Halftime is over and the second half is starting. It’s been over 3 weeks since we arrived back in the United States from Singapore for much-needed holiday visits with family, friends and dentists and doctors.  

For nearly six months, we had all been missing familiar faces of folks whom we love dearly.  Every day while traveling we embrace a world of unfamiliar faces that contributes to our aggregate travel experience in ways we might not even recognize until later. After many walks, coffees, dinners, get-togethers and nights out, we collectively caught up with well over 100 absolutely amazing people we sorely missed during our travels. We tried our best not to bore everyone silly with our vacation stories and photos but that was challenging at times given that’s all we’ve done for the last six months. 

When we returned to the states, Kyle printed off the blogs that he had compiled in word and mailed them to our parents who are not quite as tech savvy. Leanne’s dad, Bob, gets the prize. He was the first one to read the blog through page by page which was no small feat given it numbered 300 pages.  He also sat through hours of photos with us reliving our trip.  We were overjoyed. We asked him his favorite story from the blogs and he started cracking up and says the one about the naked guy in the hotel hallway in Vietnam. We agreed.

We spent the first week back in Los Angeles.  Since we rented out our house, we had to rent an Airbnb in Redondo Beach. So while we were in our hometown, we were still living out of backpacks and suitcases in a place not our own. The week was a mixture of dentist, orthodontist and doctor appoints, ordering stuff we need for the second half of the trip, going through stuff we shipped back and having fun catching up with as many people as possible. Kyle took the boys to the Lakers game declaring “we simply have to go, we’ve been waiting 10 years for them to be good again!” The highlight was Ashley’s birthday as she turned 13 and now we officially have 5 teenagers without having to round Ashley’s age up.

Next, we headed to Virginia to visit with Kyle’s family. Kyle’s sister recently moved within Virginia and we had to find a new place to stay.  We found an Airbnb with a charming house on a farm.  As we got off the plane in Virginia, it was 25 degrees out.  Ouch!  That was colder than anywhere we were in the first half of the trip due to Kyle’s obsessive planning to optimize the route for the best weather.  The closest we came was Mount Everest which was about 35 degrees.

As we arrived at the farmhouse, the owner calls to tell us that they ran out of oil so there is no heat in the house but she will have space heaters set up.  As we are settling in the house, one of the doors flies open and a dude pops out of nowhere with a space heater.  He introduces himself and says that he and his girlfriend are the tenants in the basement. Upon further inspection, we see that there is no way to lock the door to the basement so they can enter the main house at any time.  Apparently the Airbnb owner forgot to mention in the listing that the house comes with a couple in the basement included at no extra charge.  On the last day, the water was leaking so they had to turn the water off to the house and we had no water.  Hmm…seems like traveling in the US is more challenging that traveling abroad.

It was great week as we caught with Kyle’s sister, her husband and three of her four kids.  Our niece and nephew who are at University of Alabama flew up as well as Kyle’s mom.  Kyle’s mom had 11 of her 12 grandchildren there which was special.  The kids played lots of games together. 

Apparently the kids were missing the routine of visiting attractions and exploring new places. As we left VA, John and Justin had arranged for us to stop at Fort McHenry in Baltimore.  It is the place where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner during a battle in the War of 1812 with Britain.  Interesting fun fact, the Star Spangle Banner was originally titled the Defense of Fort McHenry.

We then spent a week in NJ with Leanne’s family.  We hung out with her parents, brother and his wife and sister, her husband and their granddaughter.  Leanne’s family has a horse farm with 16 horses.  The boys turned into rock-star farm hands helping feed, water and train the horses.  Justin fixed the farm’s “gator” which is a mini-tractor and was zipping all over the farm in it the rest of the week.

Leanne’s brother hosted a Christmas Eve party and Leanne’s parents hosted Christmas.  It was great getting to spend time with our loved ones.  We did a White Elephant and Secret Santa for our gift exchanges.

As we get ready for the second half of our trip, there is a degree of travel fatigue present.  While it was great to be back in the States, it was not really a break as we were still traveling, living out of suitcase and trying to get stuff accomplished before we head back out.  The pace of our US visit seemed far more hectic than the usual pace of our usual global travel. However, we are confident this is just a passing phase and things will return to normal as we are back out exploring the world.  

We are seeing our teens grow in their faith, sensitivity, knowledge and humility.   Their perspectives have widened on the struggles of others.  They have witnessed abject poverty, oppression and even despair.  Even hawkers have taught us lessons on marketing, sales, and cynically speaking, manipulation.  They have also witnessed great buildings and structures of past civilizations - most of whom vanished for a variety of reasons - like war, famine or the wrath of Mother Nature. 

Since we were heading straight out to South America after Christmas, we had limited ability to receive gifts as our bags were already quite full.  We informed the family that this trip was their Christmas gift so everything they received this year was trip related.  Replacement wool socks. Warm base layers.  There was a somewhat shocking lack of griping as they said they understood.  

Since our trip is focused on experiences and spending time together, we have not bought many things along the way (mostly gifts for the family back home).  We can’t help but wonder, are material things becoming less important in the kid’s lives as we had wished?  We see a level of maturity in them that was not there six months ago.  In past years, we have gift suggestions and hints dropped well before Cyber Monday. 

And we (Kyle and Leanne) ourselves have grown in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Our perspectives have changed seeing how difficult life is for so many people in so many countries across the world.  We analyze things from a Global perspective now, not just as an American.  Kyle used to only read domestic news, now he only reads international news and stopped reading domestic news (only so much he can take of Trump’s three-ring circus J).