It was a slow day around here. Mike was feeling under the weather, so I had to take over home school duties. Was feeling pretty distracted because I also had a lot of work to catch up on… but I found once I really focused on one girl at a time we made lots of progress. 

Once we got through that I was eager to take a hike up the mountain behind our hotel. I could only talk Julie into coming with me, but that was actually great because we got some quality time together and she was such a great little hiker! She was eager to scamper and climb up the rocks. And she didn’t whine once 🙂

We got to the top to enjoy an incredible view of lake Titicaca and the surrounding hills. But it also started raining on us at that point. So we didn’t linger and were quick to get back down. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon working and taking care of some trip planning (booking a week at the Marriott in Santiago on points- thank you credit cards!!). I haven’t found it too hard to work on the road but we are lucky to have sufficiently good internet thus far and strong cell signal. Though we are struggling to get a strong enough signal to upload pics to this blog!

Dinner was at a little Italian place next to our hotel. Pasta was drying on a rod right next to our table- the chef came and scooped some up to cook for us… talk about fresh!!

Oh my gosh. We leave for Bolivia tomorrow. I’m feeling awash in both excitement and anxiety. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know everything will be great. Really, really great! But I also know there will be lots of challenges and hiccups along the way. And… I just hope I’m not forgetting anything important!

Its been great to be in Santa Fe this past week for all sorts of reasons. It has been absolutely perfect to spend the last week in the US with my family, celebrating Christmas. All of my brothers and their families are just great people, and really fun to be around. And we had lots of quality family bonding over ice skating, cooking classes, x-mas eve farolito walk, exchanging gifts, shared meals, and more. My mom was a wonderful host, putting together three tables all the way across her small living room to seat a party of 15! And booking extra houses for many of us to stay in since we couldn’t fit in her awesome (but cozy) three bedroom place.

Its also been nice to know we are all packed up, have a test run with our first airbnb renters in our house, and the opportunity to pick up any forgotten items (and send others home). We also got the chance to meet the lovely family who will live in our house most of the time we’re gone, starting in late Jan. How funny that they just happen to be moving from Santa Fe! Our kiddos (all girls) got along smashingly, and hopefully we’ll be able to spend time with them in Madison when we get back (and hopefully they will have bought their own home by then).

So… why do I wake up at four every morning in a mild panic? I just have crazy visions of things going wrong, of us struggling with our mound of luggage (3 big suitcases, 2 other smaller checked bags, and a backpack for each of us…), of our thoroughly American kids refusing the food so foreign to their taste buds (tienes nuggets de pollo o mac y queso?), of not being able to find places to stay, of running out of gas or breaking down in the middle of nowhere, of getting some weird tropical ailment, of kidnappings and car accidentsand the host of other clearly improbably things that won’t happen to us, but still occupy an unreasonable amount of my brain space.

Back in the land of reality, I have some real anxiety about balancing life on the road with trying to keep a business running and maintaining good service to vChief clients on the road. I’ve tried to offload a bunch of duties to other people on my team, which helps, but there is still lots on my plate. And I know I’ll be pinch hitting on teaching the kids once in a while too, when Mike needs a break. Never mind all of the actual traveling and seeing sights and such.

So yeah, lots on my mind these days. Such as the 18 hour journey from Santa Fe to Houston to Miami to La Paz ahead of us tomorrow. (a) Thank goodness for iPads (b) let’s hope this melatonin stuff helps the kids sleep (c) you can survive 1 day of just about anything, right?

Wish us luck!