2022 was AMAZING and also SO HARD, 2023 is great so far

I really wanted to write about 2022. And if I don't write here, where else? I don't have the patience for journaling anymore, it's sad.

A year of awesome travels, wonderful concerts (including my own choir's!), family reunions, family visits, visits to friends we hadn't seen in years, photo shoots, a graduation, sending youngest kid to college and beginning empty-nesting having moved and getting used to a new area, community, and church. Planting hundreds of plants! Significant change. Life altering.

Where to start?

OK, some chronological info doesn't hurt, since I haven't blogged in so long. 

Let's go back to 2021. After looking for over six months, we found a house we really liked literally on the day before we dropped our son for his second year of college. I must say here, that the day we dropped him of for his first year (in 2020) was the same day his only remaining great-grandmother died of COVID (at 94 -- age was a factor -- in Brazil). His grandma was her first born as was my husband (who was born at her house) and our son (and I am writing this while my sons's orchestra plays Elgar's "Nimrod" Enigma Variation (No.8), which is often played at funerals and it's gorgeous and sad, I'm watching the live-stream of their concert in California as I write this).

So we found the house in August, bought it on October 12, put our house on sale (it was insane work), moved to the new house in November 2021, and sold the old house on December 2. Then we traveled to Brazil for the holidays.

So we started 2022 in Brazil with family -- my parents, brother and family, two of my husband's 3 brothers and their family, plus some aunts and cousins on K's side. It was a chaotic trip because my mom and brother had pneumonia after Christmas, and my dad, whose leg hurt a lot, was diagnosed with thrombosis (blood clot)! 😱 I even had to spend a night in the hospital with him. They recovered well, but we came back with the promise that my parents would have someone living with them from now on. 

The Spring semester of 2022 was hard in various ways. Our youngest, now a senior in high school, had a 50 minute commute to school because we had moved from our house 8 minutes away. My commute, however, which was160 miles round trip every other day for 9 years changed to be only 30 miles, which was amazing. Our oldest struggled in school which was heartbreaking for me. I spent part of his 20th birthday in March listening to Coldplay and crying because for worry, feeling super impotent. Sigh... We drove down to see his wind symphony concert in February and we drove to Montreal (after so many years!) during Spring break.

My parents came to visit in May for the music concerts and graduation of our youngest son. It was a short visit, but we had fun picking up our oldest son in Tennessee (after he came back from a music trip to the West Coast and got himself a girlfriend -- that relationship ended after the summer, but not until he had already bought several tickets to visit her in Colorado!) and visiting New York City to drop them off to fly to Finland. We had an awesome (if expensive) photo shoot in Brooklyn and a "whimsical" stay at the TWA hotel at JFK airport. I highly recommend it. Especially the rooftop pool facing the runway. I should post photos. 😉😉 

On our way back from NYC we went to the AMAZING Coldplay Concert in DC. It was a bucket-list item for me, to go with husband and sons, especially the oldest who's a huge fan. I sobbed through all of "Fix You" (and filmed it too). The only "downside" is that there were so many friends who were there and we only found out after the show.

The summer was great and brought about a wonderful trip -- postponed from the pandemic in 2020. Before the epic trip, we traveled to Massachusetts where my husband had a week-long conference and I had the opportunity to visit with friends we hadn't seen in a long time. Unfortunately, when we got back home and picked my parents up after their visit to my brother's family in Finland (followed by a week in London), I found out that I had COVID the day before my birthday and I was deathly afraid that I had transmitted it to my parents -- thankfully I did not! My parents went back to Brazil unscathed (but later caught it and did fine, it was super mild).

At the end of July, my husband and I flew to Denmark for a day and a half (I got to meet his friends in Aarhus and see the incredible rainbow exhibit at the art museum -- another bucket list item). Then we flew to London where we met the boys and stayed for four full day at my cousins' house. After London, the four of us joined my mother-in-law and a group of 70 people from Brazil and the U.S. in a wonderful tour through Turkey -- we visited all the seven churches, flew on a balloon at sunrise in Capadoccia, and enjoyed a 3 night Greek Island cruise before the boys flew to Tennessee from Athens (our youngest had no orientation, nothing, just got to the university the day before his freshman year started!). On the way back my husband and I flew via Denmark and spent a lovely day in Copenhagen where we saw so much in one day! 💓(I posted photos to Facebook)

In the summer, prior to the trip, the boys also worked a lot, and our oldest started counseling and medication, which made things better in the new semester at school. And all of a sudden, without much preparation, and no actual transition (dropping off the youngest son, etc), we were empty-nesters! 😱

I joined a local choir (we had two Christmas concerts!), and bought tickets to lots of local concerts. We also started attending a new church and meeting new people. We drove to see a few of our sons' (now both of them!) Wind Symphony concerts. My choir had two lovely Christmas concerts and then we all drove to Florida for my husband's family reunion. The first time all 17 of us were together since 2018! We were in a huge house in Orlando Florida, and my husband's aunt, a cousin and his family joined us, followed by another uncle. There were 22 of us at the house! 

After New Year's, all of use embarked on a 4 night cruise to the Bahamas that was partly to make up for a cruise we "missed" in January 2021 (although that one was a week-long cruise and my parents were going too) and it was lovely. It was hard to drop off both boys in Tennessee after spending such a long time with them, but we met up with them a week after in Portland, Oregon, where my  husband had a conference! It was just for the weekend, but wonderful to see them. 

We have also gone to three of their concerts so far this year (Kelvin is also playing in the orchestra!). I am still in my choir and we have continued to go to concerts. We saw a local production of Rent which was really great. This musical debuted in 1996, the same year we moved to the United States, but I had never seen it. 

So far, 2023 has been great, and I hope it continues this way. It can't be as epic as 2022 with all the amazing international trips, but we'll be going to Brazil twice (at least Kelvin and I), in June and in December. Seeing family is a priority since my parents are 82 amd 85 years old. 

I am glad I wrote this post!

P.S. I have to gloss over the "hard part" and we don't even talk to the family and friends about these issues to protect the privacy of our kid.

The Usefulness of Having Blogged Consistently for 13+ years...

 Sigh...

I haven't blogged in ages. The smart phone has destroyed our lives and will be the death of humanity. hahaha NOT funny, actually. Sigh... (but for real, the internet is destroying the world. It had so much potential for good! It's divided us, polarized us, spread SO MANY LIES, it was supposed to be the age of information, not dis-information!).

First off, a shout-out the the incredible usefulness of having blogged consistently for 13 years (over 100 posts a year between 2006 and 2016 - WOW! Nearly 200 posts a year for 10 years straight). 

My freshly turned 21 year old son (OMG, this is insane, he was two years old when I started this here blog, TWO) is obsessed with tracking his travels, down to the days we departed and arrived back. And thanks to this blog, I was able to find out exactly the days we went to Brazil and came back. Thanks to me recording my life in an interactive way -- responding to my followers' questions, "talking" to them so they'd know what I was up to, etc -- I now have a very meaningful record of things we did and when. It BLEW my mind. 

When he started demanding dates, I turned to  my old journals and there was so little there! Then I dug up old passports to look for the stamps, but they were only marginally helpful because they only had dates and not the places of departure and arrival. And then I finally remembered the blog and... voilá, we had all the info we needed at our fingertips. It was super exciting! An amazing breakthrough! And I was reminded of fascinating things I didn't remember had happened as well. I need to go back and re-read this blog.

This was going to be the intro to a post about 2022 and 2023, but I reasoned that it should be its own post. Let's see if I write the other one. I'll be watching a Livestreaming of my son's orchestra concert in the West Coast, so I'll have plenty of time to write. I hope. 

In 2019...

(I need to do this, I've done it nearly every year! At least starting in 2010, I think)

Here's the 2019 preview post.

So, in 2019...

... the year started and began with all or some of us in the Caribbean! We'd never been there and now we went twice in one year! I visited Tulum in early January and then again in mid to late December.

... we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary several times! I bought 3 different cakes for photo ops. I haven't yet shared photos of that on social media (only on our Holiday card

... I went to Brazil TWICE!! The second time wasn't that exciting, but the first trip in July was short and really great.

... my oldest son got his driver's license (best thing ever!) and had his first girlfriend, but she ended the relationship 5 months in to my great disappointment and his heartbreak. Sigh...

... I taught my dream class (a language class about music from my country) using the 5K grant I'd received, and we all had an absolute blast, it was awesome!
... We went on our first cruise, spent a wonderful week in FL again with my husband's family, and K & I went on a lovely week-long all inclusive resort (first time!) trip to Riviera Maya, Mexico, to celebrate our anniversary!

...I applied for "promotion" in my job even though I'm not tenure-track. I wasn't at all nervous or apprehensive about that, but my colleague is. Especially because he thinks s/he spent way too much effort on this and why can't they make a decision already. Yes, that is the reason. Very like this person.

As for what I wrote in the preview post, my ADHD continues to be super bothersome and I should find a therapist, but I'm hanging in there.

New Year, (Temporarily) Divided Family

So much to catch up on, so little motivation to blog. Anyone still out there? (apart from Jenny in New England, hi Jenny!)

This will be a "different" Spring semester. The temporary above is not really temporary according to my husband because our oldest, who turns 18 this March -- HE WAS TWO WHEN I STARTED THIS BLOG! Has it really been 16 years? -- is going to college in August. Yeah... and I do say that completely matter-of-factly (auto-correct says it's matter-of-factually -- NO, no way!!) ;-P

The other day someone wrote a hilarious comment in one of Dooce's tweets, they said something like "I'm from the 2000s when people still blogged" or I'm " 2000s style blogs person." Me too, I had to respond, me too!

In case, temporary separations aside, the fact is that our youngest son (15.5) is in Brazil until late May, my husband is in Denmark (enjoying the second part of his sabbatical doing research abroad), while our oldest son, the cats, and I, stay home.

Yeah... I have lots more to say about all this, but it can't be now. I need to go to bed to teach tomorrow. The brutal mega-commute of 160 miles round-trip hasn't gotten any better.

In 2019...

... we went (already!) on our very first cruise and I realized my lifelong dream of going to the Caribbean (I never wanted to do is in a cruise, though, and it was ok. I need to go back for sure.).

... we finally go back to visit Brasil after 2.5 years.

... we spend another week in Destin, FL with my husband's family

Sigh... I really wish we could afford to go every year. In any case, sometimes it's not an affordability problem as much as it is one of situational factors -- such as my parents coming for the graduation of one of the boys which makes it unnecessary to travel to go see them. They did come in 2016 for Kelvin's 8th grade graduation and we went there, but that was because of my husband's grandma's 90th birthday party/family reunion.

... I get to teach the class I've dreamed about for many years. I'm doing it now and it's been great so far (only two weeks)! 3 preps, two brand new classes, but hopefully more fun than work/stress.

... our oldest son will (finally) get his driver's license  at 17 years old (he could have had it as early as last July) and I think this will make our lives easier. When he leaves for college in 2020 his brother may still not have it, though, and this could be problematic. :-( I have enjoyed having a driver since September 2017. It's also great to be able to talk to him for a change. I won't make this a separate item, but in a month and a half the same son will have an "official" and pretty serious girlfriend. We are visiting her family in March and I think he will talk to her (Latino, old-school) dad in order to make it an official relationship. For now, they're just special "friends." ;-)

I don't know that else will happen, but I hope I will feel better about my work and about myself professionally. It's not easy. It's a constant struggle and a "low grade pain" all the time. It shouldn't be, I just need to let go and stop feeling so despondent. I need  to get a good therapist.

I also need to work more to get my ADHD under better control, so I can be more productive. Sigh... yeah, lots of complicated feelings and things, always. Sigh...

I hope it'll be a good year.

In 2018...

... so many things happened! It was a wonderful year with a few dreadful things thrown in for good measure. Maybe I'll get those out of the way first.

... two literal nightmares of mine came true: 1) being horribly bitten by bedbugs in our Florida vacation with my husband's family (I took tons of photos to document the numerous bites to legs, arms, and, most of all, back of neck, our rental house was free in the end, 6K back to my MIL. My husband thinks my suffering was worth it, oh well...). 2) having a small flood in our house with water pouring and going everywhere right before more guests arrived (we already had my parents, niece and nephew here).

Other than these two unfortunate things (and the fact that my BIL had to lose his leg to cancer, which is not my story to tell, but I wanted to mention here), it was a great, VERY eventful year.

... I went on two trips with my youngest son in the Spring semester, to Florida for his robotics tournament, and to the Outer Banks for his class trip.

... our youngest graduated from 8th grade and my parents were here to celebrate with us (soon after they flew to Indonesia to visit my brother and his family!).

... we went on a splendid cross-country trip to the Canadian Rockies to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. (This was a bucket list destination for me. It was AMAZING! I have photos on Facebook if you want to be FB friends. Hi Karen!

... our youngest son started high school and the oldest is in the sweet stages of beginning his first significant relationship. ;-) 

... my brother and his family came to visit for the very first time! He and his wife had visited us back in June 2006 before moving to China and he had visited quickly back in 2010, but he had promised he'd finally visit me after he had children, and he fulfilled the promise. His kids are 7 and 5.

... we had Christmas at our house with my whole family, plus my sister-in-law's parents and her brother and family. We had a wonderful time, in spite of the house having been messed up by the flood.

2018 was a great year! My 3 year contract was renewed until 2022 and I was awarded a 5K grant to teach my dream class this semester (about music). I don't think 2019 can top any of that, but I'm sure it'll be good too. More about it in another post.

The Cruise was (Surprisingly) Nice!

Several people had told me that I'd love the cruise, but I had a hard time believing them.

I really liked it! I mean, it is "hazardous" in the sense that you can eat way too much and way too much junk, but it is a nice vacation. It does cost extra do do sightseeing and to go to the beach, but it's not too much.

The Caribbean is lovely and I want to go back to various places with more time (such as the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico and it's surrounding areas) and the Bahamas. I also want to go to Jamaica, Belize, Cuba, and other islands. And, if my MIL takes us again, I'll go on another Caribbean cruise (Easten  this time, since we had a Western Caribeean tour).

One problem in a cruise is that there is so much to do that you hardly see the people you're there with. You need to plan to do things with them in order to keep track of them. Another problem is that if you want to make the most of your cruise experience and go on multiple shows (they had Broadway's Mamma Mia!, a Beatles revival, a diving show, and smaller events such as stand-up comedy, jazz concerts, etc.) plus go on shore excursions, you won't really relax and rest too much. I mean, it is relaxing to go to dinner and go to a show, but then you need to wake up early to enjoy the place where you're stopping the next day. Not to mention that shore excursions are VERY rushed due to the fact that you need to get back to the ship by 4 or 5:30 pm.

Yeah... a bunch of negative sides, but some positive ones too. I think and overanalyze things too much, so it's hard not to have complicated mixed feelings about everything. Sigh...

Before it's too late, I'd love to write a couple of posts about last year and this year that is starting as I generally do every year. I hope I can pull that off in the next few days.

If only I didn't have to prepare and teach my classes! The first week ends tomorrow and I'm glad we have a holiday on Monday!

Leaving on a Jet Plane to Catch a Huge Boat

Quick note to say that that in spite of the fact that next week is the first full week back at school for our sons and the first week at U#1 for my husband we're leaving for Florida to go on a Caribbean Cruise! I never wanted to go on one, but my mother-in-law insisted that we go, so we're going. My brother & family and my parents are also going, so it'll be a full family reunion for us -- I mean, we'll continue together for another week.

Two of my husband's three brothers are also going with their family, and that will be nice. My mother-in-law is also taking a group of 48 other people from Brazil. I have to finish packing or I'd write more. I'll let you know how it went!

Nothing else has been done regarding the water damage, we'll see about that when we get back.

Summer Road Trip of a Lifetime (and maybe... How Social Media is Ruining my Life and... the World? ;-)

I suspect that my smart phone (I was a late adopter and only got a smart phone in 2012, 6 years ago) and social media (Facebook and now Instagram -- the new "micro-blogging" and photo sharing site) have ruined my life. Sigh... I spend too much time scrolling through its bait-y feeds and though I follow very few people on Instagram, it's still distracting because of the stupid stories. I REFUSE to look at stories on FB. I still miss blogging and reading blogs immensely and I haven't completely lost the habit of "writing blog posts in my head" -- [relatively] old habits die hard! -- but I feel like I am slowly losing my ability to concentrate on longer texts and tasks. It doesn't help that I have ADHD. I am also being influenced by the images I see and people share (more on that later).

OK, I promise that this annoying introduction will connect to my main topic, our AMAZING, Dream-Come-True trip of this summer...

We DROVE from the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. where we live all the way to the Canadian Rockies and even a bit of the Pacific Northwest and it was GLORIOUS!!

Yes, it was an insanely long drive of 4 days there and 4 days back, but we took our time and it worked well. It was also slightly stressful to sleep almost every night at a new hotel and plan, shop for, and prepare ALL OUR MEALS (except for breakfast at all but 4 mornings of the trip) on the go. We ate out exactly ONCE during the whole trip -- on the last day driving back. I took my wonderful pressure cooker (Power XL if you don't want to click) and a small hot pot and we had three ice-packs and a small cooler. ALL hotels had fridges, some of them full-sized ones.

A quick summary of the trip if you're curious, I added links to the official National Park sites:

Day 1 - 7/30 (Mon): 8h+ drive to Michigan. We slept at a friend's house and my parents at a hotel (mistakenly reserved by my son)
Day 2 - 7/31 (Tue): 8h+ Drive to Minneapolis (accidentally did a bathroom stop at Wisconsin Dells!) where we had an amazing Home2Suites across the street from a natural grocery store. We went to check out the Mall of America in the evening.
Day 3 - 8/1 (Wed): 7h+ from Minneapolis to Winnipeg, Canada. We saw the city a bit, purchased our National Park Pass, and rain ponchos at a Dollarama store before heading to the hotel. We didn't like downtown Winnipeg very much.
Day 4 - 8/2 (Thu): 10h+ drive from Winnipeg to Medicine Hat (Alberta). We hurried along because the hotel had indoor water slides and we enjoyed that (I cooked soup).
Day 5 - 8/3 (Fri): 4+ hour drive to Banff, AB, passing through the North of Calgary and seeing it in the distance. We stopped in Banff and were delighted by the turquoise water of the river and the gorgeous Cascades of Time Garden. It began to rain (hence the ponchos) and, because of the rain, which emptied the parking lots, we managed to quickly see Lake Louise (definitely "the Mona Lisa of Lakes" -- SUPER CROWDED, it's almost disappointing ;-), Moraine Lake (an AMAZING blue even in the rain), and, after some annoying traffic and the end of rain, Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park (British Columbia). We were staying in Golden, BC.
Day 6 - 8/4 (Sat): Rain was in the forecast for the Banff area, so we drove through the Canadian Glacier National Park and visited Revelstoke National Park, where we saw the beautiful Columbia river from above and enjoyed beautiful alpine wildflowers! It was partly cloudy at times, but not cold! The only thing we didn't like was the vicious mosquitoes at the parking lot at the summit where we had our lunch. (stayed in Golden, BC a second night)
Day 7 - 8/5 (Sun): Today was sunny with some clouds and we drove through Yoho & Banff National Parks all the way to Jasper National Park and beyond, about 6h driving, with many stops. Amazing day of "adventures" & incredible views: canoeing at Emerald Lake (cheapest spot, gorgeous lake), seeing Takakkaw Falls (both in Yoho NP), seeing a freight train go through both of the spiral tunnels!! Hiking up to see the incredible Peyto Lake. Marveling at the mountains and glaciers along the Icefields Parkway North and seeing a black bear next to the road! Stopping to see the Columbia Icefields and its great visitor center. And then... driving all the way to McBride, British Columbia (seeing two majestic elk eating calmly by the roadside) where we spent two nights in an apartment at the North Lodge Motel. The farthest Northwest we went on the trip!

Day 8 - 8/6 (Mon): Lots of driving because McBride is TWO HOURS from Jasper. We did the round trip and hiked the beautiful Maligne Canyon, drove to see Medicine lake (and unfortunately didn't drive down to Maligne Lake, so we didn't have a chance to see moose -- they are around Medicine and Maligne lakes). We had lunch next to the Maligne River and were going to go up on the AirTram in Jasper, but they closed due to the weather -- very disappointing! It was a beautiful and sunny day, but it was probably windy. So we went to downtown Jasper instead, where we had ice-cream, and went grocery shopping. On the drive back we stopped to see the majestic Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. This was the last sunny and crisp day of the trip.

Day 9 - 8/7 (Tue): Long drive back South (nearly 300 miles), and it was sunny, but unfortunately very hazy. South on the Icefield Parkway we stopped at Athabasca Falls and enjoyed walking through it's canyon and going down to the river, we saw Sunwapta Falls and had lunch there, then, we stopped at the Athabasca Glacier (Columbia Icefields), walked all the way to the glacier (even though  it's forbidden, everyone does it), and walked a little bit on top of it -- but we didn't go very far like lots of other people. Then we stopped at Peyto lake (a bit hazy and it was 6:30 pm) to see it again at a different time of day and we enjoyed taking tons of photos of the gorgeous blue Bow Lake with lots of sunshine. We arrived at the most luxurious (and expensive!) accommodation of the whole trip at the Mystic Springs Chalets and Hot Pools in Canmore. We went to the pool and also had to go grocery shopping. It was very very smoky in Banff and Canmore due to the Wardle fire in Kootenay National park. :-(

Day 10 - 8/8 (Wed): Today we went back to the lakes in the Banff area, but we couldn't get an early start and the parking lots were closed, so we had to park at the overflow area and pay for a shuttle to Moraine Lake. It was SO WORTH IT!!! The bluest lake, incredible photos, can't even describe it. Then we had lunch at the parking area (all picnic tables are in the sun, so we used a large rock for table and tree trunk stumps to sit on). After lunch, we were able to find parking to visit the über-crowded Lake Louise. There were two brides taking photos there! Last, but not least, we hiked the Johnston Canyon where I was wretchedly disappointed that the "hidden cave" and huge boulder and waterfall (link to image search), the "most photographed spot in Alberta" is now off limits. See, social media ruining my life. I REALLY wanted to see and photograph that place!! The ostensive reason is protecting birds, and I do believe the birds were probably bothered by the foot traffic in that hilly wooded area, but the canyon is SO MASSIVELY VISITED that I believe unless they closed it completely, it wouldn't help the birds much. But who am I to say/judge? My husband tried to console me saying that I care for the environment, but I was devastated. 

Day 11 - 8/9 (Thu): Last visit to Banff National Park area: we visited the lovely Cave and Basin National Historical Site which is where the very first Canadian National Park originated to protect the hot springs from prospective bidders. Then we drove to Calgary where we stayed at the excellently located Homewood Suites downtown and went to have dinner with friends at Blaze Pizza (we hardly ate because we had eaten at the hotel!).
Day 12 - 8/10 (Fri): Today we drove from Calgary to Glacier National Park in the U.S. and we met up with friends again! We met them at Logan Pass and then hiked with them for about an hour in the scary Highline trail. We headed to our hotel in Kalispell where we went grocery shopping (at Costco!) and then I cooked dinner for our friends, since we were staying at Homewood Suites again. 
Day 13 - 8/11 (Sat): Today we visited Glacier National Park again with our friends before they had to leave to go back to Missoula. In the morning our youngest son took the challenge and jumped off a cliff into the frigid waters of this swimming hole! Then, after a picnic, lunch we hiked to the Hidden Lake in Logan Pass and saw many mountain goats (and snow)! Then we drove four hours to our hotel in Helena where we arrived pretty late (10 pm).
Day 14 - 8/12 (Sun): Today we drove for 8h+ from Helena, MT to Mount Rushmore and we stayed for the evening presentation and lighting, it was nice! We stayed in a Best Western in Hill City that looked very "Western" indeed! ;-)
Day 15 - 8/13 (Mon): Today we drove through Badlands National Park on our way to Omaha, NE. There was a moment we were 90 mph on I-90 and it was 99F! I really liked Badlands, I wish we'd spent more time there, but we needed to get to Nebraska.

Day 16 - 8/14 (Tue): Took a detour to visit a denominational College in Lincoln, NE and quickly visited Saint Louis, MI in the late afternoon/ evening. It was lots of fun to take the tram to the top of the Gateway Arch. We literally forgot our hunger and tiredness in the brand new museum under the arch, FANTASTIC! 
Day 17 - 8/15 (Wed): Drove back home, longest day, over 13 hours, but we had a good lunch at Olive Garden. ;-)

This was long and took me a lot of time to write, but it was fun to remember it all!

Back to the social media issue. I believe that people have more money and that's why they travel more, but I also think that the ability to see photos of your friends in beautiful places, such as the Canadian Rockies lakes and vistas, makes people want to go there too, so I think that the huge crowds we saw -- everyone trying to take the most perfect pictures, even risking limb to do so (there was this girl who fell in the water in Moraine lake trying to reach the rocks and several people were trying to balance on logs and rocks to take photos). Of course we were busy taking photos too and I spent A LOT of time selecting the perfect 10 photos of each day and writing a short descriptive text to post on Instagram. I posted way more photos to Facebook (later), but used the same texts.

Yeah... is this all very bad? Not all of it, I'm sure. I have to go now, I have to practice a song with a group of women to sing tomorrow!

16 Years a Mother/ Trip Update

On Friday my oldest turned 16 and I enjoyed spending about half an hour with him right next to me in our bed (with my husband putting away his clothes near us) as the time of his birth, 4:14 pm, came and went. I had the scrapbook of his birth photos in my hands and he didn't want to look at them, but I'm thankful that he was content enough to hang out with us at that special time. He even let me take photos (even though he was making a scowling face) at 4:14 and I only shared those with my parents and brother. We talked about our recent trip, since I had just picked up is dad from the airport bus (we have one now!!).

Kelvin's birthday celebration stretched for a week and a half because his birthday present was a trip to Los Angeles with my husband and I. He ADORES traveling (he is truly our son and our parents' grandson -- the oldest!) and he's just about to travel again this coming Thursday on a mission trip to Peru. This year, exceptionally, my husband's professional association conference coincided with our Spring Break, so he was planning to take me with him to LA, but then our son asked to join us.

Both boys missed 3 days of school. Friday 3/2 and Monday and Tuesday. Our youngest stayed with his cousins and my sister-in-law (my BIL was traveling) and we flew from the airport closest to their house to make it convenient to drop L off and pick him up. LA was awesome and I posted some photos to Instagram & Facebook. It rained all day Friday (our first day there), but we enjoyed our visits to the Getty Villa and the Getty Center in spite of the rain and the lack of views

(I'll try to insert a photo later)

On Friday night we headed to Banning (towards the Desert/Palm Springs) where our friends live and it was awesome to see them again! Their daughter was my student (from 2nd-4th grades, once a week English class, she doesn't even remember) and she was one of the flower girls in our wedding. They left Brazil two years after we did and since then we've seen them in 2003, 2016 and now (my husband also saw them back in 2005 when his conference was there too). We talked for hours, and visited Joshua Tree National Park on Saturday.

On Sunday we headed back to LA and visited the Griffith Observatory and had dinner with a dear friend after checking into our fancy apartment in downtown LA. On Monday, our last day there, Kelvin and I took the metro and walked around downtown (City Hall, Disney Hall) then met up with my husband at the SkySpace which has awesome views. We ended the day seeing the sunset and meeting up with another group of friends (husband, wife, two daughters) we hadn't seen since 2015. He was my "accountability partner" when I was writing my PhD dissertation and he was finishing his thesis for his D. Min. Now he's pursuing a Ph.D. at Fuller University and we're very happy for him. While we talked, Kelvin did a time-lapse of the sunset.

The trip was intense, but the perfect blend of sight-seeing and catching up with friends and I think Kelvin liked to meet our friends. He certainly got to listen to A LOT of Portuguese which is good for him. He wishes we could go to Brazil more often, he loves going there and it's pretty much the only time he speaks Portuguese. Sigh... All day Tuesday was wasted with our trip back and it was tough on him having to wake up early again to go to school in spite of the jet lag. Now he's gotta get ready not only to travel again, but to spend a week at extremely high altitudes in Cuzco Peru. I hope he'll be ok!

Oh, yeah, to finish off the narration of the birthday. The day didn't start great because Kelvin had a nose-bleed and both boys were late for school on account of that, but I made up for the upset by taking him to get a Subway sandwich for lunch, making the traditional "vanilla ice-cream-cool whip Oreo crust" ice-cream cake. Then on Saturday he invited his two best friends and I cooked his favorite food (Brazilian-style stroganoff with veggie chicken and rice) for lunch as well as the dessert he asked me to make (a trifle dessert with cake, berries, and two kids of cream (one condensed milk based).
(maybe insert photo here)
I think it was a good birthday overall! I also posted 60+ photos of him from birth until now to Facebook and I enjoyed reading the comments!

Vacation/Family Reunion Blogging

Since I started blogging 13 years ago, our family spent several holidays (Christmas & New Year's or at least New Year's Eve) with my husband's whole family, generally in odd years:

• 2005 (Brazil): all of us (minus the honeymooning couple -- we went to Brazil for their wedding) spent Christmas at my in-laws' apartment and a week & New Year's at a rental house at the beach. There were only 3 grandsons: aged 3 & 1.5 (two of them). 12 people (with my husband's paternal grandmother).
• 2006 (U.S.): Christmas at my brother-in-law's house in Maryland (missing youngest BIL who joined us on a live-stream) & New Year's Eve with everyone at our house in Philly. 4 grandsons: aged 4, 2 (2) & 6 months old. 14 people.

(2007 & 2008 U.S. with the part of the family who lived at the U.S. at my in-law's apartment in MD & at hour house in PA)

• 2009 (Brazil): --> missing "the pregnant Canadians:" New Year's Eve in Brazil with the news of new nephew/niece upcoming birth 9 months later. 5 grandsons: 7, 5 (2), 3 and 1. 13 people.
• 2011: (U.S. - FL): "epic" Christmas & New Year's at big rental house in Orlando). 6 grandsons (9, 7 (2), 5, 3.5, 1.5) and 1 grand-daughter (1.5). 17 people.
• 2013 (Brazil): historic "opening" of my father & mother-in-law's in Brazil, whole family plus two grandmothers, then wonderful days & New Year's at the beach in the Brazilian Northeast. 6 grandsons (+ last one on the way): aged 11, 9 (2), 7, 5, 3.5 and 1 grandaughter (3.5). 17 people. 
• 2015 (U.S. - FL) a repeat of 2011 at an even larger house, now the family was complete, with all 8 grandchildren (13 to 1.5): seven boys and one girl, 18 people total.
• 2017 (U.S. - PA) first winter get together up North (we could never do anything in cold places during winter with my father-in-law).  All 8 grandchildren (15 to 3.5), 17 people. :-(

I wrote most of this post in PA during the last days of the year.
Posting on 1/9/2018, having meant to have posted on 12/31/17.

8 posts to go...

... to get to 77 (because one is already written).

I'll have to post them all in the next 24h, but that won't be hard. ;-)

Sometimes I wish I were blogging more, but I keep in touch with former bloggers (such as Leery Polyp, Professing Mama, Anastasia, Raising WEG, etc.) on Facebook. I like it that Jamie (Light & Momentary), What Now?, and Laura (11D) are still around in blogland, though.

OK, gotta post this and come back for more later. Today the family who lives in Qatar (K3+family) had to leave to fly back home. Tomorrow morning the rest of us will leave the Poconos, so tonight my husband, his youngest brother and four of the boys (my youngest, K3's two boys, and K4's oldest) decided to go snowboarding/skiing because it snowed lightly all day. I hope they'll have fun and that my son & hubby won't get sicker -- they had scratchy throats. I'll update later.

Headed to the Big Apple!

We're headed to NYC later today. It's going to be the second time we stay in Manhattan.

The first time was only for ONE NIGHT and it was December 30, 2001 -- right after 9/11 and when I was heavily pregnant with my eldest son. We went to NYC with my husband K's three brothers, K2 and his wife, K3 and his girlfriend, and K4 who was still single then.

On Dec. 31st we stood in line for many hours to see ground zero with our very own eyes. :-( And while we were there, Rudy Giuliani and his girlfriend came to pay a visit on his last day in office. We took photos. Yuck, Giuliani!

Anyway... we ALMOST went to see the ball drop in Times Square, but I had a silly old backpack (I was pregnant and needed water & snacks) which I didn't want to toss in the trash -- maybe I should have?  So we drove back up to Massachusetts while K3 (who had his own car) and his girlfriend stayed behind to see it.

We're staying in a hotel close to the Brooklyn bridge. We are wondering if the cheaper prices downtown have anything to do with the latest terrorist attack (that unfortunately killed 5 Argentine men from Rosario, my dear Argentine graduate school friend's hometown. BTW, did you hear about the Argentine submarine that went missing? So sad!).

Then, on Thanksgiving day we will drive up to Montreal to visit K4 and his family. It'll be a short visit because it's not a holiday for them. We'll see them again at Christmas, which we're spending with K's whole family in a house we rented in the Poconos, PA.

I'll try to post from NYC!

Airport Blogging, Part 8

I don’t know how many “airport posts” I’ve written in the blog— no time to check now, but I’m guessing 7. ;-)

Travel is EVERYTHING. I’ve said it before that I’m happiest when I’m on the go and I wish I could be constantly traveling. Seriously! It’s magical to get to know new places, it’s just the best thing in the world. At least to me!!

I just wish that traveling wasn’t [it should be weren’t because it’s the subjunctive, but nobody used it, so it sounds so wrong!!] so stressful. Sigh... I mean, generally it all works out in the end, but packing, loading the car, making sure you have all the documents, driving to the airport with time to spare, going to security, waiting at the gate, boarding the plane, the uncomfortable plane ride, making the connections, landing, getting luggage — and then doing it ALL OVER again on the way back. That is stressful and kind of exhausting.

When you travel as often and as extensively as we do (I know I want to travel more, but I am delighted at how much we do travel, I know how lucky we are), you get so used to it that it’s annoying, but kind of second nature to do everything. My sons have been traveling since infancy — my youngest is so proud for having flown at 6 days old!! — and are such pro travelers it’s a joy to behold. It’s also fun to have the luxury of traveling without them!

My last trip, to San Francisco with my son’s robotics team was from this same airport! This is helpful to me because I feel comfortable that I’ve been here before. Ok, I meant to blog to say that I still don’t know for sure if I will be able to board my plane to Argentina because my upcoming flight has a delay. But I hope I can!!  I’ll try to update this post.

The Year of the Unfortunately Thwarted Travels - Part II

Today I leave for another trip, but this trip has also been altered by events outside of our control. I hope it will have a true "happy ending," in spite of the stress it has caused us.

My dad turns 80 on November 6 and my brother decided that it would be a good idea to make my dad's dream to visit Tierra del Fuego -- the Southernmost place on a continent on Earth -- come true. So he talked to my mom and they planned a surprise trip for dad. They also asked if I could come and after consulting with my colleague I decided to find people to help with my classes and to go too!

Well, the first thing that went wrong was that my dad (who was suspicious because of some charges from Argentina in his credit card) went through my mom's emails and found out about the trip. They kept telling him I wasn't going, though, to try to keep at least this part a surprise.

I leave the U.S. today, but my parents and my brother were leaving Brazil on Tuesday, since my brother is finishing his MBA and has classes on Monday nights. Friday night, my brother received a series of ominous emails from Aerolineas Argentinas saying that they had scheduled a general strike for Tuesday 10/31 and that their flights were cancelled!

When I got up Saturday morning I noticed that my Tuesday flight had been cancelled from my reservation as well! :-( We all spent several hours calling airlines and trying to change our flight and we finally did -- except that my parents and brother will miss TWO WHOLE DAYS of a six-day trip. :-( I am missing only Tuesday evening, since I'll get to Ushuaia (the world's Southernmost town) on Wednesday morning. My family will join me on Thursday.

For a moment there I thought we would have to completely cancel, and we probably should have, since my brother and my mom, whose previous tickets had been purchased with miles, had to cancel those and purchase new tickets, which cost them a lot of money!

I hope with all my heart that the trip will be uneventful even in spite of these unfortunate circumstances. I will try to keep you posted!

The Year of the Unfortunately Thwarted Travels - Part I

If you're a longtime reader you know our family travels a lot! It used to be mostly within the U.S., to Canada, and to & from Brazil where we are from and where most of our extended family members live. Starting in 2012, though, we began to go on a few trips to other faraway places thanks to my mother-in-law's successful travel agency business!

First it was an amazing trip to South Africa (I wrote 10 posts about that one!) in March 2012, then, a couple of trips to Brazil, and in 2015 we had a long and marvelous "Epic Family trip" first to the Middle East (Egypt, Jordan, and Israel) and then to Europe (Germany, Switzerland & a tiny corner of France -- Chamonix/Mont Blanc). I even created a label about the epic trip so I could link to all posts together here. Last year I barely blogged out trip to Brazil since I didn't have a laptop in which I could download my photos (now I do! It's a work laptop, but I will be using it to blog!), but on that nearly 6 weeks long trip we did two "epic" things, visited Foz do Iguaçu and the Iguaçu/Iguazu Falls (Cataratas do Iguaçu) and spent two short, but marvelous days in Rio de Janeiro.

So, this year didn't begin with grandiose travel plans, except that my brother-in-law K3 who lives in Doha, Qatar (they teach at the American school there), invited the whole family to spend Christmas with them. My mother-in-law decided it would be more exciting if we spent a week in Dubai (United Arab Emirates -- UAE) first, so she booked a few suites there and was planning some outings for us, and then we'd spend a week in Doha. So in the end we were having one major trip in 2017.

In April, I think, my husband decided to go ahead and purchase our tickets to go on the trip. We were flying in and out of Dubai because it was cheaper, and would buy our flight to and from Doha later (it's less than 1 hour flying, and pretty cheap). As you may remember from reading/listening to the news, it turns out that because of the TV channel Al Jazeera and some other disputes, several Arabic countries (UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia & Bahrain) decided on a blockade against Qatar in the early summer, hence completely destroying the plans for our trip.

Of course we were the only ones who had actually bought tickets, so we had to think of alternate plans. United was kind enough to let us switch the flight from Dubai to Doha, Qatar, and also the date, from Christmas from Thanksgiving. I wasn't very happy about this because my thinking is that if you're spending more than 3K on a trip it should be longer than six days, but whatever... In any case, you won't believe what happened! Lufthansa cancelled its Frankfurt Doha flight ENTIRELY back in September. Seriously!! And the annoying customer service people at United kept saying our flight was ok (in spite of us telling them we'd read in the news Lufthansa had announced the cancellation), until they found out it wasn't (DUH!) a week later and called us frantically several times.

In conclusion, we asked for our refund and had to sadly tell our brother-in-law, SIL, nephew and niece that we wouldn't be visiting them after all. :-( I felt sorry for the kids who were looking forward to having guests! We debated going to Europe (our initially desired destination before this whole brouhaha started in April) to meet up with K3, but he bought their tickets to fly here instead, so the whole family will meet up for the holidays (my mother-in-law rented a house in the Poconos, PA, since there are 17 of us. We are hoping to hit a few indoor water-parks there, since we don't know if it will be snowy/cold enough to hit the slopes).

That's all there is about that huge thwarted trip, but there's one more messed up trip (not entirely!), and I hope to blog about that shortly!

Drum-roll!

Path of Totality

We are headed to TN in a few minutes to see the eclipse. We had plans to stay at a friend's house, but it turns out this friend moved to Florida! But we have more friends! Brazilians, particularly those who have a worldwide church network like we do, have friends EVERYWHERE. So I contacted my other friend last night. It turns out she has a farm, in the middle of nowhere, but it's pretty much in the center of the path of totality!!!

My husband the scientist is beyond thrilled! The pre- and post-eclipctic traffic will probably be truly apolcalyptic, but we're doing this anyway. Wish us luck! I'll try to keep you posted. Kids are missing school for this. OK, gotta go!

Week 8: Our very first week at a beach in the U.S. in 21 Years!

In all these 21 years living here we had only been to the beach to spend a few hours or the day. Some of the beaches we'd gone to were: Block Island (RI), Brigantine Beach and Island Beach State Park in NJ (this last one is the one we went to the most, 3-4 times, to spend the day when we lived in Philly -- we even had a wedding there once!), Flagler and Matanzas beaches in FL.

So of course our very first time spending a whole week at the beach had to be in one of the most amazing stretches of coast in the whole country (close to Destin, FL)!! So now we won't want to go to any "blah" places after this. I only took my Nikon DSLR camera to the beach on the next to last afternoon and morning, and took over 4GB of photo then. We also took lots of photos on different cell phones (the best of which was my MIL's iPhone 7 plus), but I don't have those photos in my external hard drive yet.

Here is a selection of some of the beach photos of the last evening and day!

 Evening of 7/6:

 My birthday, 7/7! 

(all these were taken with a 70-300mm zoom lens)

 All 7 kids 3-13:

(15 year old missing, he arrived very late at the beach)

This is what the 15 year old did when he got to the beach:

It was wonderful!

Super-Relaxing Week 7

Preface: I just realized this reads TOTALLY like a "product placement" blog post. This is hilarious because it's been nearly 10 years since I stopped receiving products to review in the blog. The truth is that I'm willing to share links instead of writing down names of places and brands here. 

I'll do weeks 5-6 later, too bad they're pretty stressful/productive. ;-P

Week 7/14 ends today and it was a good week, yay! Some well-deserved R&R.

Sunday was a super-busy day of working on the yard (an extension of our week 6, more on that later), but early on Monday morning we drove down to Florida and... were welcome by a truly fearsome thunderstorm. :-(

We stayed at dear friends' house and left the next morning for Orlando where my mother-in-law had an appointment at a Brazilian bank to open an account (after closing the joint account she had with my father-in-law who passed away last August). We did some shopping after that and had lunch at one of our favorite buffet restaurants before checking into our hotel (we had an offer we couldn't refuse: 3 nights for 100 to go to a time-share presentation) and guess what happened the moment we pulled into the hotel?

Yes, a massive thunderstorm started, massive! This would be the pattern for most of the week and we learned to enjoy the morning and early afternoon at the pool and prepare for the rain later. It was a glorious week, the only downside was sharing a room with the kids, if you know what I mean. I never say that kind of stuff here, but I just read dooce's latest post (should I link? Nah... if you read her you'll understand, if you don't you won't, so it's moot), so I've been "badly influenced." ;-)

I thought I'd have more to say, but apparently not... the time-share presentation (that family members who went through different ones were all joking about and saying they would twist our arms into buying) was painless enough and, because we had a commitment on the next to last morning, we decided not to go to any (ridiculously expensive) parks and it was the best decision ever because the pool and lazy river at the hotel were amazing and we got to fully enjoy them. We grocery shopped and ate two meals (breakfast and either lunch or dinner) at our room and went out to eat once a day.

On Wednesday one of my husband's friends posted a great review of this pizza place on Facebook and lots of other friends commented enthusiastically, so we had to go there! And on Thursday we took the boys for Häagen-Dazs ice cream and some of us ended up eating at Panera (for the second time -- dinner on Monday was there too) -- see, I don't mind mentioning some brands, places, just not all of them! ;-P

I had a couple of outings with my mother-in-law to the grocery store and also the mall and outlet -- the men wanted nothing to do with those places (they did go once, but only because Kelvin needed swim trunks -- he forgot his at home!!) -- and we had a good time, very productive on Thursday, shopping for my sister-in-law M (married to "K4").

My youngest brother-in-law (K4) who lives in Montreal arrived in Orlando late on Thursday night with his two boys. Yesterday, after a last time at the pool and lazy river we drove Northwest to the Florida panhandle where we will spend a week at the beach with my husband's whole family (except one sister-in-law, M). We are already together at a hotel now, having met up with K2 and family (who were at our house and drove down) and K3 who arrived from Qatar with his family on Thursday (they teach at the American school in Doha).

It's lovely to be together, we just miss my father-in-law a lot. More later, hopefully...

14 Weeks of Break

I just realized that there are 14 weeks of break until I go back to work. Well, technically 13 because the first week just ended!

And I just calculated how my year (and my husband's) goes:

17 weeks Spring Semester + 14 of Summer + 17 Fall Semester + 4 Winter Break = 52 weeks.

I like it this way, I just think know I should be more productive each summer. I mean... there are three main kinds of  "productivity" that I'd like to have and which are hard to achieve:
1) get some academic writing done and, possibly, prepare some materials for Fall;
2) get the yard/garden in shape (in spite of the horrible summer heat -- this one is OH SO HARD!)
3) do some home renovations -- paint large portions of the house, renovate the kitchen (pending upon $ for appliances, counter top (granite!)+ sink, floors (probably synthetic again) and back splash (real tiles!), oh, and re-stain the deck -- this one will be done no matter what.

Last, but not least, I want to do a breakdown of the 14 weeks of Summer break -- maybe I can try to figure out how best to plan for the things I'd like or should do.

Week 1: Finished grading on Monday -- HURRAY! I went to the outlet on Tuesday after dropping of a friend at the airport. Had a fun relaxing time & bought at least one important item: ski jacket for my 15 year old at Columbia. Deeply discounted. I exercised, did some volunteering at the elementary school, had friends for lunch yesterday. Watched a movie! Signed up for DVD/Bluray Netflix so I can catch up on movies from the past few years. YES, actual Blurays 'cause you can't stream most movies, I HATE that!!!

Week 2: Scheduled: Party for a friend graduating from medical school today (I have to clean the garage for that); field trip tomorrow; take older kid and friends to movies on Wed. to celebrate last day of school; help with 8th grade graduation Thursday. Watch movies (first this one to prepare for Wednesday).
Tentative Plans: I should start writing an abstract for a paper I'd been solicited (I didn't tell you that, right? yeah! Mixed feelings about it) and work on the house/yard.

Week 3: Scheduled: My youngest turns 13 on Tuesday -- have friends over, plan a surprise (he wants to ride a train, not that easy to plan). Boys start swim team Mon-Th. Youngest will also start French-horn lessons and oldest should start online classes (he wants to do geometry and Spanish 1, I don't know if he'll do it, don't know how much they'd cost).
Tentative Plans: Try to get some things done! Watch more movies.

Week 4: Scheduled: Swim team Mon-Th. evenings; French horn, maybe piano lessons.
Tentative Plans: Get stuff done ;-P Watch movies.

Week 5: Scheduled: Swim team Mon-Th. evenings; French horn, maybe piano lessons.
Tentative Plans: Get stuff done ;-P Watch movies and cancel Nexflix DVD before free trial ends. (LOL!)

Week 6: Scheduled: Swim team Mon-Th. evenings; French horn, maybe piano lessons. Leave for FL on Friday.
Tentative Plans: Get stuff done ;-P Prepare to travel

Week 7: Scheduled: Visit friends in Florida; 3 days in Orlando, drive to Pensacola are
Tentative Plans: Maybe go to one theme park (Islands of Adventure)? Or just relax...

Week 8: Scheduled: Spend week with K's mother and brothers in rental beach house in the Florida Panhandle.
Tentative Plans: Just relax -- celebrate my birthday and my nephew's (same day! --> post I wrote when he was born) for the first time.

Week 9: Scheduled: Visit New Orleans and drive up stopping in Monroeville (of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird fame) and possibly other civil-rights locations, Selma, Montgomery?
Tentative Plans: Visit friends in Tennessee before driving up home.

Week 10: Scheduled: I will teach a private class for six hours a day + 2.5 hours of driving. Resume French horn/piano?
Tentative Plans: Don't think I can handle much more, maybe more movies (ha ha ha!). Ideally, work on the house.

Week 11: Scheduled: same as last week  
Tentative Plans: same

Week 12: Scheduled: Mon-Tue: I go to a workshop on language teaching at a university in DC. Drive to Canada towards the end of the week.
Tentative Plans: try to do whatever is needed before it's too late. ;-P Stop in New England before reaching Canada?

Week 13: Scheduled: Nephew's 3rd birthday party (his first actual party, poor baby -- his brother had several and a huge 1st b-day one) and drive back home. 
Tentative Plans: Maybe a Coldplay concert in Montreal?? (I really want to go!) Stop somewhere fun (NYC?) on the way back.

Week 14: Scheduled: kids start school    
Tentative Plans: get prepared for teaching the following week.

Conclusion: I can only really get some work done on Weeks 4-6 -- scary thought! In any case, if I come up with any more detailed plans for those weeks, I'll let you know. ;-) ;-P