Our regular routine

I don’t think that I am suffering from nostalgia for the road- o.k. maybe a little. The thing that I really miss is the time we spent together as a family. I miss spending all day with Dean and the kids. It wasn’t always perfect; there were times when I longed to have a minute to myself. But it was so real. We learned to communicate with each other through crazy problems, stress and just the logistics of traveling through so many countries. People have asked us how we coped with the logistics of traveling together for so long. The truth is that logistics is what we do at home. When we are at home we typically spend so much time managing mealtimes, schoolwork, extra curricular activities, mowing lawn, friends and just telling the kids what to do. During our travels we spent so much time exploring together, learning about places that none of us knew about. We had time to talk through problems and disagreements. We had time to just hang out and enjoy each others company and learn a little bit more about each other as people. These are things that cannot survive at home in their entirety. There is too much competition. There is too much to do like school, work, and friends.

But since returning home I have noticed a few changes. With the memory of our trip, a living example, we can reach for each other more easily, we have developed a better way to live our regular life. A way that has more time to sit down and talk, more time to laugh, more time to be a family. It doesn’t really matter where we are. The spirit of the trip will never be far from our hearts.

As I sit here in remembrance of our trip. I still amaze at the strength of our kids. They seemed to be the same kids from home, but as we were hiking for 5 hours up and down mountains in 35 degree heat or traveling for 12 hours in a day carrying our heavy backpacks, they took it all in stride. When I would have expected Miranda to say her legs were tired from walking she kept up. Which if you have ever walked beside Dean you would know that that is not an easy feat. When I expected Colton to be bored he picked up a book and read. When I expected them to say they wouldn’t try a particular type of food. They tried it and thought it was their favorite. We knew Colton and Miranda have always been unique and amazing and once again this proved true.