#1 – Travelling Again – This time with only 4 suitcases

​3 ½ years ago, I wrote the last published post on our family travel blog. Today I pick up the pen again to write and journal our latest travel adventures. We have begun a 4-month travel trip with our two youngest children Megan and Jacob. 
 
Our general plans will take us to Alaska and Canada in September. Southern France and Eastern Europe in October, Italy in early November, before jumping on an extended cruise which will take us to Croatia, Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Mauritius, Seychelles and South Africa. Our final two weeks of December will be spent in South Africa, with a possible trip north to Victoria falls.
 
After four months on the road, we’ll return to the US just in time our annual new year’s eve Polar plunge in freezing temperatures in our neighbors swimming pool, and then our son Nathan will be married on January 5th!
 
Stay tuned for our weekly highs and lows and pictures and write-ups of our adventures.

​For those who are interested, I’ll highlight the past 3 ½ years:
 
Emily (25) – Emily travelled to an Arabic study abroad in Jordan and met her future husband Jonathan LIfferth. She completed her degree in Linguistics at BYU, married Jonathan, took a 6-month backpacking honeymoon to South America, and then settled in Tennessee, first Memphis and then Nashville. She works for IKON as a translation project manager. Jonathan and she have purchased their first home and they are remodeling the house and setting up a goat farm.
 
Nathan (22) – Nathan began his studies at BYU in piano performance. He took a break from school to serve a mission in Armenia, enduring the time during the Global Covid-19 pandemic then returned school at BYU. He took a break from school to concentrate on collaborative piano, composing, teaching, accompanying and solar sales. He met his fiancée Rachel Madsen and they are to marry in January 2023. 
 
Anna (20) – Anna attended a semester of college at Southern Virginia University, then returned to Utah to attend UVU (Utah Valley University). She is studying Art and Design and Marketing, and has started her own resale clothing business. She took a break during the summer of 2020. For a western states roadtrip, and is currently a full-time student and she is working as a seamstress, fashion model, and property manager.
 
Tyler (18) – Tyler attended three years of high school at Mountain View high school in Orem. He was active in theater both in the school and out, and also worked a few jobs at the city rec center and then selling solar. He was a super-social kid with friends over all the time. He is now serving a 2-year mission in Brazil.
 
Megan (15) – Megan is now a Junior at Mountain View High. She has loved her three years of school in Orem. She sings with the choir and continued to play piano and violin, and she also loved ballroom dance lessons. She got her driver’s permit and is quite the safe and sane driver.
 
Jacob (13) – Jacob would have begun his freshman year. He loves to code, play chess, play the piano and harp, and dance ballroom. His school has swung between full-time public school and partial home-schooling. He now gets to be full-time homeschooled with us on our trip.
 
Erik returned to Utah with the family in early 2019 to work with his mother to prepare her small exercise equipment business for sale. He completed the business sale in August of 2020. After a year of renting a home, Erik and Tera bought a house (in an adjoining neighborhood) that was ripe for remodeling, and they spent the Covid summer of 2020 rehabbing the house. Thereafter, he started a real estate business with his mother, flipping mobile homes (purchasing, renovating, reselling), and he completed his 13th mobile home flip just prior to beginning the travel.
 
Tera spent her time as mother and home organizer, assisting the children with their education, making the design decisions on the home rehab, improving her health and the family’s health through better eating and more exercise, and generally being the wonderful, compassionate, supportive person that she is.