Adventure Mom

Christmas didn't Suck - and I'm okay with that At "home" in Gordon, NSW, Australia It's 9 p.m. Sydney time, and we've nearly survived our first Christmas without Sean. Actually, we did better than survive. We - dare I write this - enjoyed ourselves. Part of the reason is I expected Christmas would suck. No one who loses a loved one makes it through their first Christmas without crumbling into a heap, do they? And if they don't crumble, they're fooling themselves, right? I disagree on both points for 2 reasons 1: We had a pretty rotten holiday last year. We spent part of it in the hospital: 2 kids, 3 adults and 1 convalescent (Sean). The kids, Fiona and Finley, repeatedly lowered and elevated Sean's bed, then played with the TV remote. My job was keeping them somewhat in control, and ferrying Sean in a triple-wide wheelchair (the only one a nurse could find) through the elevator doors and maze of hallways to the cafeteria. Not easy when you...

Mac Attack Oct. 25, 2010 Club Mac, near Porto Alcudia, Majorca, Spain Macky the Mascot at Club Mac's Mini Disco Gabriella dancing to Michael Jackson's "Dirty Diana" Water too cold to swim Fiona gets her hair braided at the Alcudia market Scattering Sean's ashes at Cap Formentor Chelsea and Finley at Alcudia's Roman ruins Lunch in Pollenta Sangria and The Full Monty I'm drunk. Let's get that out of the way. Something about all-you-can-drink Sangria will do that to you. I'm in an alternate universe on the island of Majorca, Spain, called Club Mac. It's one of those all-inclusive resorts. I'd never been to an all-inclusive before, unless you count the 3-night Royal Caribbean cruise Sean and I took from Los Angeles to Ensenada, Mexico, a couple months before Fiona was born. This place is...like vacationing in Liverpool, England, or Stoke-on-Something. Imagine the cast of "The Full Monty," only with at leas...

Dingle All the Way I love Ireland. Yeah, who doesn't, especially after 3 pints of cider in a single evening? I wasn't sure about the affair after nearly a week on the road – a week of driving on the left-hand side down lanes skinnier than driveways outside many American homes; a week of winding our way from the top of the Emerald Isle to the Southwest, a week of way-finding and "How much for a family room?" and "If I don't get away from these kids [uh, Finley] soon, I will lose my mind." Yeah, there's all that. Then, there's tonight. A night that probably shouldn't have been mine. I asked Chelsea to take the kids back to the B&B so I could check out a pub I'd read about in a guide book; one I liked mostly for its name: Dick Mack's. Somewhere I read an ad that said, "Where is Dick Mack's? Across the street from the church. Where's the church? Across the street from Dick Mack's." It's a former shoeshi...

Lost and Found (Perdu et Trouvee) Paris Edition -Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves (Henry David Thoreau) Dawn and Fiona at the Luxembourg Gardens Now, that's Talent I have a peculiar talent for losings things. Like journals, documents, jackets, husbands and human remains. It happens. I may have to accept the fact that unless (and even if) I create a master inventory list for our journey of what we have and where it is, I will continue to leave behind a trail of stuff (and even if a husband were on the list, well, you know...). My new yardstick (or metric stick, depending on where we are) for putting each loss into perspective is this: "Are the kids okay? Alrighty, then, let's move on..." Who's Exaggerating? Except, I still lose my mind sometimes. When Sean was in the hospital with the so-called "flesh-eating" bacteria last fall, he underwent an extensive skin graft on his legs: Doctors removed about a foot of skin fro...

The $80 Omelette, Bird Stomach Salad and Other True Tales about Eating in Paris C'est Tres Cher (It's very expensive) If you've been to New York City, or know someone who has, you know how expensive everything, including food, can be. The $12 hot dog, the $25 hamburger... Outrageous, right? Well, Paris is much like NYC. With an attitude. And an accent. What's more, dragging around 2 small children in the City of Light makes dining more challenging... to your patience and your wallet. My dad's wife, Kathe, has 3 Paris guidebooks, all dog-eared and bookmarked, filled with suggestions about where to enjoy French food without blowing up your credit card (unless you want to, and in that case, at least you've been forewarned before eating at someplace like La Tour d'Argent , which translates to the Silver Tower). We're staying at an apartment near grocery chain Carrefour , so we have easy means re-stock our kitchen and eat cheaply. But dining out (which ...

Premier Jour a Paris – First Day in Paris Happy Birthday to Me  Sunday, September 5, 2010 We linked up with my Dad and his wife, Kathe, at the Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris. Our flights had landed simultaneously, ours from Miami, theirs from Atlanta. We saw them at baggage claim, trudging forward with a cart stacked high with luggage (hmmm... they're obviously not traveling for a year, are they? Too much stuff...) A taxi driver with a full-sized van eagerly whisked us away, 40 minutes to the city center, charging about $130 for the journey. Bienvenue a Paris, tout le monde (Welcome to Paris, everyone). It was a precursor of prices to come: C'est tres, tres cher (it's very, very expensive). [and for you sticklers, no, I can't figure out how to produce the accent for French vowels on my netbook :)] Even after a night locked in a metal tube with Finley The Merciless, I was excited to be in the City of Light. "Are we going to La Tour Eiffel?...

Arrival in Paris - Savage Skies Being here is heaven. Getting here was hell. My singer-songwriter friend, Cheryl, wrote on my Facebook wall that the previous 2 lines would make a great title for a country song. Agreed. I should've known the kids (er, Finley, to be precise) would have issues long before we boarded the Air France flight at Miami International Airport. Fiona and Finley were like rampaging savages up and down the concourse. They ran circles around an information sign. Finley, despite repeated warnings not to swing an open bag of animal crackers, whipped them side to side, sending lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) skittling onto the tile floor. When I insisted he pick up every last cracker and deposit them in the trash, he and Fiona made a game of seeing who could sprint to the garbage first. I took both kids to the ladies' room as part of our pre-flight preparations, and Finn knocked the soap dispenser clean off the wall (pun intended) into a waste bin. Do I s...

Do "Thee" Have Church There? -Sunday, August 29th Port St. Lucie, Florida I told my kids, Fiona and Finley (ages 6 and soon-to-be-5), we were going to church. Fiona asked, "Are we going home to Spokane?" I told her, "No, they have church here in Florida, too." "Oh," said Finley, "Do thee [they] have church in every world?" Yes. "Africa, too?" Uh-huh. "New Zealand?" Yes, they do. While I don't know much about the denomination I've grown up in (The Episcopal Church in the U.S., part of the Anglican Church worldwide), I do know you can find this particular version of church in nearly every country. According to Wikipedia: "...With over eighty million members the Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church." That means the kids and I should be able to find old and familiar just about anywhere, even thou...

  Welcome to your travels - Garden of the Gods, CO Springs, CO Dateline: Santa Fe, New Mexico At an inn near the Plaza If I have to hear Finley talk about farts or perform them one more time, I'll scream. Okay, I already have. The kid needs to get a grip. If he doesn't expand his conversation skills, I'll never marry him off. Potty talk aside, the Grand Southwest Adventure is going... well, it's going. Really, it IS going well. I couldn't ask for a better travel companion than my friend, Shelby. She's a U.S. Air Force pilot (now in the Reserves) and mom to 4-year-old Luke and John, who's nearly 2. She's organized without being rigid. Major Shelby casually mentioned "ops checking" equipment before the trip, as only someone with a military background could. She has a folder full of Google directions, a bag of AAA guides and maps, plus coolers of snacks and containers of kid toys. It makes for a packed, well-stocked Subaru Outback. The kid...

Ash Saturday at Camp Some neighbors ask to borrow an egg, cup of milk, or sugar. I recently asked my neighbor for a tablespoon of ashes. Sean's ashes. I'd meant to pack them for family camp on Lake Coeur d'Alene. Camp Cross http://www.campcross.org/ was the last place Sean and I brought the kids together before he got sick. It's where we've spent every 4th of July (and many Labor Days) since 2005, when Fiona was a not-quite-walking toddler, and Finley was a (large) bump in my belly. We've canoed, changed diapers, sang songs, picked up children after they've rolled off cots onto the cabin floor, eaten s'mores, packed the kids on our backs, and savored grown-up moments alone (with help from other parents and staff). Camp is a place to disconnect from the chores of home and reconnect with each other and with the kind of relationship with God you only find outside. Unfinished Business I wanted to sprinkle part ...

Pisa, Italy, 2008 When you’ve seen, felt, even smelled how quickly life as most of us know it can unwind, the phrase, “life is short,” isn’t cliché or abstract, it’s real. So if you’ve ever had a wish or wild hair, you know the time to act is now. That’s why I’m planning to take a big “time out” to travel with the kids. The plan: travel internationally for about a year. World Experience Travel, and opening our door to people from other countries, was part of Sean’s life and mine before we met. I lived in Luxembourg as a high school exchange student for a year, and stayed in the Grand Duchy again for 6 months while in college. Sean hosted a German exchange student, Max, before we met. Together, we hosted a Swiss student, Angi, before we had kids. Anne, also from Switzerland, nannied for us for half a year after Fiona and Finley came along. Sean and I sent ourselves on a belated 3-week honeymoon to Europe in 2001, then to St. Lucia in 2003. After Fiona arrived in 2004, when s...