Houston Questival.

We are in it to win it and having a blast!!

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@cotopaxi

@gearforgood

Questival in Austin....such a blast!!
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Signing off...

   Well, this is it! Tonight I pack up my computer so we can add it to the sea shipment headed back to the USA in the next week or so. It seems like so long ago that I decided to start a blog so that our families and friends back home in the US could see that we were OK.  What started out as a 12 month adventure to South Korea turned into a 5+ year journey that allowed us to meet so many incredible people, explore 12 countries, and experience many cultures. We left home with a 3 and 5 year old who were still in pre-school and we're returning home with a middle schooler! Did that just happen?!? Did Sasha pretty much totally miss experiencing elementary school in her own country? A lot can happen in 5 years...
   If you're still with us, (Hi Mom!) thanks for hanging out, reading about our adventures, and laughing and crying with us. It's been a trip and I am glad that we'll have this blog to look back and help us remember all the trouble we got into, especially early on! This seems like the perfect place to end it. I'm REALLY hoping that our lives in the next few years will be mostly un-blogworthy. We want to settle back in, be normal, explore our own country for a change, and just chill. Doesn't really make for a thrilling read does it?
  Can't wait to spend less time on social media and more time face to face with all of you. Shoot - I'll even settle for a phone call in a similar time zone! Thanks for all the support, the comments, and the laughs... I never felt alone no matter how far away we were because I always had all of you on the other end of this thing.
Love and hugs,
-M

The Top 10 Things I will miss about South Africa

From the home office in Port Elizabeth, South Africa here are the top 10 things I WILL miss about SA.
Here we go:

#10: School uniforms! Not so much when they're a 3 piece suit... that just causes stress, but a comfortable collared shirt and track suit? Amen, YES! There's a lot of stress and drama on "civvies day" over what to wear and I'm not looking forward to that being the norm every day. School Uniforms ROCK!

#9: Sardinia Bay Beach: taking my dog for a walk or run on a pristine beach with no structures in sight is a rare and unique experience. I will miss it SO much!

#8: The whole gang at Results Fitness. LOVE this crew! Such a great bunch of people. Such a great, well-balanced approach to fitness. There were so many times that Jeff was away and they were my only adult conversation in the day. I promise you, this gang has kept me sane!

#7:Wooli's: I know, I know, I'm going to miss a grocery store! But it's so darn easy to get good quality meat and produce here in SA. On the whole, their food chain is much more natural, local and legit than our food chain back in the US. Getting grass-fed beef or game meat is easy and inexpensive and their veggies and fruit are awesome. I will have to pay much more for the same thing very soon I fear...

#6: The Grass Roof. Love having this place just down the road

#5: Eating out. And getting AMAZING food for so little money. I don't know how the restaurants here stay in business, but I will miss them!

#4: The Baviaaanskloof. I added an extra "a". 'Cuz why not? I love this place... it's out in the middle of nowhere, full of beauty, and everyone there helps each other. If the Zombies had landed while I was here it was my bug out location FO SHO...

#3: Having a lemon tree right in my back-yard. So awesome and so convenient!

#2: Amazing animal encounters. There have been so many, I can't pick a favorite, but I do know that I never want to go to the Zoo again ever.

#1: These ladies!

So that's it South Africa... know that you will be missed!

Top 10 things I will NOT miss about SA....

From the home office in Port Elizabeth, South Africa here are the top 10 things I will NOT miss about SA.
Here we go...

#10: People that honk their horns at me because I am letting a mother and her child cross the road in front of my car. In a crosswalk. During a commute where there's bumper to bumper traffic and had I NOT stopped we all would have made it about 50 more feet before having to stop anyway. It's called Karma people...

#9: The absolutely meaningless and wrong use of the phrase "so long". This should be used if and only if: 1.)You're part of the cast of the Sound of Music. 2.) You're casually saying good-bye. But South Africans randomly stick this phrase into the middle of seemingly ANY sentence and it drives me nuts.
"Can I get you some water so long?"
"Have a seat so long"
 "Oh look! A Zebra so long"
Why people, why?

#8: Two words: LOAD. SHEDDING.

#7: South African Playgrounds. Rusty, irresponsible, unmaintained death-traps all on top of poured concrete slabs. Great way to get rid of unwanted kids and pretend it was an accident. OY!

You don't want to fall off these swings:

 Unmagical:

#6: The great Store Scavenger Hunt. No idea why they do this, but in any SA shopping center, they proudly display all the names of the shops in the center but none of the names correspond to the actual locations of those shops in ANY WAY. There will be a sign that says "Woolworths Foods" right over the stationary store. They're basically saying "There's a Wooli's here SOMEWHERE. Good luck finding it."

 Pick and Pay is like a mile away on far end of this shopping center. But the sign's on this end....

#5: Great service. Until it's time to leave... and then you'll sit for days trying to find your server to get the check. This happens EVERY time we go out to eat. No one has explained the concept of turning tables for increased revenue. It's painful......

 #4: Gorgeous countryside all around me that I can't explore on my own because it's unsafe. For a hiking, mtn biking, nature lover, it's torture...

#3: Speaking of safety, totally done sleeping in "The ZONE". This is an area of the house where all windows and doors have iron bars over them. We then lock the iron gate of the zone so that if anyone breaks in at night (hopefully) they can't get to us. Also totally done having conversations like "Hey we shouldn't put the Christmas presents under the tree... we should keep them locked in the zone so if there's a break-in we don't lose 'em all..." OVER IT.

#2: Planning my routes around town to avoid the intersections where the panhandlers accost me. Because some of them get mad when I don't give them coins EVERY DAY and they knock at my windows and the dog freaks out and it's just epic. So I plan each outing like a military insertion to avoid certain places at certain times of day.

and the NUMBER ONE thing I will NOT miss about SA:
#1: The Kitchen At La Provence! It rains inside and outside the fridge, when it's humid the thing pees all over the floor, the pots fall into the stove which doesn't light by itself, 2 out of 4 burners work, only 1 of 3 ovens work, there's no dishwasher, the plugs are super sketchy, there's giant rodents (and sometimes monkeys!) competing with me for the food supply, and none of my appliances work without a transformer. Can't wait to kiss it good-bye!

  Pots falling into the stove:

Honorable mention goes out to:
1.) These suckers:

2.) Songs sung in Afrikaans. Seriously, there should be a law against singing in any language with deep gutteral throat-clearing noises....

It's gettin' REAL!

After 3+ weeks of intensive efforts we are finally nailing things down! We have a date for our air shipment, pack and load dates for our sea shipment, flights for the kids and I, flights for the pets, and an apartment to move into once we get to Texas. I even have the apartment number! We get to move into our new place May 1 so until then we will be in corporate housing....
The pets are ready to fly!

 We put a lot of thought into where we wanted to be with our new home and we were able to use the very, VERY different experiences of South Korea and South Africa to figure it out. In SK we lived in a small apartment in the middle of a vibrant community. In South Africa we lived a bit outside of town in a beautiful older home on acreage. We have always thought of ourselves as country people and given the choice I would have always said that we would choose acreage over a small yard in the 'burbs, but when we sat down and talked it all over we realized that we were much happier in the small apartment in Korea, surrounded by wonderful friends and activities! There was very little upkeep and maintenance so we really got to enjoy our weekends and we were able to walk to a lot of places. In SA I feel like I LIVE in my car, shuttling kids to and from school, activities, and playdates, and it's really lonely only getting together with friends once or twice a week. So... here is the new CHEZ STOLASZ!

 It's a one-story, which is new for us, much smaller than our last TX house which I am excited about, and right in the middle of everything! The best part is that for the next 9 years, the kids are a 5 minute walk from middle school and high school! Ted's elementary is a bike ride away or he can take the bus from about 4 houses down. THE BUS!!! Wow... We're right on the edge of a big park, and a 5 min walk from the big community center of Cinco Ranch. The kids can take their bikes to swim team, art lessons, even the orthodontist! So excited to spend more time walking and less time in the car.

Our neighborhood is super-tight, full of kids and they have already welcomed us to their facebook group. It's one of those places where everyone looks out for one another, pet sitting, kid sitting, and celebrating holidays together. Absolutely cannot WAIT to land and start exploring this area. It seems so weird to have a house that I haven't seen yet. 2.5 weeks to go!

Finishing What We Started

 So if you remember back in December we had an awesome adventure on the Shipwreck trail. BUT we missed out on doing the paddle leg due to epic winds... we had to be shuttled in and out from the Lilypad hut. Well in February we got to go back up the coast, do the paddle and officially complete the trail!

We started out girls with the girls and I had an awesome paddle partner! We had 8kms to go upriver but the wind was at our backs which was much more important than the current. We made pretty good headway. And then it got harder to paddle all of a sudden...

 Those darned boys snuck up on us from behind and tied themselves to our canoe! We were giving them quite a nice tow! We paddled for about and hour and then stopped for lunch on the banks of the river. It was a little too chilly to swim, but the sun was out and the day was getting nicer by the hour.

 After lunch we switched it up and I got to paddle with Ted for a while. Our 2 canoes had a blast racing each other up the river, which was getting narrower and narrower!

Finally it got a little too narrow. We had hit the take out point. We walk from here! We schlepped all our stuff instead of slack-packing this time, but it was only 4k's to the shelter and only one night so our packs weren't too heavy.

 And it was my birthday! Couldn't think of a better place to spend it. We had ostrich k'bobs,  grilled veggies and some really nice wine (well the adults did anyway...)

 That night we walked to the game blind by the dam to see what creatures were around. This guy met us in the road!

Hello there! Giraffes scare me. Did you know that most lions will not hunt them because they can kill a lion with one kick to the head? Yeah... tough giraffes. When I see them in the wild I'm like "nice giraffe.... sweet giraffe..." as I back sloowly away!

 My camping project... because you always have to make something you forgot to bring. We had no fire tongs. One piece of supple wood, a well-placed stone, some hair elastics and voila! Tongs baby!

 Family pic before leaving. We were sad to go knowing we probably won't see this place again. We had an awesome morning and nice breakfast in the trees.

 And Teddy found the bone he forgot to take with him last time! Cool souvenir of the Shipwreck trail... He looked like a character from Jurassic Park hiking out with that thing!

 On our way back to the river we saw a big herd of Zebra that stampeded away. And then we came around the corner and saw this guy sitting on the trail!

Well hello there! He was nice enough to get up and stroll out of our way. You always want to be careful when you have to get around big grazers. Those horns are for real!

 The wind was heading right at us on our way out and we had to stop to take frequent rests. We made it more than halfway and stopped for lunch and a nice swim.

The last 2 k's were nuts! We were paddling as hard as we possibly could and barely moving forward the wind was so strong!! Finally we hit a sand bar and Jeff and I jumped out and we just towed the canoes the last half a kilometer up the river. It was easier than paddling! Whatever works right? What a great way to spend the weekend though... such a nice paddle and it was great to finish the trail!

Back to SA

 We got home from our trip at 9:30 pm Monday night and school started the next day! We were tired, but our excitement for the new school year overruled it. I now have a 4th and 6th grader! How did THAT happen?!? The crazy thing is that this is a first day of school that they get to experience twice as they will also start 4th and 6th grade in September. It's like some crazy wormhole in space or something!

New classroom, new diary!

 We missed our friends over the break!

 Nothing like discovering that your desk is next to your bestie's on the first day of school!

 Sasha got right back into riding:

 And we were all reunited with a very important family member. She was glad to be back in her co-pilot's seat!

 Bad habits alert... one day I couldn't find her any where. Went up to the bedroom and here she was. She looked at me like "WHAT?!? This is where people sleep!"

 Sasha and I made Max a cat tent so that he wouldn't feel left out. He totally digs it...

Life in Africa section: So there's this company called Eskom that is responsible for power. Apparently they have screwed things up majorly and there's not enough electricity now. So we have something called "load shedding". You lose power for 2 hours at a different time each day if it's phase 1 or 2 and you lose power for up to 4 hours if it's a phase 3 day. So you're constantly checking the schedule and tying to work your life around no electricity. At our house it seems to go off most frequently 6pm-8 or 8-10. Just when you are trying to cook dinner or get homework done on the computer. Oy!

Kids are both swimming for summer sport. There is this herd of ducks that has claimed the pool though and they are quite put off everyday when they get booted out of the pool to make way for practice. They stand there like coaches. I tell ya, you haven't been coached in swimming until you've been duck-coached...

So the kids swim to the other end and the Ducks jump in this end. Then the coaches tell the kids to swim back down the pool and it's this massive show-down... kids vs ducks. Africa....

 We took one last trip down the garden route to Plett...

 Road trip! Someone was pretty stoked that they got to come...

She even packed all her own stuff. Well her IMPORTANT stuff anyway. I had to pack the food bowls and all...

 The place we stayed at was really nice, and they had the coolest front steps I have ever seen! I guess if you're welcoming guests goldfish are a good choice. If your enemies are coming you could dump in some barracuda and then grease the steps...

 I will miss this landscape!

 Road tripping with Roxy is always an adventure because she never knows where she wants to sit but she knows it should be in somebody's lap... and you get very little warning when she decides that it's your turn. Good thing Jeff is a steady driver!

 Since we go to a Jewish School we get to celebrate Purim. Everyone dresses up and this is when you REALLY get to see how chill things are in Africa. This first grader dressed as Peter Pan which in HIS head includes having an actual bow and arrow. He marched all around the parade ring with an arrow knocked and pulled part of the way back most of the time. What could possibly go wrong?!?

 Grade 4's and up dressed coordinated as a class with themes. Ted's class chose "the 70's".

 ...And let me tell you, these grade 4's have SWAGGER! They even  busted out a dance when it was their turn to march around. Video HERE.

 Sasha's class chose "around the world". PERFECT theme for my girl... she was so excited to wear her Korean Hanbok!

 So many great costumes!

 The teachers all paraded too. They had coordinated so that all of their costumes had something to do with "load shedding".

 Hilarious....