Still Here (where ever here is)!

In our final weeks in Honduras, packing up and saying goodbye caused the priority of the blog to slip way down on the totem pole.  In short, we got rid of a bunch of stuff, said goodbye to school friends and city friends, gave a tearful goodbye to Yuliza and packed 10 suitcases/boxes and flew back to Northern California on June 4.

We bid a farewell to Honduras and all the amazing places we visited while in that part of the world.  We tip our hats to that country for being our jumping off point for overseas living, and what a jumping off point it was.  For anyone who has followed the news over the past couple of years, Honduras has not been the easiest place to live.  But we didn't move there for an easy life, we moved there for adventure!  On the 4 wheels of our trusty 2001 Hyundai Santa Fe, we traveled the country and beyond, racking up experiences that we will never forget.

Our awesome view on a cloudy morning.  Tegucigalpa was at its best at night with the twinkling lights down low in the city and making their way up the green mountains.

Dempsey's artwork was chosen for the end of the year art show.

Linnea with some kindergarten friends.

Now we bask in the glow of a beautiful California summer.  Bike riding, camping, a Music Festival, farmer's market, small town living and family and friends have filled us up.  

Dempsey went to "College for Kids" at the SRJC and built cool mechanical stuff out of Legos.

We went by ferry to the Colombian Consulate in San Francisco to get our visas sorted out before heading out for Bogotá.

We spent several days in MacKerricher State Park near Fort Bragg.  Here is Lake Cleone with the Pacific Ocean behind.

Glass booty at Glass Beach.

Bike riding in the campground.

We rode the Skunk Train to Northspur for a picnic lunch.

Our niece Katy brought her Notebook of Fun which provided activities for all the cousins.  This included  scavenger hunts, making peanut butter and seed bird feeders, reading stories, countless miles around the campground on bicycles, sand art, and making ice cream.  Above you see her ice cream ingredients and the kids with their bags of vanilla ice cream.  

We have two more weeks in Sebastopol until we fly out to Bogotá.  We will be living and working in the capital at a school.  Stay tuned if you're interested to see what life is like in Colombia!

Yeah, So we've been a little busy lately and the priority of the blog has fallen down on the totem pole.  So here's the Reader's Digest version of our last few weeks:

Linnea staging a store in her bedroom. 

 She repositioned the bookshelf and strategically staged the items for sale.

                                                      

Our new home... we had to move... the story is not really worth telling unless we're talking in person.

Rural Honduran shower on the "roadside"

One of Dempsey's Lego creations

We call this the "Secret Garden".  It's a great little pathway through a xeriscape garden at school between pre-school and the elementary school.  It's not necessarily hidden, but it's "secret" because no one uses it.  In it we find lantana, peanut grass, succulents and enough winged flying-things to keep a bug zapper happy for an evening.  It's also a nice place to walk before school to avoid the speeding Range Rovers and Prados that are exiting the school after drop-off.   This picture was taken on our way to Family Day. 

 Family Day snacks with Laurel.

Our new view from our new home...  it's even more spectacular at night. 

Final Days

How does a person convey the experiences and happenings of the last days of summer vacation?  With words, it's a bit hard.  Of course you can imagine the tearful goodbyes.  There was laughter, reminiscence and hopeful talk of visits to Honduras.  But one of the really cool and surprising things took place in our final hours in Sebastopol.

We arrived in California 7 weeks ago with 4 suitcases.  We were trying to stuff our newly acquired treasures into 7 suitcases AND do a nice clean-up job at the last house that we were house-sitting at.  As the minutes and moments ticked away, we grew increasingly testy and frustrated by how the last 10% of stuff was taking 90% of our time to figure out what to do with it.  Then a cleaning sprite showed up at the house.  Not a Mary Poppins, not a professional, not a certified organizer.  Rather, a New Yorker in a brown Volvo with a can-do attitude who took charge and took a lot of stuff off of our hands.  She even brought her 2 kids to entertain ours while we hurried about.  Kim arrived and started sweeping,  recycling and generally keeping us focused so that we'd get out of the house by our 6 pm deadline. 

We made it out by 6 and then I think Kim's true motivation started shining through as she gleefully announced that we were going with her to Aubergine for a celebratory shot of tequila and beer.

So, after the whirlwind packing session, we got to slow way down and kick it at Aubergine, then make our way into San Francicso for a great dinner with Bruce, then off to the airport for our 1:30 am flight.  The flight went off without a hitch and we arrived in Tegucigalpa this morning just after 9am.  As we approached the city and the airplane made its signature hard bank to position itself towards the runway, we looked out the window and could see our house, the school, El Picacho, people!!  What a great bienvenidos to the city.

Here's a little of what we did during our last weeks on California...

At our camp in Lassen Nat'l Park

A boy and fire

A beautiful afternoon rain shower near Drakesbad Lodge.

A hike to a lake near Plumas Eureka State Park.

Drawing time during an afternoon rain shower.

July 29th came a little early as we celebrated

Linnea's 5th birthday with her friends at a park.

Some of the sweet friends who could come!

Your gonna move where?

Hello, We are moving to Honduras!  It is six months away and we are already selling our stuff!  We are going to be working at a private school in the capital called Tegucigalpa.

When we tell most people about moving to Tegucigalpa many people immediately ask us. Why?  That gets us thinking about why... the answer to the why changes across time.  Why you are going to do something changes as you get closer to actually doing something.  It has been fun being able to answer the same question with different responses over the past couple of months as our reasons and motivations have become more clarified and have matured over time.

This whole thing came about one afternoon when Jennie met some friends who had been educators in Costa Rica, they loved it and needless to say we were excited and wanted to learn more.  I liked the idea but I was pretty skeptical. I was just doubtful that we would find a school that met our needs and would have jobs for both of us... I guess I was sort of the nay sayer.

Well Jennie wrote  a dream list, with the types of things that we wanted.  Then she put the list up in our bedroom.  I have never been an advocate of this type of planning, but I have to say that it was the list that actually ended up confirming that this move was right for us.  In some way each item from the list was present in our lives when we made the decision to move to Tegucigalpa.