Dear Family and Friends, Ah....Hawaii....other than the significant temperature difference, we feel a bit as if we have come full circle. We started in Iceland, driving through lava fields and we end in Hawaii, driving through lava fields! When we first started to plan this trip 4 years ago, Ken knew he wanted to include Iceland for its rugged beauty and Kate knew she wanted to end with Hawaii, as a pretty good place for a relaxing transition. After another long travel day from Melbourne, Australia, to Kailua Kona, Hawaii (about 18 hours, door-to-door), we were thrilled to be warm, see [View Full Entry]

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SUBTITLE: Australia: Home of the 1/2-Hour Time Change! Dear Family and Friends, It is hard to believe that our summer adventure is nearly over. As we write this blog on our travels downunder and outback, we are already in Hawaii with just a one day left before our return home. Very sad. We spent 2 weeks in Australia, flying from Bangkok to Sydney. The kids were torn between 1) excitement that everyone would speak English (first time since England, back in early June) and they could safely drink the water and 2) sadness that this was our last country. Just for [View Full Entry]

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Dear Family and Friends: OOPS! HOW WONDERFUL THE KILI KIDS ARE Poor Kate woke in the middle of the night after writing the last entry and realized that she had neglected to include at least a sentence or two about the children at the orphanage....you have to understand that the entries are always written piece-meal, sometimes over a week's time, often with someone waiting to use the computer, and, on some occasions, large amounts of text are lost and, when re-typed, end up shorter (as frustration increases, text decreases!)....so...we just want everyone to know that the REASON we left pa [View Full Entry]

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Sub title: Home of $16/night hotel rooms! Dear Family and Friends: Our first day in Chiang Mai was intentionally planned as a “down day” to recuperate from our 32-hour marathon commute from Africa. This allowed us to sleep in and catch up on some of the hours of sleep we had lost between sleepless nights and time-zone changes. Our B&B had a lovely outside garden which was adjacent to their breakfast area where you could get toast, eggs, and delicious fruit smoothies. We were thrilled by the prices and figured out that one could get 17 nights in Thailand for the [View Full Entry]

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Marathon Travel from Africa to Asia - Our 32-hour travel day… From the start of our journey, we knew that leaving Africa was going to be both emotionally and physically challenging. We wrote in our last blog of the emotional attachments we made in Tanzania to the Kili Kids orphanage and to the warm, generous people we met throughout our safari adventures. Our physical challenge was one of endurance, to traverse the distance from Arusha, Tanzania, to Chiang Mai, Thailand, over a 32-hour time period and through 4 time zones. Thankfully, Sam and Lauren are fabulous travellers. Wi [View Full Entry]

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Dear Family and Friends: As you may have noticed, a few portions of our last blog entry came through as gobblely gook. This was the fault of the computer we were using in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, and a sample of the many techological problems we have encountered! Thankfully, not much was missing, although the funniest part of the visit to our guide's home was lost...all photos are there. In the beginning of the original message, we recommended that, if short on time, you simply read about the bathrooms and the visit to our guide's home (further down in the [View Full Entry]

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Dear Family and Friends: Before we launch into Tanzania, we thought we would touch on two small subjects that may be of interest to at least one of you! First, laundry and luggage. As you will recall, we brought only carry-on luggage, which has meant that we wear the same clothes over and over and over again, as they get grungier and grungier. The wash water is always very brown. We started the trip with everyone's bag having some of everyone's clothes, in the event that one bag was lost or stolen. That lasted about 24 hours! It was such a [View Full Entry]

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Subtitles: Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, But we Visited it in a Day! Kate Denied Entry to the Vatican! Dear Friends and Family: NOTE: We cannot believe it has been 11 days since we posted an entry! This is our longest one yet, so if you are pressed for time, be sure to read at least the sections labeled "ＢＡＴＨＲＯＯＭＳ," and "AＮ IＮＣＲＥＤＩＢＬＥ CＵＬＴＵＲＡＬ EＸＰＥＲＩᦃ [View Full Entry]

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Dear Family & Friends, Salam! We are safely aboard our Nile Cruise boat just below the high Aswan Dam, which we toured this morning following an EARLY morning flight (we had to get up at 2:45am in Cairo to get to the airport to fly to Aswan). The pyramids yesterday in Cairo were as amazing as everyone says and we can't wait to show you some of our photos from this part of our trip. We even have a photo of Sam and Ken playing baseball in front of the great Cheops pyramid (thanks Sam and Brad A for the idea). [View Full Entry]

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SUBTITLES: "The Coolest 13th Birthday Ever" and "Who Knew Dobrovnik,Croatia, was so Cool?" Dear Family and Friends: Two lingering thoughts about Venice....1) the sight of the vendors/delivery people rolling their carts up and then down the stairs of each pedestrian bridge....2) the calendars featuring 12 "hot" gondeliers and 12 "hot" priests! We must confess that the cruise which followed Venice was a welcome change for us, in terms of knowing where each night's lodging and food was coming from....still had major language barriers, since Costa is an Italian cruise line and at least [View Full Entry]

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