It's not over yet

I cannot believe that this time last year, we were sitting on the deck of Zen in the beautiful San Blas islands off the coast of Panama. It feels like so long ago. Lots of people have asked if I enjoy living back in the States. My answer is probably yes. It's great to see friends and family, and go to the places that we missed for 2 years, but it's hard to choose between the two, very different life styles. Cruising, or land life? We don't have to worry about that yet though. Next week we will be driving up to the Barkman's house in Pennsylvania. Cole and I will live there with our best buddies for about a month while Mommy and Daddy go back to New Zealand and get the boat ready to go on a ship. Zen is now blue, and has a few interior changes. Then, we will all fly to Florida where we will stay for 6 months while we wait for Zen to arrive on the ship. There are lots of things planned for the next couple of months. I will join Katherine's dance classes, and Cole may join a karate dojo. Then, in Florida, we will do both karate and dance. Possibly even piano. It should be fun! 

We're back!

Hi everyone! I would like to announce that we are sitting in our house in Portsmouth, RI this very minute! Today we went to school at Saint Michael's and had a great time. It feels like we never left! Well, this will just be a quick blog update, but I just wanted to say that we arrived safely. The flight here was really long, and a bit boring, but it was fine. Dance class at All Star Dance Academy is tonight! I did ballet and pointe yesterday...it was fun. It's really great to see all of our friends and family, and hopefully I'll be able to see everyone from Festival Ballet soon as well! Okay, that's about it. Have a great couple of weeks...merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Namaste!

Hi everyone! If you're wondering, namaste is the way that you say 'hi' in India, where we are now! We arrived into India last Monday, but not before a quick and unexpected trip to Bangkok, Thailand. 

Okay, so how can a trip to Thailand be unexpected? Well, when we arrived into the Thailand airport we went to the desk where we were supposed to receive our transfer tickets into India. Unfortunately, we had some problems with visas and were forced to stay at a hotel for the next 3 days while we waited for our visas. At first I was disappointed that we weren't going to be able to go straight to India, and go to my aunt's wedding, but it ended up being really fun. We stayed at a hotel on the Chao Phraya river, which is about an hour away from the airport. It was super warm, and I ended up having to pull out my sun dresses. Of course, we had to see the dance show and buffet the next night. It was a really cool show and was very different from the South Pacific Island's shows. The woman had really long finger nail extensions and everyone had big, tall, gold head dresses that looked like the tops of some of the buildings we saw. Also, the food was so good. I've never had such good Thai food in my life. That day, we explored the city by train. It was like a monorail that goes just about everywhere you need to go. We went to the huge 'weekend market' and explored there for about an hour and a half. We saw lots of cool things and even some puppies and bunnies! After that we went to a huge mall called 'Siam Paragon' where we had lunch. The food court was humungous! Our last day rivaled with our passport extravaganza in Boston before we left the States two years ago. The only difference was that we were looking for visas, Mommy didn't have a cast, and we were sweating our butts off, not shivering. The main idea was that it was really hectic. We did finally get everything settled and made it to our 5 PM flight to India that evening. 

The next day we started our journey in India. We met our family here in New Delhi and basically ate and talked all day. It's still crazy to think that all these people I am meeting are my aunts, uncles and cousins! The next day we took our 5 hour drive to Agra where we visited the amazing Taj Mahal. It was so beautiful. We had a great guide that knew everything there is to know about India and was really funny at the same time. First, he took us to a huge fort that was built in the time of the Moghals. It was really cool to actually stand in a place that I just studied about in history! After that, we visited the Taj Mahal. It is just so big! There was amazing detail and everything was thought of. For example, there are four spires on each corner of the Taj. Each one is leaning out at a different angle in case of an earth quake. If an earth quake over 8.5 was to hit the Taj, each spire would fall at a different time, making it so that none of the mosques near it would be hurt or damaged. Amazing right? Inside, there is just unbelievable decoration. All sorts of little tiny stones with really brilliant colors were placed by hand into the marble to form thousands of little flowers. There was blue, red, orange, green, brown and even some yellow! One red stone called carnelia glowed if you put a flashlight up against it. The workmanship and preciseness was just amazing. I really, really enjoyed that part of our trip. 

But right now, we are back in Delhi. I hope to see everyone soon!!!!

Bye!

Lolly Stock Down Under

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't written in so long! It's actually been a few weeks since Lolly Stock ended, but I'll post some of my journal entries about my favorite parts of the trip. If you're wondering, Lolly Stock Down Under was when the Barkmans came to visit us in the New Zealand! We rented two campers and drove all around the South Island for 8 days. We had so much fun!!

Okay, so this is probably the most crazy filled day:

Day 5: We did the craziest stuff today......well, I guess more crazy for the dads and my mom, but still crazy! All of us went up a really steep chairlift to the top of a mountain. At the top, we got our tickets and took another, smaller ski lift to the base of a small cart track. There, we got really cool, little carts that you rode down the mountain on. Kak, Lolly, Cole and I went down 5 times each and loved it. We went really fast and crashed into stuff. Typical. When we were done, the dads announced that they were going to do the bungy jump next to the cart track in preperation for the bigger canyon swing that they would do later that day. The jump was 100 meters down, and you had to do a dive, as if into a swimming pool, off the platform. We were so scared for them. Daddy went 1st and loved it. Then Pete went 3rd. Both were so glad they did it and had a great time. We then went to the upstairs buffet to have lunch (which was soo good). But we had to eat fast for fear of missing the bus that would bring us to the canyon swing, which is a really big swing attached to a line that goes accross a canyon by bungy cords. No, I didn't do it, but Mommy, Daddy and Pete did. Below the 300 meter high platform that these crazy people were going to jump off of, were sharp cliff-rocks and white water rapids. Daddy, again, went 1st. He, of course, jumped off the platform backwards, freefalling for 3 senconds before starting the ark of the swing. He loved it, and while in swing, anounced that he was 'deffinitely doing this again'. Mommy was next. She went off the cliff a bit more careful than Daddy and just stepped off the platform. Screaming the whole way down, she also loved it. Pete was next and jumped off forwards, but pretended to run as he fell as if he didn't mean to jump. He really enjoyed it too. After two other 20 someodd year old girls went, Daddy and Pete both took a second turn. They both decided to do the scariest jump that you could do....head first. Yeah. But, they both really liked it and we all laughed hysterically at the pictures. So that was day 5. You can imagine what the rest of the trip was like! Some of the other highlights were a trip to a really huge glacier (miles long and high), a jet boat ride, 45 minutes at a hot tub place that overlooked a river, and a 6 hour drive along a tiny, winding, dirt road along the 'Valley of Death'. It was really funny...a sign at the beginning of the road warned us that 'no campers are allowed'. We had lots of fun. 

Well, that's it for now! Bye!