On Meeting the Goals One Sets…

Posted on June 24, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

So, I did set some goals for us to have completed by the end of this weekend, and it is dangerously close to the end of this weekend, so here is my report on that aforementioned completion:

I believe I said I would have booked something, anything. I didn’t. Credit card too full.

I also said I would have decided which Central American city we would go to first. Did that. The winner is…Belize! More specifically, Caye Caulker, which I think will be a very pleasant way to ease into the new culture and climate (unless of course, it’s hurricane season in which case being on a five mile long, one mile wide Island might not actually be the way to go). But what with the tropical breezes and the sandy streets and the no vehicles, I’m thinking I will probably not want to leave.

I can’t remember off the top of my head what the other goals were. One of them was probably to breathe. Still struggling with that one. We do, however, have flights picked (on airlines other than Spirit obviously), and all that remains is to actually book them. And we even have a second destination in mind – Tikal, Guatemala.

So, all is not lost. As far as the goal setting goes, I’d say on a scale of 1-10, I’d give myself a 6.5. But I definitely get a 10 for effort!

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“Spirited” Away…

Posted on June 23, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

I was so excited yesterday; I discovered a flight that was going to save our family $2000! I couldn’t understand why it hadn’t come up before on any of the searches I had done. I went to the website – Spirit Airlines – all looked legit. It was an American airline, not a third-world operation or anything, so in my head I thought, “OK, this is fantastic – we will be able to do so much more now that we are saving so much on flights!”.

At some point that afternoon, I remembered the old adage, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” so I decided to look online to see if anyone else had flown with Spirit Airlines. And they had. Some of the most articulate and disgusted people in the world have evidently flown with Spirit, and they really like to rant about it.

After my initial disappointment at the realization that yes, it was actually too good to be true, and no, we would not be saving $2000 or doing any extra stuff, I continued to read the reviews purely for entertainment purposes. Here are a few sample quotes:

The minute you have to start dealing with the people at Spirit, you are toast!

They suck.

Spirit couldn’t pay me to fly with them.

This is not an airline; it is a stale, worm-infested sardine can with wings.

You’re better off swimming or jogging to where you need to go.

I’d rather chew my arm off than fly Spirit again. F you Spirit. F you hard.

Never. Never. Never again.

One star since we did actually arrive at our destination without a death.

NO NO no no no no NO DON’T DO IT! 

Evil Spirit

One of my main goals in life is to put Spirit Airlines out of business.

The ultimate worst.

So, there you have it. I guess we won’t be getting “Spirited” away any time soon!

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A Calendar (and planning panic).

Posted on June 20, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

Although it seems ridiculously late for this, and if you are reading this, you are probably questioning our sanity, but we finally sat down last night with a calendar and loosely mapped out the next three months. And I do mean loosely. As in, on July 29 we will leave PEI. One week later we will arrive in Florida. Two days later we will fly to some unknown destination in Central America…..all culminating in flying to England on October 4. But at least it’s something!

In a way,  this does make me feel a little better, because it’s the beginnings of an actual plan, but on the other hand, it makes me panic, because how is it that we have known about this trip for 4 years and one month before we leave, all we have is a loose plan for the first 3 months? Another thing that makes me somewhat anxious is the fact that although we do have this calendar, we have no flights booked, no accommodation booked – nothing booked. I think I need to book something. Yes, that’s what I need to do. Tomorrow, I will book a flight, or a hotel, or something…

How does this happen? How do we wait until the very last moment to do stuff? There are theories out there that would suggest we are actually creating chaos in our lives because we LIKE it. Can this be true? Evidence would certainly suggest that this may be the case. But I still refuse to believe it. Surely, this state of panicked existence can’t be what I strive for? Surely not.

I remember last summer,  feeling like I needed to do some serious planning, and then I got all anxious and decided to give myself permission to wait. Then I felt better. Now I don’t.

OK. It’s OK. It will all be OK. I just need to do something concrete and then I will feel better. I think I need some SMART goals! By the end of this weekend I will have booked at least one flight (possibly two), and I will have more destinations on the calendar. I will  have decided which Central American destination we will fly to initially. I will also have called someone to find out what inoculations we need to travel there.

Ahh, I just noticed that I am perpetuating one of the problems which leads to my panic. I’m issuing a correction. WE. We will complete these SMART goals by the end of this weekend. I am owning this and it’s not mine, it’s OURS.

It WILL be ok. Planning should be fun. And it WILL be fun. Fun weekend of planning, here WE come!

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Moving to Nowhere…Central America, Anyone?

Posted on June 17, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

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So, we sold our house. I’ve been in denial for a while over this one – I like it there. In denial, I mean. At first, I kept saying, “oh, but they still need to sell their house”. Then they did, so I started saying, “oh, but they still have to have the inspection”. Then they did. Now, we have less than a month to vacate. Time to get out of denial.

The original plan had us staying on the Island until September, and then driving down the East Coast to Florida, hanging out down there for a while, and then somehow magically ending up on the other side of the Atlantic in England sometime in late September or October. Now, since we have to move out on July 16, and we are moving to Nowhere, we figured we might as well revamp the plan to include some August travel. The problem with driving Southward in August, of course, is that it just gets hotter and hotter as you drive further and further. I’m not that great with extreme heat. Neither are the kids. I remember 4 years ago stopping in Quebec City on the way home from visiting friends in Peterborough…it was about 30 degrees and the kids were entirely unpleasant. Understandably so. Who wants to walk around a hot, sticky, picturesque city with their parents in that kind of heat? They just want to be in water. Can’t say I blame them.

Anyway, back to the now. Which is, it’s too hot to hang out in Florida in August. So, Dev says he wants to go somewhere exotic, and points out that it’s actually “winter” in South America or anywhere else close to or south of the equator. We start looking at guide books and websites for South America, and then we come across the little paragraph that changed the plan. It said that all of what South America has to offer (such as Mayan ruins, jungle wildlife, rain forests, mountains, and tropical-paradise-style beaches) can also be found in Central America, only it’s not so big, so it’s way more manageable. Turns out it doesn’t have yellow fever either, and one less disease to worry about is always a plus.

So, here we go. Time to get the guide books out and check into what needs to happen to get us to Central America by August!

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Practice Mini-Trip.

Posted on May 23, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

We just spent a night in Halifax, all of a three and a half hour drive away from us. We have done this many many times before, but this time, my focus was very different. I viewed this as a little practice for the big thing – a very tiny glimpse into what could be…Now, I know you can’t compare a 3 or 4 hour road trip with driving to Mexico (for example), but you can learn from it. And we did. On the way home, we asked the kids what they had learned from the experience, and they said “Be Prepared”. That about sums it up, and it’s really good advice. But here are a few more things we learned as the parents and planners of the upcoming trips:

  1. Having the right clothing, footwear, and “accessories” can make or break your day. We stopped in Truro at Victoria Park, a great park for hiking complete with waterfalls and streams (to play in, as it turned out). So, when we arrived, we got the kids to change from flip flops to sneakers for our little hike in the woods (sensible.), but then when they insisted on getting wet, turns out flip flops may have been more appropriate. So, now we know we need some all terrain sandals that will go in water and still be ok for hiking. Check. Also, naturally, one child “needed” to swim in the waterfall, but wouldn’t take off her pants out of modesty, so then we had the issue of wringing wet pants for the walk back to the van (I had brought towels, but they were in the trunk). So, we need a backpack of fresh clothing and a towel next time. Check. It was hot. Unexpectedly hot. Only one of us had a hat, and only one of us put on sunscreen prior to leaving the house. I brought sunscreen, but it was in the suitcase, buried under other toiletries, teddy bears and clothes. So, always have sunscreen readily available no matter what the weather when you set out. Check. And hats. We had to go back to the van a little earlier than we wanted to due to hot heads and the fear of uncomfortable scalp sunburn.
  2. Having some kind of system of organization in the vehicle can make things a lot more pleasant for everyone. After only a couple of hours in the van,  the back looked like a bomb site. Books and notepads all over the floor. Bags everywhere, random shoes in the aisle, and snack-garbage strewn around the seats. Then nobody can find what they are looking for, or someone is constantly having to pass something to someone else, and there may even be fighting in the back. So, I have asked the kids to start thinking about how to organize the chaos, because if it’s like that after two hours, I dread to think what it will be like after twelve. I need to think about this too. There must be some good ideas on this out there, so I will look. Check.
  3. Everyone needs to be assigned an individual job when we stay in hotel rooms (or anywhere, really). Five people sharing a room is ok for a night, even if it is crowded and chaotic. But what about longer stays? In order for those to work, I think we need assigned jobs, and kind of an “order of operations”. What do we do immediately upon arrival? Unpack. Put stuff away. Basically, create space. What needs to be checked during the final sweep of the hotel room before leaving? Someone could do drawers, another person bathroom and shower, another can do plug outlets for chargers etc. And because Darragh’s pj top no longer lives with us, we now know someone also needs to check under the bedding! This could save us a lot of time, and a lot of repetition. It’s efficient, and I like efficiency. It will also teach responsibility and save us money on items we would have had to re-buy if we left them in the hotel room! Check.
  4. We need to determine what makes an educational experience into a home-schooling experience. We went to the Museum of Natural History, and of course, the girls loved it, and I’m sure they learned a lot. From how big a hummingbird’s egg is, and what fox poop looks like, to how igneous rock forms. So, as we sat there watching them count the mammals in one big display case, we looked at each other and said, “so, is this it, or do we have to do something?”. Yes, folks, that was our lesson plan. This was a great lesson for us, because clearly, that is not enough. What do we do prior to the visit to set it up? How does the focus need to differ for the three ages of our kids? Do we let them choose their own learning focus? What should they be doing while in the museum? After the visit? We need to do a little more thinking around these issues! Check.
  5. Hotel rooms for five people are ok, even without a cot. Turns out, Liah likes the floor. Awesome! And just while we are on the subject of hotels, the ones with the complimentary breakfast are definitely the way to go. Such a saving for us. And a pool. Because a pool makes everything ok.
  6. The 4G ipad rocks. Yes, this is the final thing we learned on our trip. When we said, “I’m not sure if we are going the right way – I think we may have missed the exit”, the ipad and its little flashing blue dot told us we were fine. When we were trying to decide where to eat supper, we spun the wheel-of-fortune-like spinner on the Urbanspoon app and it gave us plenty of suggestions to match our taste and budget. And it takes fabulous pictures. And it turns out, there is an app that can organize my life. I got it, but I can’t figure out how to use it. 
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Is there an app for that?

Posted on May 17, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

So, we’ve been saving since September to buy an ipad. Yes, I know I wrote a previous post about too much technology, and yes, I am still struggling with that. However, an ipad that has 4G connectivity seems to be the best way for us to access the internet wherever in the world we may be.

We finally got it (a “Mother’s Day present” for me), and I have been up late every night trying to figure it all out and find the best apps – mostly the best apps for travel and the best apps for home-schooling and  education. What I have discovered to this point is that I need an app to organize myself and my life (and my apps). So, is there an app for that??

It seems there are millions of apps, and I want to know which are the best one to actually buy (and yes, I have read all the online articles entitled “Top Ten Apps”etc, and I’m still confused). I have downloaded quite a few free ones so far, but they just take up space unless they are actually useful. And I don’t know if they are or not.

So, is there an app that can accommodate several potential travel itineraries side by side so I can compare and see what seems like the best option? Is there an app to replace the scribbler in which we house all our notes on selling the house, building the new house and travelling? Is there an app that tells me how to teach the weird new-age math strategies to my 8 year old so that she doesn’t come back to grade 3 all old-fashioned and behind? Is there an app that will ensure my 13 year old will still know how to play the clarinet when we return so she can be in the grade nine band? Is there an app that tells me if the website that says “only one seat left on this flight” or “last day at this price” “or book now to save $500” is actually for real?  Is there an app that will measure my blood pressure as I try to get my head around all the apps? Is there a yoga app to calm me down if I inadvertently slip into panic mode and end up with high blood pressure?

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The World is a Book…

Posted on May 7, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

Strangely, I only just came across this quote from St Augustine over the weekend. I find it comforting. As I continue to wonder about where to travel and how to educate the kids while we do, this quote makes me relax a little bit. If the world is a book, and we are giving ourselves and our children the opportunity to explore it, this is literacy with a capital L. Global literacy. Real life literacy.

In Finland, kids only go to school for three hours a day. And I’ve read research that suggests our students are actively engaged in learning for less than that in the run of a typical six hour school day. So, my plan is an hour of numeracy each day (which will have to be scheduled and enforced because it is unlikely to happen naturally), and an hour of literacy (which will likely become several hours a day because it does come naturally!). The rest is just gravy. Thick, rich, and delicious gravy.

Looking back at previous posts, I question how and if we will be capable of educating our children while on the road. Of course we will! We’ll just be reading this giant book called “The World”.

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Is Florida on the Same Side as England?

Posted on April 30, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

Our kids are only just starting to really engage in the process of planning The Big Trip, and there have been some very interesting comments and questions over the last few weeks. It is becoming evident that we need to spend a little more family time looking at maps or globes or something so that they can have some kind of concept of where we are in relation to where everything else is. The idea that we could go to England, then Florida, then England (because they are on the “same side”) prompted our latest “geography” lesson. It’s so much fun to talk about it and listen to their sometimes limited and sometimes inspired ideas about the “Year Off”.

Our littlest girl was reading a picture book the other night called “Hello World” which basically just consists of the word Hello on every page in a different language. She pointed out that it might be good to take with us on our trip, and I agreed. I told her then she’d be able to say hello to people in different countries, to which she replied, “We’re going to different countries!?!”. Hmm.

The middle girl wants to swim with dolphins and see wild animals. She would love to go to Africa (which, after all, is only a short drive from Spain according to the world map, and I already said we’d go to Spain…). No problem! And no perception of the distance a centimetre represents on a map.

The oldest girl, who also loves wildlife documentaries says no way to Africa (too many scary wild animals). She wants to go to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in Florida, and the Library of Congress in Washington. Seems doable considering we could go to one on the way to the other. Interesting choices and I’m all for interesting.

I would love to go to Egypt, and when I asked our oldest if this was something she would like to do (since she just studied Egypt in school), she said “Nah, not really”. I would also love to go to Africa. And Mexico. And South America. But in reality, I don’t know if we’ll be able to do any of these things. It’s fun to dream and look at maps and plan though. And it’s a lot of fun to do that with the kids. I love to hear their requests and the reasoning behind them.

We have all looked longingly at the pictures online of the Galapagos – the giant tortoises, dinosaur-style lizards,  and  sea lions hogging the sun loungers outside the hotels. We have looked at the crystal clear turquoise waters surrounded by palm trees and ancient ruins in various tropical locations. But we haven’t really got down to the business of making an itinerary yet. In fact, we can’t even make a firm decision on which continent to go to first!

As a good friend and very adventurous family traveller once told me when I asked her advice on where to go; “I would just let the kids plan the trip and they can take you along if you’re good”. Seems like a sound idea!

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Political Unrest?

Posted on February 23, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

So, the countries that have been experiencing political unrest are tempting in so many ways; they are cheaper to get to, they are actively courting tourism, so hotel prices are way down, and their popular tourist sites are far less busy than usual. We are thinking specifically about places like Egypt; the problems have been confined mainly to Cairo, and even certain parts of Cairo. So, are the Pyramids of Giza fair game? Imagine touring a place like that, but without the crowds usually associated with it. Sounds like heaven to me.

And how about Greece? With the financial issues plaguing them, surely hotels and resorts will be selling off their rooms cheaper, and the government will be desperate for the tourist trade. I’m picturing us in a little rental place in Santorini for a month, basking on the black sand beaches for mere pennies a day….aaah!

So many advantages, but are such unstable countries safe for family travel? Would we be exposing our kids to unreasonable risks, or is this just a moment to take advantage of? Anyone want to weigh in on this one?

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Decision #1 = Error #1

Posted on January 31, 2012 by roadschoolingclaytons

So, exciting weekend for us; we finally agreed on at least one place we definitely wanted to go on our year of adventure (besides Harry Potter World!?!) – Cinque Terre. Friends of ours had been a couple of years ago and showed us their pictures, and we were sold. Hiking from one coastal Italian village to another, crazy cliff top views, lemons growing outside your hotel windows, authentic Italian culture. All this fits the bill. We love the fact that the kids could do the hiking, and it is hiking with a purpose – to get to the next place – so we could probably convince even Liah to do it!

The very next day after visiting with our friends, we started researching places to stay. It didn’t take long to realize why Cinque Terre had sounded so familiar to us; the whole place flooded last October from torrential rains! They are in the process of rebuilding the towns and the trails. Put a bit of a damper on the process. Just made me realize how many unexpected hiccups we will probably have as part of this whole process. Better get used to it, I guess!

Before...

After.

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