In which our ungrateful heroes complain about New Zealand and find ways to thrill themselves We finally got to that state of bliss in which we do not know the day of the week. Were we in Milford 2 days ago or was it 5 days ago? We were also progressing nicely with our plans, starting the week mid-way through the south Island and this allowed us to just flow. No need to plan what we do or tick-off “must do items” .It allowed us to wake up I the morning and decide f we want to climb something, drive somewhere, ride on something . That’s not to say that we didn’t travel hard. Still waking up very early and going to sleep late and had a very active week. Some things about New Zealand were ... read more

In which our heroes rent a campervan, wander here and there in Middle Earth looking for “things” and finally end up sleeping in front of awesome views. Returning to New Zealand we rented a campervan that will stay with us almost till we fly home. We barely found any time, or energy to write anything. We have very long and active days. The alarm is set to 7AM just in case one of the children does not wake us up earlier, and there is still some light out at 9:30PM so we rarely go to bed before 10:30PM. We were waiting for a rainy day to relax and write but lucky we have seen almost no rain and when it came we were either in bed or driving so it never interfered with our activities ... read more

Week 1 – In which our heroes arrive in a very far place, acclimatize, and see more green and blue colors then they thought were possible. We arrived to New Zealand and already a week has passed. The flight Usually parents dread flights and cite the flight as an excuse for not traveling with children. We, on the other hand, understand that the flight, no matter how exhausting, is a onetime event that just needs to be overcome. But this time around we were worried. Two back-to-back 10 hour flights is not easy even for an adult traveling alone to endure. We were facing over 36 hours door-to-door of sleep deprivation, baby holding, children crying hell. After a day of work. This should surly rank as inhumane and unjustly cruel together with waterboarding and torture. Our ... read more

The last days of our trip were spent exploring St Kitts and St Thomas. St Kitts, one of the smallest nations in the world was a lovely surprise . A small island we circumvented in a day with nature and history and a lovely beach to dip ourselves in. By the end of the week-long cruse we got into a perfect routine. Every day the ship would arrive at a different port. We would eat breakfast on the Lido deck (deck 9 – mid) high above the port as the ships slowly anchored. Then we would go on shore to do some exploration on our own. After returning in the afternoon we would go eat some ice-cream (deck 9 – aft) before showering in our room (deck 2 – aft - starboard) . We would then ... read more

The day we boarded our cruise in San Jaun was the same day that Hurricane Irena passed through Puerto-Rico. Considering that we were traveling to the Caribbean during hurricane season we should not have been surprised. But we were surprised. We actually made it a point to keep track of storm activity every time we had internet connection and last time we checked, about 48 hours prior, there was no storm heading our way. Irene formed in the duration since we last checked from nothing, directly into a tropical storm and was forecasted to head directly to us and to intensify to hurricane level winds of over 120 km/h. We were not really sure what to expect. Part of us was excited to experience our first such major storm. Part of us was curious how this ... read more