As the plane flies over Mexico City for what should be the last trip of the year, can’t help but remember everything we have accomplished this 2017! What a better opportunity to write a blog than a delayed landing.
As two working parents, with small children who attend school, it’s been a challenge and a miracle to have been able to travel so many times and still keep our jobs and our kids grades up.
January 2017 started on board a Carnival Cruise lines ship at Nassau Bahamas. An experience that everyone should have at least once in their lifetime. Surrounded by strangers dancing and screaming we welcomed the year! It’s absolutely the biggest, wildest (Yet family appropriate) New Years celebration we have ever been to.
Right after, we made our bags and headed to Guatemala, a Central American country that no one (Almost no one) considers as a tourist destination. The occasion: Ric’s birthday. He has correspondents and producers there that through the years have become friends and they treated us like family. Guatemala was definitely the surprise of the year! Antigua is just beautiful and Lake Atitlan stole our hearts! Waking up every morning and looking at the three volcanos around the lake was priceless. This adventure gave our kids the opportunity to interact with the local indigenous people, an unforgeable experience.
March took Ric to beautiful San Francisco for a work training course and I tagged along. It was a couple’s trip! This city felt like our next home (Minus the high prices of everything) We enjoyed the Golden Gate Bridge, amazing coastal scenery, state parks and an incredible drive along the pacific highway! A moment that made us feel inside a romantic movie.
After the SF “Work” trip we packed for Japan and China! The purpose of the trip was to visit the Great Wall of China and cross it off our bucket list! Also to introduce our kids to a different culture and to long haul flights. They passed the test with flying colors! Although we must admit that our oldest one had a total meltdown because of a culture clash! He was shocked that he could not understand anything in two countries! It was funny, but also enriching and eye opening!
(Mount Fuji, Japan)
But, what is a year without a Europe trip? On May we headed to visit Ric’s sister in Paris and; 1- meet her new boyfriend, 2- Visit Disneyland Paris, something we also had in our bucket list. After the Asia trip this family get together in the city of love was music to our Kid’s ears. Paris with kids was better than we expected!
Summer surprised us in New York City! Ric had another work trip and we all tagged along for extra days after his work was done. Having family in New Jersey makes the big apple a familiar place to us. We visit at least once a year! Summer gave us the opportunity to enjoy boating at Central Park, walking on the Brooklyn bridge and do lots of shopping.
The last week of July and into August we headed to Cartagena Colombia, a destination we had heard a lot about and was always in the back of our minds. We decided to make it happen! It was a great experience for the whole family! The combination of history, great food and a beautiful walled city made this very enjoyable for all of us.
As the kids went back to school in September we were supposed to fly to India to scratch another wonder of the world from our bucket list, but everything changed. Ric’s health quickly deteriorated with three kidney stones so big that lead to three surgeries and a month of hospital stay. This was our worst nightmare come true. Honestly we didn’t know if we were going to be able to get back on the road.
In October, with our heart in our sleeve and completely terrified of a health set back we got on a flight for New Delhi! We successfully traveled the golden triangle and enjoyed the magnificent Taj Mahal ! To celebrate the occasion we arranged a photo shoot and multiple visits to the UNESCO monument to make sure we throughly got to see the place.
In November to celebrate our oldest son’s birthday Legoland Florida hosted us for an amazing celebration. Honestly the park and hotel were a very pleasant surprise. It was an extended family trip with ages ranging from six to eighty five and EVERYONE enjoyed the rides, food, characters and atmosphere at the venues.
Because of the health crisis, we had to cancel a trip to Bimini and grand Bahamas that we had been planing as well.
Just as we thought we are done with planes and airports for 2017! Ric had to fly to Mexico City to produce the wedding of a huge Latin soap-opera star and her millionaire husband for television. Mexico is always a fun place to visit and this trip was all about, work, celebration, meeting with his Mexico production team one more time, bodyguards and celebrities. What a fun way to end the year!
Most of this trips have been documented on blog posts here on this page and on YouTube videos on our channel (Link above) Feel free to subscribe and follow along. We are completely clueless of what 2018 will bring our way, but we have no expectation of stopping yet. Thank you and happy New year! Maybe we will cross paths somewhere in the world!
