walking the walk

We arrived in London on one of the hottest days of the year jet-lagged and laden with heavy bags. As we wove our way from Heathrow to Herne Hill I was painfully aware of the lack of enthusiasm my rural, car-driven children were exhibiting towards walking...
But after ten days of London the children's strength has improved. While they thoroughly enjoyed all modes of London transport from overland train to tube to black cab to double-decker bus today they didn't even notice as we walked and walked and walked.

wait, is that one 'art' too?

After our success at the Museum of Natural History yesterday - think of the woolly mammoth that has been frightening kids in Victoria at the RBCM for decades, only a life-sized T-Rex that actually moves, and you get the idea - we wanted to push on with some more sights today.

iceland

We only spent enough time in Iceland to purchase vodka and breakfast for the children. We got great deals on flights from Iceland Air which included a short or long stopover in Iceland for no extra cost to the flight. Although we would have loved to have actually stayed, when we investigated the expense of getting from the airport to Reykjavik, accommodation and food it all just added up to too much krona for us. I admit it did feel like a bit of a missed opportunity in the moment, but that may have been jet-lag talking. We want to be able to travel for a year, so we have to think about and plan our expenses rather than the financial freedom we tend to feel when on vacation.

the long goodbye

We have had an amazing six weeks getting ready for our trip without having a home base. It gave the children time to adjust to not going home while still being surrounded by friends and familiar houses and places. You'd think with six weeks to get organized we would have had time to test out the backpack situation to make sure this one-bag-per-person thing would work. Instead we were enjoying time with friends and family right up to the last second of departure. So the first leg of our journey to Seattle led us to the local REI (like MEC for our Canadian friends) to purchase a better bag for Buddy. We've re-purposed his bag as a carry-on for all of our electronics. And we made sure to tell him that this cool backpack is his early birthday present - we're slick like that!
The morning we were leaving was very hectic and I had to downsize the items we were bringing twice in the last thirty minutes before departure, plus leave another bag of downsized items with family to be stored somewhere for a year.
We managed to squeeze in a few more goodbyes with friends right up to departure. We feel very thankful for the love and support that have been given to us and are looking forward to whatever comes our way...

canada geese

We have been loving watching the Olympics, especially since our first stop is London. We are ready to go, not on the organizational sense but in the birds-needing-to-fly-sense. Thankfully we aren't quite due for departure since we are still trying to figure out how to cram our entire lives into four backpacks. As well as dealing with the paperwork-of-life (which is not my passion)... wills, insurance, bank accounts etc.
Yet the Canadian athletes continue to inspire us as we are treated to nightly gymnastic events and high dives in the lake. Soon we will be flying!