Author: Astrid

9 July 2014 – Time for the night safari in Kruger National Park! Our safari truck is here.  Load 'em up! Thank goodness Debbie had the foresight to ask us to bring cold weather gear – hats, mittens, and warm jackets. And blankets!  My three all snuggly and cozy! Driving towards Kruger National Park (Numbi…

9 July 2014 – Wakey wakey!  Time to get up.  It's a gorgeous day today!  Mark and Ava are making pancakes (from a mix) for us.  Yum! Ava wants to closely examine this little experiment – she placed an empty beer can into the fire last night to see if it would melt.  It didn't…

8 July 2014- Just an FYI – the trip to Johannesburg was quite possibly the longest one I've been on yet!  Each leg of the trip (okay, there were only two legs) was between 7 and 8 hours long…and combine that with a stop-over….yikes.  Talk about feeling a little out of sorts!  I can also…

7 July 2014 – What can I say?   I know most of you think we're completely bonkers with all the traveling we've done.  I wouldn't disagree with you!  Two of the incredible blessings of being an expat are 1) meeting people from around the globe and 2) getting to travel to places you've only…

10 June 2014 – Even though it's a school day the girls are coming with us to the Tianjin section of the Great Wall.  The Stader Family created a bucket list of "must-see" places in China for their visit and (naturally) the Great Wall was on that list.  :-) Taking the golf cart up to…

This is part of the out-of-order blog posts from the Stader's visit this past June. 13 June 2014 – It's FRIDAY!!!  Woo hoooooo!!!  It's also, technically, the last day of school….however the girls will be missing school today because we're heading to LIJIANG with the Stader family.   Lijiang is located in southern China and…

14 June 2014 – Here I am – reeeeeaching waaaaaaaaaaay back to June for the next several blog posts and photos.  And even after all this time I STILL haven't managed to get my photos all in order.  However, in the interest of ATTEMPTING to get everyone caught up on our magical summer vacation I'll…

While I'm quite behind on blog posts – having taken a nice two (and change) month holiday from writing blog posts – I just couldn't wait to write a blog post about Annika's birthday! 10 August 2014 – It's Sunday …and it's Annika's eleventh birthday!!! (Annika was born on a Sunday.)  We're back in Grand Haven,…

16 & 17 June 2014 -  Welcome to Xi'an!  Our flight was – gulp! – ON TIME.  No seriously.  I know you're shaking your head and tell me that's IMPOSSIBLE but I tell – it was.  Really! However, it's late.  Our driver (whom I arranged via our guide we'll meet tomorrow) just dropped us off…

7 June 2014- Anybody know proper etiquette when it comes to partaking High Tea at a fancy schmancy hotel???? I could use a crash course! Mimi's mom, Chrissie, invited me and several teachers from IST (and my friend Quay), to enjoy high tea with her at the Ritz Carlton hotel this afternoon. Now, a little…