Amazed!!!

Apr. 6, 2009

Spring Break, March 2009, Jamaica part 2, the actual trip!!

So we finally arrived at our awesome resort, called FDR. This is our second time staying here--we were here about 4 years ago. Two years ago, we stayed at their sister resort, Pebbles. While both resorts are really nice, I definitely have a preference for the original resort. I think the food is better at FDR and also the adult activities. The children's activities seem pretty good at both resorts, though since FDR is larger, they seem to offer more activities.

The best thing about both resorts is that they are all inclusive, and that included in your all-inclusive price is a vacation nanny. One nanny per family. We have enjoyed our nannies in the past and the one we got this time was no exception. I will admit that they aren't super animated, but they do a good job of escorting the kids around and playing with them and getting them food and drinks. And of course, F, and I loved having the free time to do our things. The great thing about both resorts is that they cater strictly to families, and they are fairly small. Since they are family and locally owned, they carry a distinctive local flavor that one wouldn't get at chain resorts like Beaches or Sandals or what not.

Here are the girls with our vacation nanny, Sherika:

The kids filled their days taking tennis lessons, playing on the beach, playing at the pools, going down the super slide, and doing lots of arts and crafts. We all ate breakfast and lunch together. There was a separate kids' dinner buffet, which the kids really enjoyed with their nanny, while F and I had dinner at the big restaurant in the evenings.

Here is K. eating birthday cake--someone had a birthday during his vacation so everyone got to celebrate!

And more pics of the kids just enjoying the beach and the pool:

The food was really good! We had good Jamaican food every day for most of the meals--bammy, ackee and saltfish, curried goat, rice and peas, jerk chicken, and a lot more that I can't remember. I love the way Jamaicans cook veggies. Just nice and simple with a little butter and slight salt. You can just taste the great flavors of the veggies since they are not cooked to mush. LOL

Here is FQ enjoying a Jamaican treat, a beef patty:

I enjoyed using the fitness center, taking the biking tour, and taking the yoga and aquaerobics classes. The fitness pro there was the same one from 4 years ago and he makes his classes tough! Yoga was a new thing this time, so I took full advantage of it. Again, the classes were good and challenging. I was really impressed because I have taken classes at resorts and on cruise ships and they are usually geared for beginners, since I guess they don't want anyone to pass out during their workouts. LOL They also had daily beach volleyball games for the men and yes. They were competitive, even though they all pretended to be on vacation and relaxing. LOL Of course we spent a lot of time on the beach, just reading, lazing around, swimming and snorkeling.

Right before my yoga class:

And F playing volleyball:

And here we are, taking a stroll on the beautiful beach:

Perhaps the best thing is that F's brother, who still lives in Jamaica, came to visit! Here is F, Aunt T. and all the kids:

Just the big "kids" and little JJ, the baby:

Well, as you can see, we had a great time and will certainly be returning again.

This resort really tops the list for family friendly. I would not recommend it for couples or singles at all, LOL. But for families that want a good locally owned and operated Jamaican resort, this is it!!!

Thanks for reading and sharing!
A.H.

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Apr. 5, 2009

Spring break, March, 2009--Jamaica, pt 1: incompetent airline agents

Posted in Travels

Well, I declared a 2 week spring break just because I could. LOL I love being that aspect of homeschooling. It was actually a big deal for me to do that because I usually try to cram as much school in as possible. But since we were planning to go to Jamaica, I thought we could start early with the Jamaican laid back attitude and just get rested and ready for our trip.

So we were planning to fly out on March 12, a Thursday. We just finished up some stuff from the week before, which wasn't much, just corrections and the like. We did one art lesson, which means that we finally got to lesson 11! I think I have failed in art this year so I will have to get a class or something next year! LOL But we are planning to do a lot of art this summer, to catch up.

But mostly we just played and packed and rested. We had our usual classes.

And the big day finally came. Our flight was at 6AM, which meant that we had ourselves and the kids at the airport by 4AM. I checked us in online the night before, but had to use the "self-service" kiosk to check our bags in. After going through everything--including scanning all our passports (again!), the kiosk told me that I had to see an agent. Fine. I got in the line to see the agent. I smelled a bad rat when I got in line. There were NWA agents and Delta agents and even though their two companies merged, they were not working together. The Delta agent wouldn't help me because our flight was booked through NWA, so after a lot of waiting around, a NWA guy finally checked our bags in for us and we headed toward security. We heard a lot of other customers calling out to the agents, saying that they were told by the kiosk to see an agent, that their flights were in 30 minutes and they had to finish up their check in, that they were disabled and needed to have their seats changed and couldn't do it with the kiosk. And those agents told each and every one of these customers to "go to the kiosk", despite those customers saying, "but we were just there and it told us to see an agent." It was a bad omen.

So we got to our gate after clearing security and the first thing I noticed was the announcement that our flight was delayed for an hour and 45 minutes. This would mean that we would miss our connection that would take us to Montego Bay. I immediately got in line with several other people to get re-routed. The Delta agent who handled this was very professional and efficiently and clearly the best employee from both airlines. She announced that she would do her best to re-route everyone, but that anyone with a cell phone should get it out and call the NWA 800 reservations number to re-route themselves. Honestly, this is what I should have done. But since I was at the front of the line, I let her try to re-route us. She couldn't, from her computer. She said we had to go back to the ticketing counter, that she thought their computers would pull up more flights for us. So we went back to the ticketing counter.

This was the worst thing we could have done. Remember those incompetent agents from both NWA and Delta who did not want to work and kept telling people to use the kiosk even though the kiosk wasn't really working? Yep. Same folks. So the NWA agent spent nearly 2 hours on the phone, trying to find a flight for us. We told him we were willing to fly out of the 3 other major international airports that were within a 250 mile radius. I am not kidding--we stood there for nearly 2 hours with this guy while he used his computer and tried calling every major airline, trying to get us out to Jamaica. At one point, he had us re-routed to an airport in TN, where we would spend the night. We would then take a flight early Friday morning from TN to GA, then GA to Montego Bay. We could leave Jamaica one day later (Wednesday instead of Tuesday) so we could still have a 5 day vacation. We figured this was fine and that we could just call the resort in Jamaica and have them push our reservations back a day. So we waited for 30 more minutes for this agent to get that set up for us.

After 30 minutes of watching him be put on hold on the phone, he finally hung up the phone and told us, "we can't do it. There is no flight this week that will get you to Jamaica." We were speechless. No flight at all? At this point, we were tired and upset and so we just had them get our checked luggage from the plane and they did. We gathered up our children and started to drive home. It was about 8AM, and we had been at the airport for 4 hours.

We decided to pick up breakfast at Waffle House on the way home to make up somewhat for this horrendous morning. As we were driving, I started thinking. How can it be possible in 2009 not to find a flight at all that would take us to Jamaica? It cannot be possible. Anyone could take a flight to any major city, then to another major city, etc., until one finally landed at the final destination. So while waiting for our Waffle House food, I called my best friend and vented the whole story to her. She also could not believe it and was at her computer, so she went to Travelocity and requested 6 tickets to Jamaica from our city and/or any one of the major airports near us. She got several hits. Of course. The NWA agent just got tired of working for us and gave up and thought we didn't know anything about traveling.

So when we got home, after eating and getting the poor children into bed for a nap, I went to my computer and found the same thing my friend found. Numerous flights leaving either that day or the next day, all arriving in Jamaica. I called that 800 reservations number for NWA, talked to a very competent person, and told her what happened.

And here is the clincher. She told me that we were indeed already booked on that flight from TN to GA, and GA to Jamaica--all the next day. These were the flights that that agent was working on getting for us. Apparently he had done it but had no clue that he had done it. In addition, he had also managed to book the return flights for the Wednesday instead of Tuesday, but again, had no clue that he had done it. So the only thing, the reservations agent said, was to get us from our city to TN. However, she noted that there was a flight for later tonight leaving a major airport that was 90 miles from our city to GA, so she just put us on that flight. We would stay the night in GA and fly out the next day from GA to Jamaica.

So we all took a nice 3 hour nap, then woke up and drove the 90 miles to the other airport and finally flew out to GA. The Delta and NWA agents there were completely competent and everything went smoothly. As God would have it, we have several very good friends who live in GA, so one of them put us up for the night. In fact, it was great to visit with them, as they are my hubby's childhood friends from Jamaica.

The next morning, we flew out without incident to Montego Bay. Finally.

The good that came out of this: visiting with our friends in GA. They are cool folks! They had attended the 2008 Beijing Olympics and want to go to World Cup in South Africa in 2010. So...we are totally hooking up with them!!! We really want to go. We'll see what comes of that, but the seeds have been planted.

More later,
A.H.

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Jan. 4, 2009

November field trips

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This past November, our family took a really neat field trip. There was this great outdoor dinosaur exhibit in our city, so we had to check it out. It was at the botanical gardens, so we got to see that too. We had a really nice time.

These were the cute butterfly benches at the entrance:

And on to the dinosaurs. Unfortunately, I don't have the brochure with me, and there is no way I'd remember which dinosaurs these are, so--sorry.

I am pretty sure this is one of the T. Rex class ones:

Some birdlike ones in their nests.

I remember the park ranger saying that these had some turkey related name.

Stegasaurus?

Another T. Rex class, I believe:

A. in front of an herbivore:

Velociraptor?

The "chubby" looking one is the herbivore, the mean looking one is the carnivore:

Resting at the end:

It was a beautiful autumn day as well. Wonderful trip.

We also went to the George Washington Carver Museum on another November day.

FQ is still camera shy but at least he's in the pic:

K. and A. under a display of GWC's life:

In the lobby:

Part of the children's exhibit:

Maybe one of them will be on this "Wall of Inventors" one day:

The museum was small but neat. It had been here for years and I had never heard of it! My friend who doesn't even live here asked me about it. So my advice to everyone is--check out all the museums in your city! You'll probably find a nice small one that is free or charges very little! This one was free.

That was it for our November excursions!!!

God bless,
A.H.

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Oct. 10, 2008

Travels, Aug 2008, Part Four--Vienna

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We left Prague in good spirits and headed on a train to Vienna. It is so amazing to travel from country to country this way!

Our first day, we spent at Schonbrunn Palace. This was the Habsburg's summer palace, and indeed, it was
magnificent.

This was the entrance:

We took a really nice tour of the palace--the Grand Tour, where we saw 40 rooms. The tour took us through the apartments of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth, through the central wing with the ceremonial and state rooms and into the east wing. We saw the splendid audience chamber of Maria Theresa and Emperor Franz Stephan. It was very impressive. We couldn't take photos inside, but it was really splendid.

Outside the palace, we walked through the Privy Garden:

Also on the grounds, there was a really neat labyrinth structure and a little park with lots of cool games.

This is F, figuring out the labyrinth:

And the kids, playing on one of the structures in the park:

My little futbol player found a little ball there and started to do his thing:

We also stumbled our way through the Maze, though we don't have any pictures of that.

So after that, there was a very long walk up this tall hill, up to this structure called Glorietta. Here is a picture of Glorietta. We were in the Privy Garden when we took this pic, but you can see Glorietta. It is the structure that is in the background:

We finally got to the top!!!

You can see Schonbrunn Palace in the background here:

Afterwards, we got to see the Court Bakery. The baker there did a streudel making demonstration. While I will definitely be buying streudel instead of making it, the demo was a lot of fun.

We found out that there was a nightly performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute, in marionette form. Well, we couldn't pass that up!! So we stayed on and watched another breathtaking marionette show. This show was different from the one we saw in Prague in that the style was totally different. The skill level was the same--we were captivated by the puppets, but the set and costumes were more formal looking.

After the show, they let the kids go backstage and meet some of the puppets and their puppeteers:

A truly special day and night.

The next day, we went to visit Stephansplatz. The main attraction here was Stephansdom, which was so vast, there was no way to capture it with our amateur cameras. We tried though:

We did the tour inside, which was just huge. Good thing they let us take photos.

Here are various chapels and tombs:

L. and A. taking a rest at some benches:

The big organ, the top part:

And the bottom part:

I thought this staircase was interesting.

And some of the detail on the staircase rail:

After lunch, we went to Karlsplatz. No photos inside, but here I am outside:

That night, Aunt J. and I went to the Hotel Sacher, where we feasted on the original Sacher Torte. It wasn't anything special, but the view of the State Opera House at night was great!

It was also very nice to hear strains of whatever opera was playing while we drank Viennese coffee and had our tortes. Very nice finish to a great day.

Our last day in Vienna, we spent at the Imperial Palace, aka Hofburg Palace. Hofburg Palace was the political center of the Habsburgs' monarchy.

This was at the entrance. The palace was again, too enormous for our cameras.

We did the Hofburg tour, which included a tour of the Habsburgs' silver collection (okay can I say that this was not very interesting to me? I don't really care about silverware, even if emperors and empresses ate with them), a tour of the Imperial apartments, and the Sisi museum. I knew I would like the Imperial apartments, since I love imagining how royalty lived. I wasn't initially interested in the Sisi museum at all. Empress Elisabeth was depicted as a somewhat vain and selfish woman during our tour of Schonbrunn Palace, so I didn't really care to see a whole museum dedicated to her. But it was included in our tour, and I am very glad it was. Poor Sisi. The tour was every educational. Empress Elisabeth, or Sisi, as she was known as, struggled with depression for much of her life after she married Franz Joseph. The imperial life just wasn't for her, but she was trapped in it and could not get out. Her journals revealed her despair and sadness for much of her life, and I left feeling very sad for this poor lovely woman.

In the afternoon, we went to see the Vienna Boys Choir. This was a spectacular show:

And we caught some of the boys coming out of the concert hall after the show:

Aren't they just adorable!!

That night, we saw the famous Lipizaner horses at the Spanish Riding School. This was cool because we had read a book from our SL Core 2 called White Stallion of Lipizza, and now we get to see these actual horses.

This show was great, but unfortunately, A. has an allergy to horses! Or at least to something in that show. It is weird because she went to K's horse show earlier in the summer, where she was surrounded by horses and she didn't have any problems. But about 5 minutes into this show, she began wheezing, coughing, tearing and finally broke out in hives. F. and I took turns going outside with her, so we only got to see bits and pieces of the show. Poor A. didn't see any of it. Thank God she recovered within 10 minutes of leaving the show! At any rate, the other children got to see all of the show and enjoyed it. No photos of the horses were allowed, but we did manage to get a few shots in the lobby. Just in case you were wondering, these were murals on the wall. LOL

Well that concludes our time in Vienna. What a wonderful summer we had--starting at Las Vegas, going through Destin, gym camp, Guanajuato, NYC, Prague and ending in Vienna. Whew! Well these are all field trips that I highly recommend! But we'll be resting at home for a while now. LOL

Hope you enjoyed!
A.H.

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Oct. 10, 2008

Travels, Aug 2008, Part Three--Prague

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We left NYC in the evening and had a pleasant overnight flight to Prague, Czech Republic. British Airways is a great airline! Very family friendly--they had children's movies and children's music to choose from, and children's meals, which they served before they served the adults. Very nice! The girls also enjoyed the goodie bags that the flight attendants gave them, full of crayons, a book, and an activity book. They also liked the little toiletries bag that every passenger had--that eye mask thing, travel toothbrush with a tiny tube of toothpaste, socks, airline headphones, and a blankie. I loved that they seated us all together. You don't get that anymore on US airlines! At least not for free!

Prague has a reputation for being one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and it lives up to its reputation. What a gorgeous, well preserved city! It is apparently one of the benefits of surrendering quickly after being attacked--many original buildings are still standing today. We met up with our Aunt J. there.

Our first day, we visited the Old Town. This first picture shows the Astronomical Clock in the background:

With Aunt J.:

We then walked over to Charles Bridge:

This is the arch at the entrance of the Bridge:

And some great views from the Bridge:

And a pic on the Bridge itself--there were many statues there:

Everything was so gorgeous--it was really hard to capture it with pictures.

The next day we went to Prague Castle. This complex is vast, so we could only take bits and pieces. Also, in most of the buildings, we were prohibited from taking photos.

St. Vitas Cathedral, in Prague Castle was the big highlight. This cathedral was breathtaking. There were numerous chapels on the side of the church, all with a different theme, all with different windows and paintings on the walls, and scultures or tombs. K is standing in front of a particularly nice window:

There was a very cute little section in Prague Castle called the Golden Lane, which was a small street with little shops:

Down the hill from Prague Castle is a little area called Mala Strana, which was very quaint. Here is a pic of K in front of what we called a Pinnochio store:

And here we are just walking around there:

That evening, we attended a classical music concerto. It was wonderful, as we expected, being in the midst of all this culture.

Our last full day, we went to the Old Jewish Quarter. This area of Prague is very upscale. The Czech Jews have done very well here in Prague, in spite of their history of persecution.

We visited numerous synagogues, including the Spanish Synagogue, Pinkas Synagogue, Klausen Synagogue, and Old New Synagogue. Again, we were prohibited from taking photos, so we don't have a lot to show.

Here is a pic of the New Jewish Synagogue (not the Old-New Synagogue). This synagogue wasn't actually in the Jewish Quarter, but several streets from it, near our hotel.

Here are some pictures of the Old Jewish Cemetery (which is in Jewish Quarter):

Jews were buried one on top of each other here, as there was no real place for them to bury their dead. The whole tour of the synagogues and especially the cemetery was very somber. Jews in this area suffered as did all Jews from the Nazi occupation, and the weight of that horrible part of history fills the atmosphere everywhere you go.

That evening, we went to see a marionette show--Mozart's Don Giovanni. What a special treat! Prague is known for its fantastic marionette shows, and we were super impressed. The marionettes were beautiful--great costumes, lots of attention to detail. But the most amazing thing was that after a while, you almost forgot that these were not humans performing this opera, but puppets! The puppeteers had the marionettes shaking their heads, moving their arms around, and even making their chins bob, just as if they were humans performing opera. I didn't understand a word of the opera, nor did I know what was going on in the story, but it didn't matter! Merely watching this incredible skill and listening to the magic of Mozart's music was spellbinding enough.

Mozart, in marionette form:

Various characters:

That was it for our Prague trip. We had a really nice time and Prague is truly a charm. Foodwise, we tried local fare including fried cheese, wiener schnitzel, goulash, and lots of potatoes.

Oh--to my surprise, I was informed that there is a large Vietnamese community in Prague. In fact, the owner of the little corner grocery store where we bought our breakfast every day was Vietnamese. Who would have thought?

So--anyway, I highly recommend Prague as a European destination. Very kid and family friendly!

God bless,
A.H.

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Oct. 10, 2008

Travels, Aug 2008, Part Two--NYC, Manhattan

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Well, there is no way I could go to NYC and not visit Manhattan. Manhattan is one of my most favorite places in the world. I wish I could live there, but it's too far from family, too cold for my hubby, and the hs laws are so much stricter than where we currently live!

So I have to visit often to get my fill. We only had one day to play here so we tried to do as much as we could. I decided that we would try walking up Fifth Avenue. We took the subway into Manhattan from Queens and got off at 42nd and Fifth Avenue.

Our first stop was at the NY Public Library. Visit a library on vacation? Of course, when it's as cool as this one!!

Here we are outside the entrance, next to one of the Library lions (I don't know if it's Patience or Fortitude--I'm thinking the latter):

We saw a lot of really neat things inside--great paintings and murals on the walls and a really nice exhibit of NYC housing throughout the ages. We weren't allowed to take photos though, so I don't have any to show. But visiting this cool library is a great free activity!

Further north on Fifth Avenue, we walked past St. Patrick's cathedral:

I wish my camera did indoor shots better--this picture does not do this beautiful church justice! Another fine free activity.

The American Girl store is at 57th St. and Fifth Ave., so of course we had to go inside there. I just forgot to take pictures but if you can imagine about 100 shrieking 6-11 year old girls from all different races and walks of life, then you have the picture. This could be a free activity if you are a very strong person and your girls don't care about American Girl. Needless to say, this ended up not being a free activity for us.

And last but not least, our final destination of the day--a must for all fans of Apple Computer, Inc:

The Cube store!!!

Here are my little Mac users, in training:

We ended our day with dinner at a quaint Italian restaurant and then treating the kids at Dylan's Candy Bar. Umm...this was not a free activity for us either. But it was a very yummy activity!

The next day, we decided to stay in Queens, partly because we had never really gone to any other borough, and partly because our flight to Europe was later that day and we wanted to stay close.

Here we are in Corona Park, very near the entrance of the US Open. The structure in the background is called the Unisphere:

Ahem...no offense to Queens folks out there but Corona Park isn't as exciting as Central Park. Of course, we didn't visit the science museum there nor the zoo, so I guess my comparison is unfair. Anyway, an overall relaxing day and a good way to end our short trip to NYC. Oh--Corona Park is free too unless you want to go to the aforementioned zoo and science museum.

Stay tuned for part 3!

Stay joyful!
A.H.

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Oct. 10, 2008

Travels, Aug 2008, Part One, NYC--US Open

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After a very interesting flight, we arrived at our hotel in Flushing, NY, all ready to go to the US Open. We have never been to a Grand Slam tournament before, so we didn't know what to expect.

It was quite an experience. The tournament is set up in a very cool way. There is the Arthur Ashe stadium, where the really big names play. Then there are 2 smaller stadiums where the pretty big names play. Then there are about 18 "lower" courts where everyone else in the tournament plays. These are very casual, with open seating in bleachers.

There were 2 types of tickets--regular general admission, which got you into every court except Arthur Ashe, and general admission with Arthur Ashe. We had tickets for the Arthur Ashe stadium for the first day only, but we had a blast watching matches in all the other stadiums.

You generally get to hop all over the whole grounds--you can come and go to any match as you please. They do only let people in and out between serves, so as not to disturb the players. So it was really neat to be able to see a lot of players, both unknowns and big names.

Anyway--on to the pics.

Here are F and K enjoying a match on a lower court:

Good thing I brought sketchbooks and crayons for the younger kiddos:

An unfocused shot of the 2008 Women's US Open champion from our nosebleed seats:

Does everyone know that Venus and Serena were both homeschooled?

We caught tennis legend John McEnroe practicing on one of the practice courts:

Lexus was one of the sponsors and caught us as we were leaving the first day:

Overall, it was just a total blast. I was more surprised than anyone because I am such a passive tennis fan. My family loved tennis and so I watched many Grand Slam tournaments on and off as I was growing up. When I left home for college, I figured that would be the end of my tennis viewing days--I was definitely not interested enough in it to watch on my own. As God would have it, I married a former nationally ranked tennis player, so I continued watching tournaments on TV on and off. I didn't figure that I would enjoy being here at the US Open so much. I guess I just love live sports. I love sharing the excitement with the other fans, being surrounded by the whole "culture" of the sport, and just seeing the players--whether they are unknown or have celebrity status--giving it their all.

The kids enjoyed it too, I think. They liked watching women's doubles the best. FQ enjoyed climbing up and down the bleachers best. Overall, we had enough fun to think about attending all of the Grand Slams. Big dreams, eh?

God bless,
A.H.

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Oct. 9, 2008

Traveling miracles

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Our flight to NYC was quite disastrous at first. We had to use a specific airline because we had credit with them. The departing city was not our city, but a city about 100 miles south. And we had a very bad experience with the airport in this city the last time we were there (waited in the security line for well over 45 min.) so we decided to leave very early.

Turns out the airport must have fixed it's security line problem because we managed to arrive, check in, and get through security in 30 min. So we had over 2 full hours to wait until our scheduled flight. No biggie, we thought. Then we find out that there is a huge storm in our connecting city. First we're told that we would still catch our connecting flight, since all flights out of that airport were delayed. Two hours later, we are told that we would not make our connecting filght, and that in fact, they could not fly us out until tomorrow morning!

That was not acceptable--our tickets for the US Open were for tomorrow morning. We would essentially miss all of the first day. After a lot of talking and fussing with the agent, we finally get a later flight to the connecting city. We were going to just fly up there first, stay with a friend, and then catch the first flight out to Newark instead of LaGuardia, our original arrival airport.

We would still miss the morning matches but at least we could maybe catch some afternoon ones. This was the best we were going to be able to do. Our bags were checked to LaGuardia, so we would have to figure out a way to get to LGA from EWR, no easy feat.

We had to wait another hour and a half before going to our new flight, making it 6 hours that we've been at the airport. During this time, I cancel our reservation at our NYC hotel for tonight, while F makes plans with our friend in the connecting city. Finally we get on the plane and arrive at the connecting city.

As we are getting out of the gate, I heard an agent at the gate across the hallway announce, "final boarding call to LaGuardia". It's for the same airline, going to NYC LaGuardia. As we walked away, headed for the airport exit where our friend was going to pick us up, I said, half joking to F, "I should try to see if we can get on that flight."

Then I stopped and said, "hey--we should try to get on that flight!" F agreed, so I went to the desk near the gate and asked. I told the agent that I knew it was a long shot--after all, there were 6 of us. She looked at our family and said, "wait." Well--that was a lot better than "no", so we waited.

We waited for 25 minutes while she makes more "final boarding" calls, and during this time, she lets on 3 stand by passengers who were there before us. She continued playing with the computer, making more "final boarding" calls, and then said, "okay--I have 6 seats for you, hurry, get on." WOW!

While we're getting settled, I called the hotel again to reinstate our original reservation, all the time wondering where we would stay if our reservation was gone. The line was cut off while I was put on hold. We were ready to take off so I couldn't call back. So the whole flight, I worried about where we would stay--getting a hotel room in NYC with a reservation is expensive enough. How much worse would it be to get a last minute room?

But God pulled through for us again. At midnight, over 15 hours after we had left our house, we arrived at LGA with our bags and our hotel room waiting for us. How amazing was that?! We even found a Chinese restaurant that delivered delicious food to our room at 2AM.

We've had some crazy traveling/airport stories, but this was one of the best. For me, it is yet another reminder that: 1) we are never in control--He always is; 2) He works things out even better than we thought we could, and 3) His timing is always perfect. After all, the agent across the hall was just announcing one of her many final boarding calls to NYC LGA just as we were walking out of our gate. A minute sooner or later and we would have missed her announcement and gone right out of the airport. And really--how likely is it to find 6 empty seats on a plane where there were numerous delays departing from that city and everyone is trying to get out??? I had already accepted the fact that we were going to spend the night in the connecting city and miss most of our first day at the US Open. What a blessing to be given back that day.

Our trip turned out to be a lot of fun! And our flight back home was mercifully uneventful. Thanks again, God!

Praising His name,
A.H.

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Jul. 27, 2008

Travels--July 2008, part 4, Guanajuato, Mexico

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Immediately after gym camp, we headed for our annual Spanish immersion school experience, this year to beautiful Guanajuato, Mexico. This was our first trip into interior Mexico. We had only been to Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, and small cities near the border.

Guanajuato is a gorgeous, well preserved colonial city. It has a beautiful, pristine feel and it is surrounded by some beautiful mountains.

Our host family was wonderful. They had a great house with a fantastic view of the city. Here I am on their unfinished terrace, with the city in the background:

In the historical center of the city, there is a really nice garden, called Jardin de Union, that is flanked by trees cut into a square(ish). You can see it in the background:

We took a cable car up to see this famous statue called Pipila:

Another shot of the girls and the back of FQ's head, near the statue:

We also took a tour of some mines:

At one point in the tour, they shut off all the lights to show us what the miners experienced when they worked there. It was truly sad, to listen to the stories of enslaved humans forced to work far down in the earth with poor lighting and poor ventilation, carrying large loads on their backs. Miners didn't live more than 5 or so years after they started working in the mines. (Sorry for the downer.)

On our one free weekend, we took a tour to San Miguel de Allende. On the way there, we got to visit the tomb of Jose Alfredo Jimenez:

By far the most interesting looking tomb I have ever seen!!!

Unfortunately, we didn't spend much time in San Miguel de Allende, but fortunately, it looks suspiciously like many of the other colonial towns we have seen:

Spanish school was nice. This was the first school that had more students than just us! There were about 50 or so of them! The only negative was that due to that, we didn't get a true immersion experience. So many of the students spoke English to one another, which frustrated me greatly. We're supposed to be immersed! So after a week in the school, we put the girls in a Mexican summer program, where they got to play with local Mexican children and had non-English speaking teachers. There was no formal Spanish instruction, but immersion is instruction enough!

Our classes were also really nice--I got to take 3 literature classes and one Mexican politics class. Those were my first classes taught in Spanish. I now have a great appreciation for Juan Rulfo and Julio Cortazar.

Did I mention our host family was wonderful? They lived at the top of this great high hill, which was a challenging climb (but great exercise!). They had 8 grandchildren, and we met them all. The grandchildren were wonderful and played with FQ when we were all at school.

They served us delicious Mexican food, including chicharrones in tacos, mole, and pozole. Yummmmy!

The girls did so well with the trip. They are getting better and better at adapting to different countries and different cultures. It only took one day for them to remember not to put the toilet paper in the toilet.

They also ate really well--they tried just about everything! They are just sweet little travelers.

So again, we would highly recommend an immersion experience for learning a foreign language. I would recommend going during the school year, though, and not during the summer, unless you contacted the school ahead of time and verified that you would be one of the few students. However, even if you have to go in the summer, it is still a wonderful way to learn another language.

The school we went to was called Escuela Mexicana. The teachers and director were great to work with!

So now we are back in the US, recovering and awaiting our next trip--to Europe this time.

God bless,
AH

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Jul. 27, 2008

Travels--July 2008, part 3, Gymnastics camp

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Our next trip was a short trip north to attend gymnastics camp. All the girls had a great time. K's camp was for competitive gymnasts and she got to have some world class coaching! She had a blast and made lots of friends.

Here she is with 2007 Junior National champion Rebecca Bross:

And here is 2004 Olympic all around champion Carly Patterson signing K's leo and posing with her:

And finally, K also got to meet 2008 Olympic team member, Nastia Liukin (with A looking on):

The competitive camp included an ice cream/swim party, bowling night, and a trip to a nearby waterpark. Here is K with a friend she met during camp:

The rest of us got to go to the park too--it was a great day! The kids all got to play with yet another aunt:

This is one of my favorite shots--FQ coming down the slide:

A and L's gym camp was also a lot of fun!

We can all say that if the girls are still doing gym next year, they'll be going to camp again!!!

What a great experience!

God bless,
AH

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Jul. 27, 2008

Travels--June 2008, part 2, Destin, FL

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After the shows, we already had to start packing for our next trip, Destin, FL. We had never been there before but we will most likely be coming back! It was a blast. We got to see a lot of family and some old friends.

FQ with Uncle M:

K with her aunt:

And yet, more family! Here we are with both my brothers and their wives:

FQ working out the sand shovel:

The girls having fun:

We also got to see some wonderful friends. Our children all got along wonderfully:

FQ was dangerous with that hose!

I am sorry to say we didn't get any pics of our kids on the waverunner, fishing, or roasting marshmallows, but they did do all of that and had a really wonderful time.

Destin is a beautiful, small and family friendly vacation spot, if anyone is interested!
http://www.destinfl.com/
http://www.cityofdestin.com/

Next stop--gymnastics camp!!

AH

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Jul. 27, 2008

Travels--June 2008, part 1, Las Vegas

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We have been very busy so far this summer! We finished up our core and took a break--a little too long of one, I think. But then we started traveling and haven't really stopped!

Our first trip this summer was to Las Vegas! We went to a friend's wedding. We did manage to find some nice kid/family friendly things to do.

We found the M&M World and had a nice afternoon there:

The kids also liked the fake Eiffel Tower at Paris Hotel:

And the dancing fountains at the Bellagio:

We had a meal at Quark's at the Star Trek experience. Here we are with a Vulcan:

I think the best thing there was the Aquarium at Mandalay Bay hotel:

And last but not least, the main event was our good friend's wedding:

It wasn't too terribly hot but nice enough for the kids to spend a lot of time in the hotel pool.

We headed home to finish up with a few things--that will be in the next post.

God bless,
AH

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Oct. 31, 2007

Field trips!

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Last week, we went to visit a botanical garden in our city. This garden's theme is natural plants and flowers. We had a great time! The last time we were here was when K. had her 5th birthday party. It has been a long time. The weather was perfect, with clear blue skies and only 70 degrees F. Here are some of our pics from that trip.

Oh well, I'm not nearly as good of a photographer as K.

But I try. LOL

A.H.

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Sep. 22, 2007

Back from Peru!!! 9/22/07

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Well hello everyone!! We are back from Peru. We have been back for about 2 weeks but it has taken me a long time to recover and I'm still not fully recovered!!!

But we had a great time. I will be posting the girls' journal entries soon, but I thought I would post some pictures of our adventures.

We stayed with 2 host families. Usually you only get one family but our first family had a dispute with the school over prices and we ended up having to move in with another family. I was saddened by the move initially but the second family turned out to be wonderful! We really enjoyed our time with them. This is a pic of the kids with Senora Rut., the host mother of the second family we stayed with. She was super sweet!!!

We also enjoyed our classes and our teachers. This school was very informal, unlike the school in Ecuador. Both my classes and F.'s classes were conducted while we walked with our profs! We just chatted about life and our profs would correct our Spanish as we went along. This was really good for me, as I really just need the practice. Also, my prof used a book of anecdotes as conversation topics and this was really good for me. We got to discuss more profound topics and we touched on Christianity quite a bit.

Here are our hosts and teachers, from the left, Senor Hernand, host father of our second family, Keyni, F's teacher, Aiely, L.'s teacher, and my teacher, Mercedes
.

Here are, from the left, Emy, FQ's nanny, Maria Soledad, K and A's teacher, and Senora Rut.

And all of our teachers together!!

During the week, we went to various places in Cusco, various museums and churches. The Plaza de Armas was their main square where all the interesting things happen. This was where most tourists are noted to be hanging out. Here is L., standing in the Plaza, with the main Cathedral in the background. The Cathedral was beautiful inside!

On the weekends, we made a few excursions. The first weekend, of course, we went to Machu Picchu. BEAUTIFUL is all I have to say. I was very impressed that K. remembered tidbits of information about the Incans from our study of the ancient Incans earlier this school year. She remembered stuff I had totally forgotten. That was really neat. Machu Picchu was gorgeous but I think the kids got tired from the hard hiking and climbing. However, they were truly great sports, wonderful troopers. They are really just the best travelers. Everyone was impressed that we took 4 children, including a baby, to the ruins.

Here are several pics of Machu Picchu:

This pic shows real Incan terraces in the background. This was one of their means of agriculture. The Incans were amazing farmers--they were able to grow much more varieties of potatoes and corn back then than we can today!

I believe this shows the peak of Machu Picchu in the background.

Our family taking a breather:

The structure on the right in the back is the Temple of the Sun:

Our beautiful girls goofing around:

And since my babywearing days are numbered, I must add this pic:

More random pics:

We really wanted to climb all the way to the top here but it was too much work for us...next time!

Our lovely L.:

The second weekend, we did 2 excursions. The first day, we went to see the 5 ruins near Cusco. The first, Santo Domingo, or Qorikancha, is in Cusco proper. It used to be lined with gold, all around the gates, but the Spanish invaded and plundered it. Dominican monks built their church around the ruins, but preserved a lot of the original walls, and so the whole church/ruins were really impressive to look at.

Here is the courtyard at Santo Domingo/Qorikancha:

We got a shot with some weavers sitting outside of Santo Domingo/Qorikancha:

Afterwards, we moved onto some ruins just outside of Cusco. The first one we saw was Saqsaywaman, and it was gorgeous! I was really impressed! We did have to hike through a cave that included 15 ft. of walking in total darkness. Here is a pic of A. right before her walk in the darkness:

After the cave, we were able to walk around Saqsaywaman:

We had to take a pic of the typical Incan doorway--it was trapezoid in shape as this proved to be more stable, especially in earthquakes.

And finally, a pic of F and I with an aerial view of Cusco in the background. We were at the top of Saqsaywaman:

The second day of this weekend, we did an excursion of the Sacred Valley. I really enjoyed this trip, but it was a long hard day and the kids were really tired from our excursion the day before. Also, F. got a little ill, so we don't have a lot of pics at all.

But we went to Pisac, the city, Pisac the ruins, Urubamba for lunch, Ollantaytambo, the ruins, and Chinchero, the ruins and market. I absolutely loved the ruins at Pisac, but the climb was incredibly hard. The footpaths were treacherous--about a sidewalk wide, but with a cliff on the edge! It was also very high--Pisac was built as a hilltop citadel. At any rate, here is one pic of us on the way up to the top at Pisac:

Here is a pic of a 12 sided Incan stone, in the San Blas neighborhood in Cusco:

One of the things that I thought was so cool about Cusco was that there were many buildings built on top of or added to original Incan walls. Here is a pic of a street with buildings with Incan walls on one side and colonial architecture on the other:

Okay I believe those are the most interesting of all our pics. We had a blast and hope to come back when our children are a little older. They will be able to handle the long, high climbs up the ruins. Peru is a gorgeous country, one of the prettiest I have seen!

Our school in Cusco was called Caminate School.

More later,
God bless,
A.H.

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Aug. 4, 2007

Why we travel

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One thing you may have noticed is that our family travels a lot.

Why do we travel so much? Of course we have the usual reasons: to see different places and experience different cultures, to meet different people, to learn or experience different languages.

But the more I travel, the more I realize that there are so many more lessons that we learn from traveling. Traveling has really allowed me to see God's power and more importantly, His provision. I have seen again and again how His plans are always perfect, and His timing is always right. This is always such a good thing for me to remember, as I am a recovering control freak and type A personality!!!!

I will start to include some of the lessons we have learned on our trips, and in particular, stories about how God has gotten us out of a lot of trouble and shown us again, who is really in control. I hope you'll enjoy them!

In His grip,
A.H.

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About Me

HELLO!!! This blog is a place for us to publish some of our children's work and just to journal our amazing educational journey.