We're off again!

For our next adventure, we are heading to Sri Lanka for Eid-al-Adha, the next big holiday on the Muslim calendar, this year the first week in October.  The boys get a week off from school and we are jetting overnight to Colombo, the capital.  Wanna hear our plan?  I thought you'd never ask!

As you know, I believe in itineraries that are popular with my biggest critics and fellow travelers, who right now are still 6 and 4.  So this trip is no exception.  I'm calling it our Wildlife Adventure Tour (because a name makes it so much more official!)  We arrive in Colombo in the wee hours of the morning, but we are not stopping there.  Our plan is to travel carry-on only so we can get off the plane and find the driver we have hired and leave the big city immediately.  We will hopefully sleep a bit more in the car on our way to an elephant orphanage.  How can you go wrong when you start with elephants?  After some time watching elephants, we head to Kandy to hit assorted temples and cultural spots, as many as we have patience for (after an overnight flight and a big day with the elephants, my guess is we will be lucky to hit the Temple of the Tooth, if any at all).

The next day, we head with our driver for two nights in Nuwara Eliya, an up-and-coming (code for sleepy) tourist town in the middle of many tea plantations and waterfalls.  This is our time to relax and enjoy nature, something we don't get to do too much of here in Qatar during the summer.  Actually, we have helpfully timed our visit to Sri Lanka to coincide with one of their annual monsoon seasons (oops!), but even if it rains on us every day, I think the novelty of seeing water falling from the sky once again will be entertainment enough for us! We will leave this area via a local train that passes through tunnels in the mountains and eventually makes a 360 degree turn around itself.  Our plan is to travel second class so we can hang out the windows like locals and take pictures.

After the mountain train, we descend to the wildlife refuges, where we plan on taking a jeep safari.  Apparently, in these wildlife parks you can see everything from more elephants to leopards to crocodiles to sloth bears to all manner of exotic birds.  We will stay two nights here and hopefully see enough animals to make everyone feel very excited.

Then we head to our last stop, the beach.  I'm hoping the rainy season isn't too rainy and we can enjoy the beach, but, regardless of the weather, we plan to take boat to go whale watching, which should be loads of fun.  I've already procured the necessary motion sickness pills for me and the boys!

If all goes well, this should be our flora and fauna tour of Sri Lanka.  There is lots more to see in the country, of course, whole swaths we are skipping entirely, but our trip looks like it will satisfy all our needs to relax, be entertained, and see some impressive animals in some spectacular places.  What more could we want??  

Technicolor dreams

Once upon a time, on another blog, in another life, I used to write a lot about pop culture, specifically television, to which I was (arguably, still am) addicted.  And then I moved...and moved again...and moved again and cancelled my subscription to Entertainment Weekly and lost my easy viewing on Hulu because I moved out of the country (darn them!) and tried to move on.  But I can't!  And then I stumbled upon the Fall TV Preview issue of EW randomly in the little Carrefour Express in my favorite mall yesterday, and it was fate, I tell you, FATE!  So here I am again as I was in days of yore, with a little preview of my own of what I would watch this Fall (if I could, which I largely can't, but I can still pretend!).

For this first time in many moons, I am liking quite a few shows on CBS.  I have sung the praises of The Good Wife before and though the fifth season I just finished was SHOCKING in a way I'm not sure I liked, I am still interested in where things are going to go.  The new show I'm most excited about is Madam Secretary, in which Tea Leoni plays an ex-CIA operative who is suddenly tapped to be the new Secretary of State.  Completely implausible, of course, but I certainly have missed Tea Leoni's presence on any screen, big or small.  The Big Bang Theory never disappoints, but it's not appointment viewing for me any more, particularly since Qatar Airways always stocks up on episodes from the current season and I don't want to watch them until I really need to be entertained on my next plane ride.  And then there is always Survivor, comforting in its sameness.

Over on NBC, I was following Chicago Fire and its much grittier spin-off Chicago PD, but these are really just filler shows, interesting but not gripping.  However, since NBC allows me to watch episodes online on their website, I will probably end up watching these two anyway.  Speaking of gritty, Law & Order: SVU is getting more and more difficult to watch with each season, so I may check in but probably won't catch very many episodes.  Fortunately, I can also catch Parenthood on NBC, one of my all-time favorite dramas, consistently good week in and week out.  I will also try a new comedy, Bad Judge, just for the novelty of seeing Addison Montgomery played for laughs.

ABC is my go-to place for fun, soapy dramas like Grey's Anatomy and perhaps the new one from Shonda Rimes, How to Get Away with Murder AND they also let you watch episodes online, though with some restrictions.  I can't quit Grey's but will probably end up skipping How unless it's really, really good right away (doubtful).  Castle isn't quite as funny as it once was, but Nathan Fillion still makes for good TV, so that one is still on the list.  And I am strangely excited about mid-season show Galavant: a musical fairy tale set in the a Robin Hood-esque era?  How can I resist?  And finally, Selfie, a comedy starring a former Doctor Who companion and John Cho, both of whom have been hilarious in other shows.

I'm not excited about too many shows over at Fox, as per usual.  I can't explain my attraction to The Mindy Project, it defies explanation, really, but it's the one show at which I consistently find myself laughing out loud, so it stays on the list.  I am also going to try Gracepoint, a remake of the British show Broadchurch, starring one of the original actors, the tenth Doctor Who (I only saw the first two episodes of Broadchurch but I loved them, so the American version could, stress could be as good.  Or I may just try to find the British version and finish that one, instead!).

Elsewhere, J likes to watch with me, so we will watch Project Runway: All Stars when it premieres in October.  And I am already watching Doctor Who and Downton Abbey (I have my ways!).

Do it myself?

Recognize this?  Most of you probably don't!  It's an Ikea delivery van, parked outside my new neighbor's house.

What's it doing?  Oh so much more than delivering flat packages of Ikea furniture!  Yes, this van comes fully equipped with a team who not only deliver and unload the packages, they assemble everything for you.  Wait, what?!  Someone comes to your house, allen wrench in hand, to build your Expedit bookcase FOR you?  Yep, yep, yep they do.  Just outside the frame of this picture lies a huge pile of cardboard on the front step of this house.  The packaging doesn't even make it inside the door!  And, when they're done, they gather up all the cardboard and take it with them.  You don't even have to throw out the trash!

Every once in a while, it's nice to live in a place where DIY is a foreign concept!

Bus-ted!

The bus is a success!

After months of the unknown and then weeks of frustration, we finally managed to hire a private transportation company to take the kids from our compound to school!  We had many false starts, another group of parents (going to a different school) pulled out completely in frustration, we thought it was going to fall through at the last minute, the night before I thought it was equally likely the bus would or wouldn't show up, and then, miraculously, the stars aligned and it all worked out.

So now, instead of spending at least two hours a day in the car taking the boys and picking them up, I take them to the bus stop, make sure their seat belts are both on and tight (we are having to teach the bus attendant that seat belts are useless if they aren't snug, of course, but hey, we have a bus attendant besides the driver!), kiss them both goodbye, watch them drive away, and then pick them up at the same stop 200 yards away from my house at the end of the day.  As another parent said with glee, "It's like a REAL school bus!"  And it is truly amazing that we were able to pull it off, given how strangely everything works (or, more accurately, doesn't work) here.  The parents are very happy, and the kids aren't spending any more time at school and in the car than they would be already.  Win-win!

Not that this means I haven't still been going to school every day, because I have, first to get permission for the buses when I was driving anyway, then to coordinate the pick-up and drop-off procedures with the principal and assorted staff, then to follow the bus on its inaugural runs to make sure the procedures were actually going to work and the bus driver actually managed to find the school on time (not a given, here in the land of traffic and constant construction), then to refine the procedures with the principal and staff and the driver...in short, I'm still at school all the time, but at least I can arrive when I want and leave when I'm done!

So, now that that problem has been solved, I have been throwing myself into trying to help solve some of the other problems at our little school...and applying to another school, just in case.  I think I may have blogged long ago about the school application process here, but since I am back in the thick of it again, let me just share with you what these applications entail.

First, remember that I am applying for next year for a second grader and a kindergartener.  In order to even have my application read, I need to provide the following for each child:

--Two page application
--Non-refundable application fee of $135-ish
--School records, meaning the last three years of school reports, including samples of work, narrative reports, teacher conference reports, report cards, counsellor reports, transcripts, school profile, and anything else you can think of
--Signed school fees sheet (telling us about assorted other fees, of which there are so many)
--Student school history (I had to make extra lines to fit in J's two preschools and two kindergartens)
--Parent strengths and weaknesses questionnaire (rating the student, not the parents but I wouldn't put it past them)
--Passport or birth certificate copies for students and parents
--Passport photo
--Recommendation from former teacher/principal/counsellor (more of these if the students are older)
--Health questionnaire
--Health exam form signed by doctor
--Immunization records
--Letter from our employer
--Standardized tests scores if they took any anywhere

With all this, my packet for an entering 2nd grader is almost an inch thick.  And even with that he may still need to be "assessed" on site to see if he is suitable for the school and EVEN THEN he may still not get in because the wait lists are so long.  Ack!

If only this amount of paperwork were unusual.  I think the subtitle of every expat's life is "my life abroad as I wade through reams and reams of paper."  

Lessons learned

I've had some time to reflect on what went well and what really didn't during this, our first summer home as expats.  Some things we lucked into doing right, but many things will need to be changed next time around.  Wanna hear?  Even if you don't, I'm going to tell so I can remember for next year.

• Flying: This time we flew into JFK, which left us a really long flight (after an already long flight) to SLC which was always going to be a bear but was awful after a delay longer than the flight itself.  And we flew out of O'Hare, and I have never, never, EVER left on time from O'hare so perhaps we should avoid that airport altogether.  In an ideal world, we would fly overnight both to and from Doha but there are very few overnight flights heading out and most of them leave around 1am.  However, I almost think that would be better.  Almost....  Some people suggest breaking your trip into two legs and staying in a hotel somewhere on the way.  I think this might also be a good idea, though I'm not sure how doing so would affect the ticket prices.  Maybe we could even stay a week somewhere else along the way, which might give us a chance to see some of our old friends who are scattered almost everywhere there's a major airport.  We shall see....

  

  See how smily we were on the flight out?  J crashed right after this pic and E is already asleep.  Notice there are no pictures from the flight home.  I didn't have a spare hand!

• Timing: We left the day after school got out and we came back about 10 days before school began.  I think leaving that early was a good idea, but we could have left even earlier given how bizarre and unnecessary the last two days of school were.  As for coming back, I think we could give ourselves just a week to get reacclimatized, but I wouldn't want to give us any less time than that.   Returning to Doha time was much, MUCH more difficult than getting ourselves on US time on when we arrived, for some reason, so I think we need a good week before school starts to get ready.

  

  The night before we left for our two month tour, the last day of school.  (We are all in long sleeves because that spot is the coldest in our house, where three air conditioning systems converge.)

• Scheduling:  This time around the husband was there with us for the first half of our vacation and then he left to go home.  That was a mistake, on many levels.  First of all, he missed Ramadan here, which was silly because work hours are shortened dramatically during Ramadan, so he wasn't able to take advantage of that at all.  Second, after he left, the boys felt like the party was over and vacation became much more like work for them (the husband really is the fun parent!).  It would be much more sensible for us to go over on our own and then for him to join us for the second half of the break and come home with us so the boys have something to look forward to and we have two parents instead of one when tempers start to rise and behavior starts to plummet as our vacation goes on and on.  Granted, our scheduling will largely depend on the timing of family reunions and things some summers, but hopefully we will still be able to figure out schedules that will work for us.

  

  Assorted fun times before Daddy went home!

  

  
  

  
• Shopping: In this area, we actually did pretty well.  I was only unable to bring home one big item, a giant laminated world map that was just too long to fit into our suitcases and I couldn't see carrying it on with me while wrangling the boys at the same time.  Pound-wise, we came in under our limit, though I did discover that our luggage scale is about a pound off from the scales at American airlines, and so I did have to do one bit of shuffling from one checked bag into one of my carry-ons at check-in, but that wasn't a big deal.  And so far, at least, the list we made has turned out to be a good one.  I just finished (finally!) unloading all the toiletries and medicines and food and kitchen things and school supplies we bought and storing them in various bins and tubs and cabinets, and it looks like we are pretty well stocked, which is great! In fact, the husband may not have to stuff his suitcases to the gills when he goes to the States in December.  I know he's happy at even the thought that he might get to skip his quarterly jaunt to Walmart and the fun packing in the parking lot that comes with it!  Of course, I may change my mind between now and then....mama may need a new pair of shoes or two!  (Not from Walmart, of course!)  And these boys of mine keep growing, so I'm not ruling out their needing new pj's AGAIN (sheesh!).
• Playing: Someone told me to be careful not to make vacation too fun or the kids won't want to come back.  While there is definitely some wisdom there, I also feel like we don't want vacation to be a drag.  Finding that balance was tricky this summer.  Again, I think we did better during the first month than the second; by then, we were all flagging, sadly.  We did spend some time with various cousins, and I think the boys would be happiest if we increased our time with them considerably, so next year we will work on that, too.

Random picture from the temple. The scruffy attire happened on purpose: I decided their church clothes for summer would be sandals and plaid shirts, so I wouldn't have to worry about ironing and stains and white shirts and scuffed church shoes.  I'm lazy like that!

Miscommunicationing

Over the last weeks, I have often felt like I am simply unable to communicate effectively with anyone, especially in email.  We have been trying, as I mentioned before, to arrange for a bus for our children and that has necessitated countless emails between me and people who speak all sorts of languages first and have various levels of command of English.  And for some reason, email seems to exacerbate the difficulties in these exchanges and somehow starts to infect my own writing.  Some messages are so flowery it's off-putting, but still I find myself writing things like "will you be needing the services of the esteemed transportation company?" and then deleting everything to write the much simpler "do you need the bus?"  On the other hand, many other messages I've received are so brief they're almost insulting, and I'm sure they aren't meant to be but conversational niceties are the first things to go in cross-cultural emailing, apparently.

I've been trying to find an example of the above that would make sense to you out there in the Internets without too much backstory, but nothing has really been perfect until today.  The husband asked for transportation to the airport for his business trip, a routine request that was subsequently denied, so he wrote and said he would like a copy of the new policy so he knew what to do in the future.  He got the following email in response (the formatting is original, by the way):

Subject: RE: Transport Request

Dear XXXXXXX,

Apologize. Please ignore the below regret email communications with related to your transport request, kindly see attached details against your transport request, shall be supported with our transport accordingly.

To serve you better, you may contact the following mobile numbers, incase required xxxx-xxxx 

Best Regards,

How do I love this message?  Let me count the ways!  It's priceless and so typical of day-to-day interactions here, both in person and online.  It's enough to make an under-untilized English major tear her hair out in dismay...not that that's happened to anyone I know or anything...ahem!

August recap

The second month of our two month vacation was less busy but still jam-packed.  We started out with a trip down to Castledale in Southern Utah for another family reunion, but this one was for an ancestor quite a ways back.  Our trip involved a visit to the county fair (they had elephants!), a lamb fry, an interminable small town parade, and an outdoor pageant.  The husband had left by then, so it was just me and the boys with Grandeur and Grandest.  We stayed in some little log cabins owned and operated by a gas station in another little town down the road and our visit was just as strange and fun as it sounds!

Outside our log cabin!

Look!  Elephants!

The next week, the boys started swim lessons at the local rec center and after a few false starts (they thought E was 14 instead of 4 and so put him in the wrong class three times before we got that straightened out) and some judicious bribing (these boys really, REALLY needed to learn to swim), the boys both had good experiences and learned a whole lot.  J was diving into the pool from a seated and a kneeling position by the end of their two-week course and E was almost back-floating by himself.  Huzzah!  Hopefully we can continue to practice their skills and if they don't allow me to get them into another course here, they will be able to move up a level next summer.  The rec center had a built-in aquatic park (with water slides!) and indoor playground, which we also loved visiting after swim lessons.  I was very jealous of that rec center, actually, and wished we had one just like it in Doha!

E is crying because of the cold, but they really did have a good time!

We spent a lot of the first half of the month with cousins T and G and new baby E who were also living with Grandeur and Grandest, but they moved out to a lovely new house in the middle of the month, much to my boys' chagrin.  I spent part of my time there trying to figure out my parents' phone/internet/cable needs and getting new services set up, most of which seem to have worked out pretty well, thank goodness!  I also went through all my old and new boxes in their garage, donating still more things to charity (or my parents' wedding gift box) and consolidating items into better boxes or waterproof bins.  My efforts inspired my parents and I to keep going and reorganize the entire garage, so we ended up making several donation trips to the thrift store and moving around and consolidating still more boxes, but, in the end, there was a lot more space in the garage, which is saying something, since they are now housing boxes/furniture/electronics from at least 4 of their 6 children.  And I was able to take the kids to a few more fun museums and a matinee movie in a movie theater

Grandeur and Grandest!

E and his cousin G semi-napping.

J and his cousin T in a happy moment.

During that month, I was able to finish all my errands for the summer, including getting my library card (I had gotten my driver's license switched in July), and we made one trip back to the in-laws for a temple open house, which was a great experience for both me and the boys.  As an added bonus, we were able to connect with one of our good friends from Charleston who has taking her daughter off to college, so they got to come with us to the open house, which meant more fun for everyone.  I was also able to talk to my good friend from Shaker Heights who has since moved to Chicago, which also made me very happy.  I sometimes wish these trips back to the States could be spent visiting all my old friends, but that would be a very long trip.

Outside the temple.

Grandma and Grandpa!

Over the summer, my youngest sister got engaged (Congratulations again, L!) to a pharmacist (Go Team Pharmacy!), so I was able to help my mother find her mother-of-the-bride dress (the colors are charcoal and aubergine and we managed to find something lovely!) and pick out some of the decorations for the tables.  My namesake aunt whom I haven't seen in ages came to visit my parents as well, and she got to meet the boys, which was fun for all of us.  We played a lot and generally took it easy for the last part of our vacation, which was probably just as well because it turns out two month trips are a bit wearing on everyone.  When people ask me how my holidays were, my first thought is always "LONG!"  Not that we didn't enjoy or need our time away, because we did, but with about three weeks of vacation left, the boys started telling me they wanted to go home and, surprisingly, they meant Doha!  But we still had three weeks to go and increasingly their behavior showed they were done with this trip.  My friend from Charleston, who always had to travel to visit her parents and in-laws with her children said she always said to her mother "My kids in Utah are not my kids in Charleston" and I have to agree with her assessment.  Vacationing this way is fun but also hard, especially for the young.  Hopefully, we will increase our stamina, work on our endurance, find some balance between play and work, and do better every summer!

Selfie at the zoo (everyone else is watching the elephants)!

Legos!

Tired, tired boys!

School dazed and confused

Ahh, the first week of school.  A time of anticipation, new beginnings, fresh starts, boisterous enthusiasm, and a sense of satisfaction.

Or not.  Have I told you the story of the boys' school?  In broad strokes (and protecting the innocent), once upon a time, there was a little school started to teach the kids of employees (schools are notoriously hard to get into and there are not enough of them).  Part way through that school's first year, someone decided, rightfully, that the employees' children were going to need a better school and the scope and focus of the little school were enlarged (made more international) and changed (converted into an IB curriculum) and rattled and somewhere in there the entire administration was either fired or disappeared (of their own accord, nothing sinister) or replaced or reassigned or all of the above, which was where we came in when we joined the school in January.  But there was light at the end of the tunnel: a new director and new principals and new everything were hired and came on board during the summer and the school officially entered the IB approval process.  And the angels rejoiced!

BUT, the start of school has been rocky, at best.  There has been some gigantic email snafu so none of the school messages over the last few weeks have gotten to parents, which has resulted in a bit of pandemonium at school.  We showed up this week on the first day to find E's teacher had been changed (over the weekend), J's schedule had been altered irrevocably, the drop off and pick up "routines" were very messy, and it appeared as if no one had any idea what was going on.  Monday was slightly better, but J had an epic meltdown because he was so upset over this change to his schedule after all the hard work he had done last year to get caught up.  So we started another year with the help of the new school counsellor and, thankfully, things are looking better for him, but it upsets me that all of this could have been avoided with a little advance notice from the school and subsequent advance preparation on our part.  E could have been made excited about his actual teacher and J could have gotten used to the idea of change and everything could have been just fine.

I had a long talk with the powers that be on Monday and got many assurances that there is a plan, problems are being solved, and my input was welcomed, so I feel somewhat mollified right now.  However, I ran into yet another unhappy parent in the hall later, and we basically agreed that we are going to give the school until December, the middle of the year, to show real improvement and substantive change or we are going to have to abandon this scholastic experiment and take our kids elsewhere.  I really, really don't want to have to do that, for many reasons, not least of which is I believe in the school and know it has the resources to be not just good but great and I hate to quit something like that, BUT, I also don't want my children's education to be hurt in the process of an experiment that is just not working.

In the meantime, we had been working behind the scenes to try to arrange for a school bus to take the kids and others from our compound to school.  Eventually, it was decided, after months of bureaucratic bedlam, that the parents would need to organize our own bus, which we were happy to do.  And, of course, by "we" I mean "I" was happy to do it, since I felt like it was absolutely silly we were all driving all by ourselves every day to the same place.  Negotiations on our own have been like pulling teeth, and another group of parents going to a different school has given up on the project entirely, but we are still pressing forward, hoping the transport company with whom we have been taking will hold up their end of the bargain.  If the bus plan falls through, I may end up ferrying 7 kids to school and back every day myself...out of a sense of obligation...and lots of mom guilt, since I'm already feeling a ton of that about the whole bus idea to begin with!  I can't win!

Getting back

Okay, let's get back to regular posting, shall we?  The last month of our vacation was epic.  I will give you the details soon, with pictures, but first, let's discuss our heady return to Doha.  Our flight home was relatively okay.  Not fabulous, but not awful:

I  forgot to fill the rental car up with fuel on the way to the airport, which meant I was supposed to pay for a full tank at the bargain price of $9.99 per gallon BUT my good friend Mahmoud at the rental car return place took one look at me and my six year old who was crying with anxiety when I realized I had forgotten and only charged us for a quarter tank, about the same price as a full tank would have been.  Crisis #1 averted.

I discovered at the airport that I only left one important item out when I was packing: the charger for the older iPad we use when the husband isn't traveling with us...D'oh!  Fortunately, the nice tech store in Salt Lake was happy to take my money to buy a replacement so crisis averted.  Our subsequent four hour delay in Salt Lake City meant there was a lot of playing of iPads before we ever left the ground, so hooray for chargers!  Crisis #2 averted.

Our delay was the result of storms and a ground stop in Chicago (I HATE O'hare!) so when we finally did take off, our three hour flight turned into a 4 plus hour flight as we circled the airport again and again waiting to be able to land.  I had been able to get our scattered seats put all in the same row, so everyone was happy just to play more on the iPads while I kept watching Chicago come close...and then drift far away, over and over again.  Eventually, we were able to land, with about an hour and a half left of what should have been our 5 hour layover.  As we left the plane, my carry-on strap burst (totally my fault: I had two carry-ons, a big backpack and a fabric tote bag but I kept moving things from the backpack into the tote over the flight and never redistributed and the poor tote just wasn't built to withstand that kind of weight) but I had no time to deal with that since we needed to exit out of the airport, go to Qatar Airways to get our new international boarding passes, pass through security for a second time, and then make it to our gate before the plane boarded.  All went smoothly, thank goodness, even carrying my tote in my arms, and we made it to the gate in time to discover our next flight was also delayed, which left us time to get dinner and sew the straps back onto my bag (I'm like MacGyver!).  Potential crises 3-5 avoided.

I had all sorts of plans for how I was going to handle the overnight flight with the boys to help them minimize jet lag when we landed, none of which worked out at all.  E fell asleep after dinner but was not allowed to sleep on the floor (though people all over were doing it, darn it) so he crashed for 7 hours on my lap and the middle seat.  J played video games until all the batteries were gone, refused to watch any TV and wanted to play card games with me, so I shifted E and played games until E finally woke up, refreshed and well rested.  More food arrived, though since it was the middle of the night I have no idea why, and somewhere in there, I'm really not sure when, I put my head down on the tray table and passed out.  I woke up at least an hour later to find J asleep leaning on my left side and E asleep leaning on my right, both sleeping at exactly the wrong time for my grand plans and for exactly the wrong amounts of time, but I was too exhausted to care by then and just closed my eyes and went back to sleep myself.  Another hour or two later, we were all up for the rest of the trip, E happily watching the same two episodes of Ben 10 over and over again and J running through every single activity I had packed in his and his brother's bag in record time.  It was a bit of a challenge for him to make it to the end!

Luckily, our bags were first out of the plane, for some miraculous reason, and we were able to get ourselves and our two defective luggage carts out into the waiting area where the husband was meeting us.  By the time we made it back to our car, I was sweating from both exertion and exhaustion and the cruelly punishing heat and humidity and I crashed mentally long before the boys were ready to go to bed at 10pm.  There were a few rough nights of late night waking and mornings that were either far too early or far too late and now, almost 2 weeks later, the boys are only just adjusted to the schedule here, but I thought that might happen and had built in enough time for them to get close to where they needed to be in time for school.

Sigh.  A post soon will cover all the lessons we learned on our trips and during our vacations so we can try not to make the same mistakes again next year, but, as usual, even our best planning won't ever result in the perfect time, so let's celebrate our abilities in crisis management, shall we?  A for effort this trip, I say!