the bolivian amazon)
• carolina, becki, and elder (our language teachers in sucre, bolivia)
• juan carlos (our naturalist guide on the galapagos)
• the kids at casa lena
• eduardo and patricia (our farm hosts in northern ecuador)
• cristina and daniel (our farm hosts in colombia)

our favorite activities:

• snorkeling tunnels on isla isabella galapagos
• snorkeling leon dormido on isla san cristobal galapagos
• both festivals we lucked into seeing (pisac, peru and latacunga, ecuador)
• the bogota graffiti tour
• surfing in mancora, peru
• zip-lining in banos, ecuador
• playing and caring for the variety of animals at our farm stays
• hiking in the andes mountains in peru and ecuador 

things we will NOT miss:

• smoking!!  so many young european travelers smoke....ugh!
• cooking with crappy kitchen knives, pots, pans etc....
• putting toilet paper in the trash instead of the toilet (gross!)
• windy bus rides that make kids nauseous and vomit (fun!)
• being around smelly young hippy travelers who have an aversion to bathing
• not having any personal space....ever!

things we will miss:

• seeing new things and places
• meeting new people
• being all together as a family
• the street food
• the simplicity of just having what fits in a backpack

things we learned about ourselves:

• sometimes we parent better when we don't say anything
• walking is really good exercise
• lucy connects with kids who have special needs
• riley found he was pretty good at playing pool
• my sister/brother is super awesome
• we all love traveling and we travel really well together as a family
• we all love and miss home

there are many many other memories that we cherish which did not make this list, but this at least gives a bit of an overview.
i have one more post in mind to wrap up this whole adventure, sooooo....
hasta luego!

home sweet home

we touched down in the afternoon on friday december 2nd after two long days of travel.....starting in cartagena, colombia with a night in fort lauderdale, florida and finally ending in portland, oregon.  

my dad was there as we got off the plane for a couple quick hugs.....

and my mom was there to drive us all back to hood river.  we had her sit in the back with the kids and they were all wrapped in hugs the whole way home!

the kids were soooooo excited to see their grandparents and as exhausted as we were the hugs and love made us all giddy with energy!

our beautiful house was waiting for us and the kids ran around in unbridled excitement to be home!

the first thing we did was drink a big glass of water from the kitchen facet!  clean fresh and safe water from the tap is not something to be taken for granted!

the next thing we did (the adults that is) was have a delicious northwest seasonal ale! oh have i missed good beer!

we have the very very best friends in the whole world and there was beer in the fridge, wine on the counter, a basket of fruit, a vase of flowers, balloons and cards waiting for us and welcoming us home.

we loved our travels but home is good.  home is really good.  we love our community, and our friends and family. we love our home.  it feels really really good to be home sweet home.

the kids found themselves not sure what to do with separate rooms our first morning back....they ended up  snuggled together.

i have a couple more blog posts in mind. a sharing of the best and worst of our travels, and a reflection of the adventure in general.  
for now we are grateful to be home safe and sound.
hasta luego!

good-bye colombia!

we are now in the good ol' us of a.  we left cartagena this morning, flew to bogota and then onto fort lauderdale, florida.  we will fly home to oregon in the morning.

we said good-bye to colombia this morning (and really to south america and our whole adventure, but that is a much bigger post).  colombia, though was hard to say good-bye to.....it ended up being our favorite country and the country we hope to come back to someday.

we loved all the countries we visited but this one struck a cord somehow.  the people for starters were amazingly friendly and open.  not sure if it was the years of war, or the lack of tourism (and thus being so un-jaded with tourist), or if this is just the simple nature of colombians, but they are a wonderfully open, happy and beautiful people.  the people, as always, define a place and the colombians made this place special.

a colombian guy who was selling drinks on the walls of cartagena but graced us with a big smile and laugh....so typical of colombia!!

we will also, as always, miss the street food...... which in colombia is the arepa.   a corn meal pancake served in a variety of ways, but on the streets it is served warm with cheese....yum!

and the fruit! who can forget the fruit!!  so many mango smoothies and yet not nearly enough!!

in the end the kids think they would be happy in salento (and who can blame them, the coffee region is amazing), but i think i might go back to villa de leyva or guatape....with frequent visits to the coffee region, medellin and the caribbean coast of course! we loved loved loved colombia!

and so we say good-bye colombia......we will miss you soooooooo much!
hasta luego!

taganga and palomino

we spent our last week just chillin at the beach.  it was lovely.   our first couple days were in the small town of taganga.  this used to be a sleepy little fishing village but now has turned into a bit of a tourist town....though still has a sleepy village feel.

we mostly relaxed, floated in the waves and played in the sand.

lucy made a sand hammerhead shark

riley made a sand house replica of our home in hood river......the boy is ready to come home!

from taganga we traveled another couple hours up the coast to a town called palomino.  to call it a town might be a stretch as really it is just a few stores along the road. but if you walk down the beach access road there are several little resort like places.  this stretch of beach itself is long and quiet.  my guess is that in five years this place with be packed with tourist.

we stayed at a hostel called the dreamer which felt much more resort than hostel.  it had a pool, a pool table, a restaurant and a bar.

our days took on a nice rhythm.  we would eat breakfast at the buffet, then go play in the ocean for a few hours, then come back and relax in the pool.  during the afternoon heat we would read and rest.  in the afternoon we would go for a walks on the beach and then we spend a few last hours playing in the ocean again.  it felt like we were on vacation (an entirely different feeling from traveling!)

in the evenings we would play pool (the kids got an unexpected education on this trip that went beyond learning new language and culture.....one learns all sorts of things hanging out with 20 somethings in hostel bars!)

what a relaxing and restful few days! it was the perfect way to spend our last days in colombia.
hasta luego!