Category Archives for Family

Getting Our Bearings

This morning we woke up with no food in the house and no idea where to get some.  Well, John and Carolyn did leave us a fabulous list of restaurants, shops, and other tips, but we hadn’t digested it yet and were feeling a little like 7 fish out of water.  Then Elizabeth went out for a run and scoped out more of the neighborhood.  When she came back we all got dressed and headed to el Jardin for breakfast.  I know we’ll find other places to hang out but the people-watching there is great! There was no mini-parade this time, but we did see a guy selling fresh churros which are an important key to Adlani’s happiness.  He complained all day that we hadn’t bought any, until by chance we ran across the same guy again and took care of Adlani’s churro-deficiency.

For breakfast we went to el Ricon de Don Tomas and sat at a table outside.  Adlani is a super-picky eater so at each meal I cross my fingers and hope that he’ll eat something.  Elizabeth had cafe de leche and I had a moka.  Norah had the best fresh-squeezed orange juice.  Adlani loved his “hot cakes” (pancakes) and huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs).  The girls had omelettes and I had ham and eggs.  Everything was great!

After breakfast we explored the area – especially the beautiful churches, then headed back home for a siesta.  In the afternoon we did more exploring – we stumbled upon the beautiful Instituto Allende (where Adlani found a lizard and promptly named him Frederick) and then shopped for food for dinner and breakfast.  There was one store for the dry goods (and wine!), and a big market for fruit and vegetables – so fresh and delicious!  We made a somewhat random dinner of pasta with sauce, steamed cauliflower, fruit, quinoa, and roasted corn.  Chloe and Norah set the tables outside in the courtyard and it was a beautiful meal.  The kids have been chilling out with movies and Norah is fast asleep.

Looking forward to more adventures tomorrow…buenas noches!

Finally! El Jardin!

John and Carolyn’s house in SMA is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  I will take more pictures later so you can see it, but there are some photos on our SMA page.  It is the perfect home for a group of our size.  Elizabeth has a bedroom with a bathroom.  Norah and I are sharing another bedroom with a bathroom.  Adlani has the study, and las tres amigas have the guest bedroom and bathroom which are through the small enclosed courtyard.  There are several outdoor spaces within their home – the entryway, the courtyard where the girls’ room is, the roof, and a new garden that they are in the process of building.  There are lots of flowers blooming in the gardens and the smell is heavenly.  I’ll dedicate a whole post to showing you the house when I have some photos.

When we arrived from the airport, our housekeeper Maria was just taking muffins out of the oven.  We were so happy to settle in with a snack!  The water at the house is filtered, so we have plenty of water and ice that is safe to drink.  We explored the house and got all of our stuff unpacked and put away, then took a short nap before we went out exploring. 

Around 7 p.m. we walked up to the main square of town, el Jardin Principal.  On the way we saw a horse and carriage, a band, and giant puppets called mojingangas.  They were blocking traffic as they waited to begin their procession, and although there were a few beeps, the drivers seemed resigned to sit there waiting for 15 minutes or so.  Then everyone took off for the square.

There’s a webcam in el Jardin (you can see it here), and for the last 6 months Elizabeth and I have checked it whenever we’re feeling the need to “get away.”  Last night we were finally able to see it in person, and Ben saw us on the webcam!  There is a film festival going on here right now so there was a band on stage in the square and TONS of people.  We ate at the restaurant that hosts the webcam – a little thank-you for helping to keep us sane the last 6 months.  While we were eating, various people came to try to sell us souvenirs.  When Carlos came with personalized bracelets and said that he could make them for each of the kids then and there, we had to take him up on it.  It was pretty amazing to watch him make them.  We saw him again in the square this morning and it was like we were old pals.

We could see an epic lightning storm while we were having dinner, but nobody around us seemed too worried about it.  There was still quite a crowd in el Jardin.  After dinner we went straight home and it started to rain soon after.  It cooled off a lot and we all slept like logs. 

What we learned the first day:

  • Don’t leave home without the (big) camera.
  • Bring raincoats because when it cools down it happens quickly, and it could rain any time.
  • Watch the sidewalks at all times because there are holes, steps, and other hazards.
  • Mexican pizza does not have mozzarella cheese on it (maybe some does but we haven’t found it yet).

Our trip begins!

For anyone who is new to my blog and is following along on our trip, the blog is a combination of things…a creative outlet for me, sometimes a place for me to vent, and most important, a family chronicle.  I have always felt that old photos had much more of a story to tell, but without being able to sit down and chat regularly with family members, those stories aren’t being passed down.  So I love to capture the stories here – plus when the kids complain about their childhood I have evidence that they had it good!  And when I get old I’ll be able to fill in the blanks in my memory.  So there may be a little too much detail in these posts for some of you, but the two dads we left behind (and others!) are traveling vicariously through us.  Feel free to skim or just skip right to the pictures.

Friday night I was up until about 11 getting everything packed, and then crashed for a few hours before my 2:30 a.m. wake-up time.  I woke the kids up at 3:15 – they had 8 hours of sleep by then and were great.  I was a little woozy and I think my fight-or-flight response was kicking in because if I was up in the middle of the night there must be an emergency.  But we got everyone and everything into the car and were on the road to the airport by 3:33 (a lucky number!).

The Pearce’s got to the airport a few minutes ahead of us and were waiting with our “orphanage bag” which we couldn’t fit into the car and had dropped off the night before.  We had weighed all of our bags at home with the bathroom scale, but they were all hovering right near the maximum – 50 pounds.  The Pearce’s traveled much lighter.  We had planned to as well, but it never seems to work out that way.  We always have way too much when we go to Morocco too.  The bag allowance used to be 2 bags at 70 pounds each, and Ben’s family pushes that to the limit.  One time we were in New York for a long weekend and picked up Ben’s mom at JFK.  Between her stuff and ours, the car was so full that the dog (our old lab, Rosie) had to ride home laying on a stack of suitcases in the back seat.

Our bags weighed 49, 50, 56, and 52 pounds.  I shifted a couple of things around and we were good to go.  There is one bag full of stuff for the orphanage – soccer balls, frisbees, underwear, and crayons.  The Pearce’s also have a bag for the orphanage – full of school supplies.  One of our other bags was half-full with some things for our housekeeper and her kids – a backpack of school supplies and books for her 9-year-old, and a diaper bag of other toys and supplies for Maria and her other 3 kids – including her 1-month-old son.  One of the first questions Aliya asked her is whether she will bring the baby when she comes to work on Monday.

We got through security and to the gate with no problem – except Adlani was disappointed that he wasn’t tall enough to go through the full body scanner.  That kid is so interested in electronics and gadgets.  There were several times in the airport when I saw him closely inspecting an access control reader on the wall or some other electronic device.  I think he’s destined to join me in the hardware business.  We have plenty of electronic products these days.

When we arrived at the gate we had a big surprise – John and Mona Harutunian!  They were on our flight to Houston and then headed on to Costa Rica.  Mona was Aliya’s 4th grade teacher and Adlani has her next year.  They are also the parents of one of Norah’s good buddies and a beautiful daughter too. 

Las tres amigas sat together on the 4-hour flight to Houston, and I sat with Adlani and Norah with Elizabeth across the aisle.  We arrived in Houston at 9 a.m. local time and  had lunch.  It was 10 a.m. for us and although some of the members of our party may have eaten the entire contents of their snack bags (you know who you are) we were all hungry.  Then it was a short wait for our flight to SMA.  The plane was much smaller (2 seats on each side of the aisle) but it was fine.  The flight was only about an hour and a half and wasn’t very bumpy.  The clouds were beautiful!

The kids thought it was totally cool that we had to go down stairs to get off the plane instead of onto the jetway.  There was only one immigration officer so we had to wait a little while but he was nice and spoke pretty good English.  I’m trying to speak Spanish when I can, but Customs and Immigration is a tough place to start.  He asked me how to pronounce the kids’ last name and commented that it was long.  Our carry-ons were checked at Customs…he asked me if I had any food and I said that I had peanut butter, Nutella, and fluff (the necessities).  He asked which bag they were in and I didn’t have a clue, so he confirmed that I didn’t have fruits or vegetables and took my word for it.

Our van driver, who had an awesome duck bill hair-do, found us right away.  We sort of stood out from the rest of the crowd.  I had assumed that we’d be the only ones in the van because there were so many of us, but when we got there it was already full of luggage and 2 travelers.  Somehow he fit the luggage together like a puzzle and we hopped in.  The other 2 travelers were from Boston and Connecticut!  They are here to see if they want to retire to SMA.  The drive went smoothly – most of the kids fell asleep.  Norah was in the front bobbing against the lady traveler, but I think she was asleep too.  We dropped them off at their house and then went to ours, which I will have to tell you about in a separate post because there is so much to say.

To be continued…

9 Hours to Take-Off!

We’re getting down to the wire, and although it seems like I’ve spent the entire week organizing, packing, and reorganizing our bags, it’s going to end the way it always does – with me throwing in everything that’s laying around the house (which is a lot) and crossing my fingers that each bag is less than 50 pounds.  We’re actually in pretty good shape – just doing the last of the laundry (bathing suits from camp, etc.) and then I’ll stuff the rest of it in.

The kids’ carry-ons and 3 of the 4 big bags are packed, the electronics are charging, the snack bags are in the fridge in hopes that the Luna Blobs form back into Luna Bars in time for breakfast (it has been 95-100 here all week and no AC).  If I had another day to prepare I’d still find myself in the same spot – I just need to stop adding things and accept that we can do without whatever we forgot.  Plus we have the safety net of Ben arriving in 2 weeks, and it’s always possible that Elizabeth has packed whatever I didn’t.  And it’s not like a lot of places I’ve traveled in Africa where we had to bring everything we MIGHT need because there was no place to buy anything.  There’s plenty to buy in SMA…I think we can get more toothpaste if we need it.

The kids had “overday” at camp yesterday which means that they stayed until 8 instead of 4.  I woke them up a little after 6 this morning, and after another day of constant activity at camp I picked them up, fed them an early dinner, and had them asleep by 7:15!  3 a.m. will still come early but at least they will have gotten a couple of extra hours on the front end.  Ben and Chris are driving us to the airport in 2 cars, departing at 3:30.  Hopefully we will all sleep on the 4-hour flight to Houston.

I’ve been meaning to make a video of the kids discussing our trip, but since it didn’t get done until tonight it became 9 minutes of Norah talking with Adlani interjecting comments.  Aliya was mad because she is a tween and apparently that’s how tweens are.  So she didn’t have much to say but they’re all excited and I’ll get some commentary from her when we reach SMA.

So for the grandparents, who are probably the only ones who will commit 9 minutes of their lives to watching the Norah show, heeeeeeeerrre’s Norah!

4 More Days – There’s an app for that!

The first time I traveled out of North America was around 1995, when I went to England and Ireland.  In 1997 I went on a safari which began in South Africa, went to Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and back to S.A.  In 1998 I met Ben and we went to Morocco, and then I dragged him along on my next safari which started in Kenya, went through Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zanzibar, Botswana, and S.A., followed by a stop in Amsterdam.  After that we eloped to Turks and Caicos and went back to Morocco a few more times.

On every one of those trips I was totally unplugged.  If we happened to spend some free time in a town that had an internet cafe, and if the internet was working that day, I might check my personal email or send an update to my friends and family so they’d know I hadn’t been chomped in half by a hippo while canoeing on the Zambezi River (no joke).  But the rest of the time I had no cell phone, no wifi, nobody asking me door-related questions (don’t get me wrong – I love door questions).

Times have changed.  Five years ago when we’d go on a U.S. road trip, I’d have maps printed out, hotel reservations made, and a detailed itinerary for each day.  All of this took prior planning.  Now when we head out we just take the iPad with 3G, and figure things out as we go.  When I went to Costa Rica with Sherry in 2010, I took a NetBook so I didn’t risk losing/breaking my company laptop.  Even that has changed because with the advances in automated back-ups (I use Carbonite), if something happened to my laptop I could be up and running again quickly.  Not that I want to break my laptop, but the computer is now more like a tool for viewing my data, rather than a storage locker for it.

On last year’s extended trip to Morocco and this year’s trip to Mexico, being unplugged was not / is not an option.  With my current job I can’t imagine just hanging out a “Gone Fishin’ ” sign and taking off – even for a week or two.  So the compromise is that I will be away longer (4 weeks!) but working part-time while I’m there.  It worked really well in Morocco and the infrastructure in Mexico is much better.  I think it’s a very fair compromise – 4 weeks of maintaining emails, magazine articles, blog posts, etc., and giving myself permission to put the big stuff on hold until I get back.  It’s weird what a difference that makes to me – no guilt about what I haven’t done…and I feel like I’ve really accomplished something if I keep my email under control.

We don’t have a lot of concrete plans for this trip, although we do have the travel and lodging nailed down.  After that we’ll play it by ear.  But I did download some AWESOME apps to help us out!

GlobeConvert Currency and Units Converter – I seem to have lost the ability to do math in my head – I blame the pregnancies, so I know we’ll be using this app all the time.  Although according to Hannah, Elizabeth is good at math as well as “making toast”, so maybe she’ll be responsible for all of the conversions – and the toast.  I ordered my pesos and travelers checks today (not quite last-minute!) and will pick them up at the bank on Wednesday.  I can use the ATM too, but I like to have some dinero in case the bank gets suspicious about large withdrawals made from a foreign country (yes, I told them we were going but you never know).

SMA Tránsito – Since we won’t have a car in SMA, we will have to take the bus if we venture too far from home.  This app has all of the transportation info, bus routes, stop locations, etc., for SMA!  It also has emergency numbers for los bomberos, sistema de emergencia, and loads of other places I might need to call for assistance.  I’m going to need some help with the Spanish, but that’s why we’re taking the 5 little translators.

TripWolf – This app claims to have all kinds of info about restaurants and things to do, but we’ll have to test it out when we get to SMA.  One GREAT thing it does is allow you to download a map to use offline.  Although it won’t know where we are if we don’t have cell data enabled (no blue dot), we can search for street names and points of interest, and navigate the old-fashioned way.  I also downloaded an SMA map from Google Maps that we can use offline and add points to…like all the most beautiful doors of SMA.  😀

iTranslate – This app was free, and I paid $1.99 for the voice version.  I can speak into the phone, the app converts my voice to text so I can see that it understood what I said and is not translating something random and embarrassing.  Then it shows me the Spanish translation but also SPEAKS the translation!  For you hard core Spanikopitas, it may not be perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than my Spanglish.  It’s also great for entertaining bilingual children, who think it’s funny to try to come up with words that it can’t/won’t translate – like “butt”.  Adlani was in hysterics over it.

Heads-Up – Speaking of hysterics, I ran across Ellen Degeneres’ Heads-Up game the other day, and coughed up the 99 cents to download it.  It is SO GREAT!  You hold the iPhone up to your forehead and it displays words that everyone else has to act out, give you clues for, or hum (the “Hey Mr. DJ” category), depending on which category you’re playing.  If you guess correctly, you tip the phone forward to give yourself a point, or you tip it backward to pass.  You have a minute to get as many points as possible.  If you have a phone with a front camera, it will make a video of the person/people giving the clues.  The kids absolutely love it and I think we will be pulling this out at the city bus stop, the line for churros, el baño, etc.  It’s well worth the buck and maybe even the other 99-cent add-on categories.  I hope Ellen is donating the proceeds to charity.  Here is the “best of” video from Ellen:

If you have any indispensable travel apps, let me know and I’ll download them!