First Day of School 2013 - Escuela del Mundo

The kids started their second year this morning at Escuela del Mundo, aka the "Hippie Jungle School".  A few butterflies for sure but they charged right into their classroom just like they always do.  This year Alex and Trace will share a classroom as Trace has moved up into "Taller 1" that accommodates first through third graders.  Taller 1 also has a new teacher and assistant this year which is certainly creating a buzz amongst the parents.  Last year, the classroom situation in Taller 1 was less than adequate and the school has made some positive changes in our children's class as well as advances throughout the school.  The school has downsized a bit, made some staffing changes, sent teaching staff off for additional Montessori training in the offseason, purchase new equipment and recruited a real Montessori trained professional and an assistant.  The overall objective in preparation for this year, as I understand it, was to get smaller and increase quality so that the school can slowly grow again and keep to the Montessori vision the school intended when it began.

2013

2012

2011

Will all these changes be good for our kids and the school?  This is yet to be seen and only time will tell but we are excited about the possibilities for the school year.  Meeting new families has already begun and we look forward to seeing old friends coming back this fall.

One question does remain at the end of the day for me.  "If today was such a big day for the niños, then why am I the one who's totally exhausted"?

Summer Adventures, Part 4

Park City

The final push and my most anticipated visit is underway.  The only way to get from Columbia to Salt Lake City on Delta is to first fly to Atlanta.  After that you pretty much hope, pray and get very creative as to how you are going to get to Salt Lake.  The flights did not look good the day before which means that the day of would be horrible.  One thing that all airline employees just cannot figure out is that you can go to bed at 11:00 pm and the flight you want to take the next morning looks decent,  meaning there are enough seats available and you have a good chance of getting on.  You wake up at 5:00 am to check your flight again and it is oversold by up to 20 seats some times.  Aren't people supposed to be sleeping in the middle of the night?  Who is buying all of these tickets?  It totally screws us.  Columbia is about one hour away from Charlotte, NC's airport, major hub for USAirways.  I checked on the flight from Charlotte to SLC, on Delta  and it looked so good that I decided we would take a shuttle from Columbia to Charlotte.  Avoid Atlanta,  wahoo.  We get to the airport in Charlotte and guess what?  Yep, the flight got full over night.  I was frieking a little but luckily there were flights to Detroit and Minneapolis we could get on as a back up.
But...once again the Delta gods were in our favor and we got on and even got seats together.  Aspen Lane here we come.

So happy to be on the plane and sitting together

The main reason for this stop was to get our house ready for new renters and I wanted to liquidate all of our belongings.  When we moved to Mexico we really didn't know if it would work out or how long we would stay so we packed everything we owned and put it in our detached  one car garage.  We filled the garage so full that you couldn't even walk in it.
Since we have decided to stay we don't need or want all of that "stuff", ie, material goods.
The kids and I arrived Saturday morning at around 11 am and I hit the ground running,  tearing through the garage.  Omg, we had so much, but when it was all in the house it didn't seem like we had a lot. I worked all day Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and finally by Tuesday I felt like I had made progress.  I was organizing, moving, throwing away, recycling, deciding what to keep, what to take back to Mexico.  I was in over my head but I had been wanting to do this for two years.  I had a deadline for Thursday because I was having a garage sale on Friday and Saturday.  With Ozzy's help I managed to separate out our lives, putting memoirs, books, camping gear, a few items of winter clothing and kitchen gear in our 10x10 shed that is behind our garage, everything else went back into the garage and on display for the two day sale.  So the garage was jam packed and we had all of the large stuff in the driveway and it was filled as well.

 It was such a break for me to have the garage and being able to leave everything in the driveway for three nights without having to worry about anyone taking anything, so all I had to do was show up when the sale started which was Friday at 11 am because I had to take Ozzy to the airport in the morning.(That is another oh shit non rev story).  People started showing up at 9.  Someone even came the night before and bought a ton of stuff.  The sale did awesome on Friday, the neighbors couldn't believe all of the traffic.  Even Saturday did well, stragglers were buying tons of little things that you wouldn't think anyone would want.  Our neighborhood is tough for garage sales so I was shocked at the traffic, and so grateful because I needed to move everything.

Going

Going

GONE!!!!

Done and done, our material lives now belong to other people, we have half of a shed of what we deem important and maybe necessary in the future.

This is all we have left in the USA, camping gear, memoirs, books, tools to fix the house and kitchen necessities

And of course a house with furniture that is being enjoyed by three awesome thirty something's, at least we hope they are awesome.  They seemed like good people.  Just about everything sold and what didn't was donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Not much left

 And now the garage is empty and available to the renters for all of their gear. And Ozzy and I feel like we took a huge dump.  I feel so light right now.  Going through all that stuff I asked Ozzy at one point how did we pay for all of this stuff?  This is what we spent our hard earned money on?  I am not knocking material goods, we are just in a different place now, and living in Mexico has really contributed to us learning that we can live with very little.  That just being together and happy (with surf) is all we need.

Alex and Trace had a complete blast being back in the hood.  Our part time neighbor, Ray was in town with his grand kids, Elaina, 6 and Angel 9ish, and Berkley and Misha who live up the street and the kids have known since birth. Also, Lilly from across the street would join in the fun. The six kids went hard core every day from about 9 until 9, riding bikes borrowed from our other neighbors, running around in a pack, going from house to house, playing, eating, watching movies, playing on computers and jungle gyms.  I have to thank Mike, Lilly's dad, for helping Trace learn to ride the bike again. Alex and Trace did go to camp from 9-1 Monday thru Thursday but immediately came back to join the gang.  Ray was awesome and took them to free concerts and the local pool, Corrie and her mom Abigale stayed outside with them to make sure they were okay, and Erin and Tyson took Trace in when he had had enough and needed peace and quiet.  I would literally not see them all day unless they came screaming into the driveway on their bikes.  I feel so badly that I could not contribute to the care taking of the kids as I had originally planned.  Thank you neighbors for being the awesome people that you are and have always been.

The "gang" in Ray's driveway

At Emily and Chad's for a BBQ

Newpark music concert, yes that is gum in all of their mouths

Charlie's angels. Charlie decided to join in this picture

We did manage to squeeze in a birthday party for Alex on Tuesday night.  All of the hood came and we had pizza, cake and of course, a piñata.  I don't think she even noticed that we never gave her a birthday present.

Thank you Carrie for the cake

Alex going after the Pinata

Hugh Hefner, Jr. going after the Pinata and daddy being very brave .  Just check out how close the bat is to him

Ozzy's good friend Lampe and his beautiful baby daughter Vivian.  If you look up perfect in the dictionary her picture will be there

The girls playing with one of Alex's gifts, a barbie that can you can dye her hair

Thank you so much to Erin and Tyson for taking us in when there were not softball games, birthday parties or neighborhood BBQ's.  Thank you for loving my children and thank you for keeping the Don Julio and wine flowing as well as the food.  Tyson even gave Trace his first Kite Surfing lesson.  Oh shit!  Trace is psyched to continue and will get his first water lesson when Erin and Tyson come to visit soon.  Bucerias here we come.  Good thing Tyson is going to be Trace's sponsor:)

Trace's first lesson with his sponsor

So, after the garage sale I had to concentrate on cleaning the house for the new renters.  Our previous renters left the house in amazing shape and I thought it would take me two hours max to clean it.  Wrong.  It took me eight hours to clean the top floor, which is the largest and main floor and includes the kitchen.  I vacuumed wood beams, moved appliances, washed windows, cleaned floor boards, vacuumed nooks and crannies.  I don't think the house had been that clean since we left two years ago.

Thank goodness the kids were done and decided to sleep in to let me get started on the cleaning.

Nothing better than a cold basement with a heavy down comforter for the perfect nights sleep

Monday was Dr. appointment day.  My good friend Carrie took the kids while I had to get to an appointment in south Salt Lake.  I don't think they minded a bit.  Pancakes and a visit to Tracey Aviary to see some cool birds.

They love their Aunt Carrie

Okay, the party is over, the summer adventures have come to an end, families have been visited, awesome times have been had, our material life has been liquidated and home rented, now for the most dreaded part of the whole trip.  How in the hell do we get back to Mexico in time for us to sit standby, get the kids home and me make it back to Atlanta in time to work on Saturday?  If you remember the other posts all of the flights were great, standby worked in our favor every time.  That just doesn't happen so I knew that this last and most important flight(s) would be a shit show.  I didn't start looking until Monday how the loads looked.  There is no reason to look too early.  I narrowed it down to two choices:  fly US Air thru Phoenix and on to Puerto Vallarta or fly Delta thru Los Angeles and on to Puerto Vallarta.  I had to stay on the same airline for both flights because I was checking two very large bags.  There wasn't time to get bags and recheck especially if it would also involve a train or bus ride to another concourse.  What to do? Take my chances and pick the least expensive route or pay more  and maybe not get on.  Actually neither choice looked very good.  I chose Delta!   Because the flight from SLC to LAX looked better and it was much less expensive and because Carrie suggested I just go with Delta. She is an airline person and travels a ton and just has good karma.  The kids and I get to the airport on Tuesday and the flight did not break down.  In other words it did not oversell in the middle of the night.  We got on!  Wahoo.  I think we got the last three seats.  We were not able to sit together but the kids handled it like mature adults and knew that at any time in our adventures we may not be able to sit together.  I even got kudos from the man sitting beside Trace.  He told me that I had a great travel partner.  The flight was late leaving SLC and we only had 45 minutes to make our connection to PVR. Which was one of my concerns when I was deciding which route to travel in the first place. Not a problem if we are on time, our connecting flight is in the same concourse AND if the agent does not close the door 15 minutes early because all of the paying passengers are on board.  So, we were late leaving SLC, arrived on time BUT sat on the tarmac for 15 minutes before being towed to the gate.  Starting to get nervous. We are at 30 minutes with 15 minutes to get our bags and get to the next gate IF they close the door early.  Finally, we are towed to the gate, we get off and run to our next gate which is in the same concourse, yeah!!  We get our boarding passes and BAM!!  Not only did we make it to the gate on time and not only are their seats available but we get First Class seats!  BAM!  This was the first time the kids have sat in first class and they were full of questions like, why do we get to sit here, why are the seats so big, we get food? Why haven't we sat here before?  The second we sit down and get settled they close the door, 15 MINUTES EARLY.  So close, we were so close to missing the flight.  I had already planned on Guadalajara as a back up so I knew we would at least get into Mexico.
Ahhh, we are on our way home,  I was so sure that these last few flights were going to be a nightmare.  I did my homework, picked a good day to travel, hoped, prayed and listened to Carrie.  Thank you once again Delta gods!!!  It is unheard of that we have had such good luck non reving during the summer.  Thank you Delta gods!!!

Trace is so excited, actually he could have cared less where he sat

Alex looking like she does this all the time

MMM, lunch, with a hot towel and linen.  Notice my beverage in the fore ground.  I think the flight attendant was trying to get me hammered.

Alex enjoying her lunch

We made it!  A whirl wind tour, non reving, visiting family, parties, liquidating.  We are home and it is so good to be back.  I think the kids are happy as well.  What a wonderful summer though! Unforgettable!! Thank you everyone for taking care of the Mexicans, loving us, feeding us, lodging us, and just dealing with us!  We love you all!!!!!!!!

Back home!

Summer Adventures, Part 3

South Carolina

So we all ventured to BWI bright and very early on Wednesday morning.  Ozzy going to Park City, the kids and myself heading to South Carolina.  All of our flights were great, we got on with no problem, even going thru Atlanta with rain.  I haven't back home for at least two years so it was nice to get back and spend time with my parents.  And the kids loved spending time with Grammy and Grampy.  We were there a very short time, only two full days but it was enough time to visit and relax.

Transferring finches to a larger cage that the Alex helped Grampy build.  Alex loved these little guys and girl.

Playing at the park of my elementary school.

Going for a ride on the lawn mower

Trace is a wild driver 

Having lunch with Hiatt at my favorite deli, Grouchos

A little birthday celebration for Alex

Trace and Pemmit.  The kids had a blast with mom's dogs

 Next and final stop, Park City  to meet up with Ozzy and take care of business at our house.

Summer Adventures, Part 2

Grandpa Art's 80th birthday celebration

Ozzy and the kids made it to Pennsylvania without a hitch.  They bought plane tickets for this segment.  As I mentioned earlier, Ozzy would have been dead meat if he missed this celebration so everyone agreed that guaranteed seats would be the best bet. I arrived Friday evening after work.  On Saturday we all drove down to Annapolis,  Maryland to a beautiful house right on the Chesepeake Bay.  It was nice to be on the water again.

So there were 17 family members in all staying under one roof in this great house. Some of us were meeting each other for the first time, others hadn't seen each other for many many years.  What a great week Carol, aka Bee Bah, aka Ozzy's mom, aka Art's wife, had planned. 

The first day we took a sailboat ride to the Bay Bridge on the Woodland I.  The weather was beautiful and made for a fantastic day asea.  The kids were allowed to steer the boat which was fun.  Alex just happened to be at the helm when it was time to turn around to go back.  She did a great job turning us around,  good thing she is strong as an ox.

Alex steering the boat

The kids hoisting one of the sails

Trace sharing his time with the ladies, again

We ended a great day with dinner at the famous Mike's restaurant. and birthday cake at the house.

The birthday boy

 On Monday, Carol arranged for a private tour of the United States Naval Academy.  I found it to be an amazing institution.  Beautiful architecture, very manicured, tons of history.

A view of the Naval Academy from our sailboat ride

Alex as John Paul Jones

Bancroft Hall

Dahlgren Hall

Alex and Trace met more of their cousins and they hit it off so well even with the age differences.  Trace and Elias were best buds.  Trace was Elias's shadow.  We loved watching them do "boy stuff" together.  He LOVED his girl cousins in Houston, but he was ready for some rough and tough boy time.

Trace and Elias

Trace, Elias and Alex

Walking hand in hand at the Naval Academy.

Elias and Trace hanging tight on the sailboat

All the cousins.  Elias, Trace, Catherine, Alex and Esme

The whole week was awesome but the best was bringing the family together to celebrate Grandpa Art.

On the beautiful front porch

Trace with Elias's family

Bee Bah and Alex 

Ozzy and his mom

Our last evening together 

So another adventure comes to an end.  It was a wonderful week full of family, fun and food.  Thank you so much Bee Bah!

Next up South Carolina to visit my parents, and Ozzy is off to Park City to get the house ready to rent again.  So up and early to the Baltimore airport to sit standby and hopefully all get to where we need to be without hassle.