So at the bear sanctuary in Minnesota now for two weeks and it’s been pretty slow for the most part; we’ve gotten some bears in, mostly a few moms with yearlings, a few have spring cubs that are very small and adorable. There have been a few big males coming in checking out the females, trying to get some chances to mate before the larger more dominant males come in. Alfie, the little bear from last year has yet to show up. He was a handful and they said last year toward the end of the summer they were using a [View Full Entry]

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Well, we're back! Not officially a "summer trip", but we are considering this trip to be the beginning of our summer. We drove from home to Plymouth, MN over two days to celebrate Jess and Steve's wedding. Only one picture so far, but it is gorgeous! This is the boat dock where the ceremony took place in the Nuremberg Gardens. Since both Benj and I were playing during the ceremony, we only have 'before' pictures. Planning on heading home early tomorrow morning. [View Full Entry]

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If you are familiar with the bloggers on this site, you will know that when most of them return home from their world trip, they take time to recall the adventure, and write a summary of the best moments, or their most recommended sites. And many of the entries are quite creative. I had planned on attempting just that- but since we landed back on American soil, we haven't slowed down, and I haven't had time to blog! Maybe a retrospective will come later... One much anticipated aspect of being home has been to be with our children and family. So [View Full Entry]

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Im working on my third no doz now... things are going to be interesting for the next eight hours. The roads have been getting progressively worse the further north we get. Canada will be fun. We saw a shooting star after the sunset. By the way, the sun didnt set here until almost 9:30 which was kind of trippy. We plan on making it to the border by 7:00 tomorrow morning. Im a little freaked about getting across into Canada, then making it back across into Alaska. If we get stuck in Canada, one of you will have to come get [View Full Entry]

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Our first camping trip of the year was to Minneopa State Park in Mankato. It was our third trip there, second camping. As many of you know, Jeff kicked my butt in our bocce battle. In our first visit to Minneopa, he decided Lorrin would play with me (for the disadvantage to me in having two people), but Lorrin and I won. Ha! Anyway . . . I had a short weekend, so we decided to camp out Friday and Saturday. We set up in a downpour and didn't bother to turn on the furnace. It wasn't so bad Saturday morning [View Full Entry]

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Here we go again. (6:00 pm, Wednesday, Minneapolis time): I'm sitting in the Minneapolis airport (Northwest/Delta "Princess Lounge") waiting to begin my third trip to "The Kingdom," aka KSA, aka Saudi Arabia. To get there I fly first to Amsterdam, change planes and fly to Kuwait and then on to Bahrain. From Bahrain I will take a taxi over the causeway (a very long bridge that has the Bahrain/Saudi Arabia border in the middle) to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It will take about 24 hours of real time, 32 hours of clock time (Saudi is 8 hours ahead of Minneapolis). For those [View Full Entry]

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My room is chaos... I'm a last minute packer. But that's just how I roll. It looks kind of like the photo from my room at school, but it's much worse. So I head off tomorrow (WOOO!!!) and I'm not sure how much internet access I will be getting while on the trip with school for the first 3 weeks. If I get it, awesome. If I don't, I'll have a lot to tell when those 3 weeks are up. But I hope you all have fabulous summers, and I miss you already! Lo [View Full Entry]

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Of course there's nothing here yet, we haven't left! But there will soon be tales to captivate you and yours. [View Full Entry]

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Well tomorrow I'm on my way to Rome! I can't believe it's finally here. I have most of my stuff packed and I have no idea how much my bag weighs. I hope it's under 50lbs. I think it is. I also have a carry-on backpack. I fly to Boston, then to London, then to Rome. I am going to be staying with my host mother's sister my first night in Italy. She lives and works in Rome. On Saturday, I will take the 3-hour bus ride to my host family's home. I am excited to see where I will be [View Full Entry]

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We finally made it back home. We left Tokyo at 4:15 PM on April 22, flew 11 hours and arrived in Minneapolis at 1:15 PM on April 22. In other words we got back three hours before we left. I’ve crossed the International Dateline at least three times in my life, but I still don’t understand it. We flew a Northwest 747 back and got to sit in the upper deck. That’s also a first for me. Here’s a recap of our trip by the numbers: 13 foreign countries visited 28 hotels/beds slept in 19 airports visited 20 separate fli [View Full Entry]

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