Foto Friday

 St. Louis Arch

 

They may look peaceful. Even cute.

 

Annabelle in the Arch

 

But they are complete terrors.

 

Daniel at the St. Louis City Museum

 

Three and a half hours with  them in a car and two tourist attractions later,  I question why God allowed me to raise 4 children.

 

Because I don’t like them anymore.

 

Max at the top of the St. Louis Arch

 

If I hear one more interpretation of Fat Bastard, have to endure another burp contest in the car with my 85 year old grandmother, or listen to them yell “STOP IT THOMAS!” for the 249th time, someone might get hurt.

 

Thomas in the St. Louis Arch

 

Why do I keep pretending that I like traveling with my children?

 

I always forget to remind myself.  They kind of. Well.  Suck.

 

There, I said it.

 

 

It doesn’t mean I don’t love them.

 

It just means I’m locked in my hotel room right now, venting, because its best for all of us.

 

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Dalai Dan’s Deliverance

A lot of you are wondering how my sweet husband fared with three kids while I was away for 7 days with Dalai T. You also are curious how and why I ended up in the Amazon rainforest.

A quick explanation: a good friend of mine works a lot in Brazil (above in purple) and has many great connections. Her son and my son are in the same 3rd grade class. They spent most of this year studying the rainforest so she came up with the great idea of taking some of the boys on a rainforest adventure with their moms. Sold!

This meant that Dalai Dan would have to fend for himself with the other 3 kids: Max (11), Daniel (6) and Annabelle (5).

Before you give the man too much credit, you have to take into consideration my formula, n-1. Simply put, no matter if you have 2 kids or 8 kids, take one away and it is exponentially easier. And there are usually diminishing returns after one child since then they feel entitled to your focused attention. Jeez.

I got a sense they didn’t miss me much almost immediately. My first interaction was with Dalai Daniel:

“Oh, honey, it is so good to see you – I missed you so much!” I said to him. He is very stoic and not one to say anything too loving, so I was surprised when he said,

“I was SOOOO different when you were gone.” My heart was melting.

“We got to eat junk food all the time!” Well, doesn’t that just warm the heart…

Over the course of the next few hours, I learned that dad is basically a GOD. The Messiah had come for 7 days, saving them from the dark forces of chores, bedtimes, healthy eating and general sound parenting.

1. They ate out for every meal.

2. They stayed up late eating popcorn and watching Modern Family every night.

3. They rotated sleeping with dad.

4. They each got to pick out a toy at the toy store.

5. They got ice cream frequently.

6. They each picked out their own cereal: Coco Krispies, Frosted Flakes, and Captain Crunch.

7. They went to the movies and where encouraged to eat candy.

8. They went to a friends ranch, swam in the creek, and got ticks.

9. They practiced baseball batting at the park to test a new bat and batting gloves.

10. They went to the pool and the Messiah actually got in and swam with them.

How do I even begin to pick up the pieces? I am doomed. Jehovah has given them a taste of the sweet life and now they expect fudge bars and Family Guy.

It’s going to be a long summer…

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We’re going on a cayman hunt, and I’m not afraid…

If you ask the boys what their favorite excursion was, they would all say cayman hunting. Hands down.

Now, when I envisioned cayman hunting, I figured that the creature would be about 4 or 5 feet and would have to be caught with a net or some kind of loop on the end of a stick.

I was completely wrong.

We started in our canoe around 8:30 in the pitch blackness of the night. The sky was lit with thousands of stars as we drove our canoe down the river. Our boat driver had a flashlight that he would shine in the marshy areas, looking for a set of eyes peering above the water. We had to keep silent, which the boys did surprisingly well. The anticipation, energy and a bit of trepidation kept all of us on high alert.

Finally, after about 30 minutes of searching, our boat quieted to a stop.  Did they finally find one?  How was he going to capture it?  We watched with anticipation. And then it happened:  our boat driver, Oilson, dove into the water.

We all about shat in our pants.

Was he going to have to wrestle it with his bare hands?  Would it bite him?  How was he going to pull the beast back in the boat?

Then it all became quite clear:  the 18″ cayman resembled an overgrown lizard. How Oilson even managed to spot the little thing was amazing, let alone dive in with such precision that he managed to grab the little guy.

We drove back the the hotel dock in order to properly examine HER (which I know because they specifically showed us).  I found the photo below quite amusing.  What is the matter with my disturbing imagination?

Finally, Thomas got a chance to hold this ferocious beast, risking life and limb for an unparalleld experience…

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Piranha!

Hello everyone! I’m sorry it has been a couple of days – funny enough, we got great phone and wireless internet at our rainforest hotel, but nothing at our hotel in Manaus (the big city we flew in and out of).

It was actually quite funny to be in the middle of overgrown vines in a wooden canoe fishing for piranhas and hear a cell phone ring. I was too cheap to pay the $2 a minute rate, so my poor family got one “WE ARE ALIVE” text and had to rely on the blog for updates.

These photos don’t give the experience justice. It is so hard to capture vastness of the overgrown vines enveloping you as your canoe weaves through the engorged river. There were times we had to duck as low at the boat to avoid the low hanging branches, scrape between two trees, or drive right through a patch of foliage. And then there were the sounds! Monkeys, birds, frogs, bugs. Between the new sounds and sights, I felt my senses where on high alert, taking it all in.

The boys LOVED piranha fishing. Most of the piranhas we caught were young and small, but they still packed quite a mouth full of teeth!

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No Means No!

There were a lot of photos like the one above.  Long protruding flesh torpedos.

But we got some that look like this.  His beautiful pink underbelly was soft and squishy.

Even though we were in the river and these were wild dolphins, they were used to people.  You could feel them swimming past us, under us, and occasionally poking us.

Thomas (and all the boys, quite frankly) were pretty scared of them, which surprised me.  There was something about the darkness of the water that made the experience more uncertain.

I, frankly, loved them.  The pink river dolphins feel different from the grey dolphins we are used to.  More like soft sponges.

But even though they were WILD, they couldn’t help but put on a show for us. AMAZING!!!! Monkeys: Check. Wild Dolphins: Check. Coming up: piranhas and caymas. This place is incredible!

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Hello Little Monkeys!

Greetings, awesome readers! I’m so sorry I’ve been out of touch! As you may recall, Dalai Dan and I returned from France Saturday, May 21st evening, and only 6 days later Dalai T and I were off to visit the Amazon Rainforest.

To say the turn around was a bit stressful is an understatement. I had barely unpacked my bags before I had to repack them – but with an entirely different set of clothes. Between the laundry, organizing, emails, and various obligations I had put off for 10 days, I also wanted to spend time with my kids. I was about to leave 3 of them AGAIN and that thought was creating a lot of anxiety for me. There were times before I left that my heart was racing so fast I thought I may be experiencing a panic attack!  That is when practicing meditation, deep breathing and acupressure comes in handy 🙂

After a crazy long journey (going to Manaus, Brazil is not easy to do from Kansas City) which included flying from Kansas city to Ft. Lauderdale on Southwest, taking a car to the Miami International Airport, racing to catch our Miami to Sao Paulo flight, flying 8 hours overnight, laying over for 4 hours, taking a 4 hour flight from Sao Paulo to Manaus, waiting for 3 hours for our ferry, then finally taking a 2 hour ferry ride to our rainforest hotel…….we were all a little tired.

Can you tell?  Thomas is about ready to fall asleep on the ferry…

The wind and view perked him up, though…

And when we FINALLY arrived, these little guys greeted us:

Mommy monkeys and there babies were EVERYWHERE!

If we had to go back to Kansas City tomorrow, the trip would have been worth it!  Oh, but there is so much more, like cayman hunting, piranhas fishing, boat riding….I’ll show you it ALL!!!  I love sharing this with you and appreciate you enduring it with me 🙂

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Re-entry Blues

Dalai Dan and I got back from our first real vacation without kids in over 10 years. We got back Saturday night, after our Minneapolis flight was cancelled due to an airport power outage, then our rebooked flight had to abort take off due to mechanical issues, and then finally a new aircraft took us home.

Home sweet home. Or is it?

My body is confused. Confused by the time difference. Confused that it needs to do laundry. Confused that it can’t quietly sit on this balcony –

and see this view.

Everything seems so new here. Where are the medieval arches?

The rocks at home have never been a part of ancient city over 1,000 years old.

After grocery shopping, a honeysuckle arch didn’t signal I was home. Just my dog who wiped her saliva on my shorts.

But, I think the biggest shock to my system is the food. Where are the baguettes with brie and croissants with strawberry jam?

How am I expected to eat without flower pedals delicately adorning my food?

My body is now so used to eating ice cream, it is in a state of shock.  Even vegetables were paired with a dollop of basil sorbet.

Parmesan gelato on an eggplant and truffle tart sitting on stripes of chocolate? That’s just crazy amazing.  No wonder my oatmeal this morning didn’t do much for me.

There was ice cream hidden everywhere.  Even under vanilla froth and violets.

It may take a while to adjust…but I’ll be back soon 🙂

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If I hadn’t gone to France I wouldn’t have known….

1. If you order a coffee, you get a one ounce shot

2. It will cost $10 for your coffee shot

3. Which is cheap compared to the $45, 5-mile cab ride

4. If you grow a Bonsai tree for 15 years, it will look like this…

5. You can see the French Alps from the French Riviera

6. French dogs like to poop on sidewalks. Every 10 feet.

7. French dog owners do not believe in picking up their dog’s poop

8. If you nag enough your husband may buy you a yacht

9. Our Toyota Camry-sized rental car in France is the equivalent to driving a Suburban on a bike path

10. French rental car companies don’t care if you run into pylons if the scrape isn’t too bad

11. I can drink a lot more wine here and still feel great the next day

12. I have amazing readers and I adore you all. Thank you for all the comments and emails! Cheers!

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Côte d’Azur

What would it be like to live here?

Where the streets are narrow.

And may have been in a James Bond chase scene.

Where the best chocolate croissant is just a few stairs up.

And you didn’t have a lawn…

…leading up to your front door.

Would you get tired of your view?

You could always take a walk

just around the corner

to Cap Ferrat.

Crashing waves would put you to sleep.

And just on the other side of the cape…

the boats get bigger

…and the houses up to $400 million.  Brangelina stayed here at Paul Allen’s (Microsoft) home a few Cannes Festivals back.  The economy is doing just fine here.

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Au Revoir, mes lecteurs

We are officially leaving today. It’s too late to turn back now. Carpools have been set up, babysitters hired, grandparents prepared, lists made, and finally, at 11pm, bags packed.

We fly into Nice, France and from there go to Cannes. It is the film festival time so there should be quite a buzz about the town. Beside trying to catch a couple of movies and run into some celebrities (if we are lucky) we plan on taking day trips to Monaco, Antibes and maybe St. Tropez. Send me some good celebrity siting vibes, please, and I’ll be sure to report back to you 🙂

2011 Cannes Film Festival Judges

After Cannes, we head to the Provence region. We are staying in Arles at a little hotel called Hotel Particular. I plan on eating my way through this area and will take lots of mouth-watering pictures.  Screw green smoothies.

Lastly, we head up to Paris for just two days. We probably will avoid the museums since we have both been to paris before, and hit some off the beaten path areas. And eat more.

Who knows how the internet will work. I hope to take lots of pictures and post them, but then I may run into Jude Law and forget all about blogging…I know you’ll understand.

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