Prologue - The Family Adventure Lives On!

In many ways, Boulder has already exceeded our expectations on so many levels. Our house turned out to be even better than expected, and now that we have finally got all of our stuff moved in, it has already started to feel like a home. We have been continually amazed at how friendly and welcoming people are here, inviting us over to their homes and helping us network with other families and like-minded individuals. There is a strong sense of community and family here, which is what had been looking for but had never found in LA. It is nice to be so close to my brother Jeff, Lynn and their 1 year-old son Braydon who are only 10 minutes away and have helped us settle in quickly. Plus, we now live in the same town as our new best family friends, the Andrews - with whom we've shared countless highs and lows during our crazy adventures in Spain together. I love the fact that we can ride with the kids on bikes to school, watching with amazement as families seemingly pour out of the different streets along the route to ride with us. I love how our kids now regularly broker "play-dates" on the fly after school, as if drafting for a fantasy football league. The boys are in soccer and cub scouts (making a former AYSO junkie and Eagle Scout's heart smile), and Casey is now doing ballet and gymnastics. We found a local student who is from Mexico who is now coming out to work with the kids to preserve what little Spanish they have still retained, so we'll see how that goes! We are all continually meeting interesting new people and making new friends. They like their school and their teachers and Suzanne and I are filling up our time by volunteering at the school and getting to know the community. The biking out here is world-class, and I've had to re-set my perspective about what it means to be an athlete; the people here are on a completely different stratosphere! While the specter of employment and re-engaging in a career still looms in the back of our minds, we are quite content at the moment and are extremely fortunate to take this opportunity to really settle in before jumping into the next big thing. We have had enough craziness and uncertainty over this past year and it feels good to really take the time settle down and plant roots. We owe that to our kids, to ourselves and to each other. As each day goes by and we settle into our new lives here, our Spanish Adventure Year feels more and more like a vivid, fascinating dream. It is amazing to think about what a wonderful and crazy experience our last year has been and how much we experienced in such a short amount of time. All of us have memories which will stay with us for a lifetime, and although things didn't always match up to our expectations, that is what made this an "adventure" in the truest sense of the word. Viva Espana and Viva our new adventure in Boulder!

Moving On and Letting Go

With the kids out of the house all day, we turned our energy towards closing out our lives and preparing for our final move to Boulder. Things turned out pretty smoothly, save for the last day when it took much longer than expected to move our final stuff out of the house. Although half of our possessions were already in storage and given our constant efforts to pare things down, I was shocked to see how much stuff we still owned! We ended up tripping over the new tenants, who started dropping off their things. In retrospect, it would have been better had we demanded they come a day later so we wouldn't have seen piles of other peoples' things stacked up in the carport and big encroaching flat-screen tvs on the walls, so we could have preserved our memory of the house exactly as we had left it. However, it was interesting and encouraging to note that neither Suzanne nor I had nearly the same melonchally feelings that we had when we left our house over a year ago. As much as we cherished our property and the wonderful memories created here, it seemed we were finally ready to move on. Plus, we had become really excited about the prospect of living in a great new family-oriented place in Boulder. While we had hoped to have many dinner-parties and catch up with old friends, we simply ran out of time. It was not until our last day, after the movers had boxed up our remaining possessions and we were officially "homeless" once again, that we were able to have a nice evening with Jody and Rob and a quick breakfast with Eric and Susan (round-the-world travelers who stayed with us in Javea), before jumping on our flight to Colorado.

Last Hurrah in So. Cal.

As we were thoroughly exhausted from traveling and living out of suitcases for the last several months, it felt great to come "home" to our beloved property in Agoura. Although half of our furniture and belongings were locked away in storage, our house was still more equipped than many of the apartments we had stayed in during our adventure. The kids were thrilled to return to something familiar, even though their toys and furniture had been packed away long ago. It felt especially great to jump into our own comfortable bed and fall into a deep sleep, already letting go of the many "hard lumpy bed" memories that had plagued us throughout our adventure year. Our first morning back at the house was a somewhat surreal experience. After everything we had been through, being back seemed like waking up from an amazingly vivid dream, as if nothing had changed. The canyon and house looked almost exactly the same as we had left it. We had always loved waking up to the sun coming up over the mountains and enjoying the beautiful, peaceful views from our bedroom, and today was no exception. Although we didn't have our favorite automatic espresso machine, we did manage to get a strong pot of coffee brewing. And the kids wasted no time jumping into our pool the moment they woke up and managed to play there all day long! I found myself in a dream-like, jet-lagged state as I headed out to our local grocery store and wandered aimlessly through the aisles - awed by the selection of foods and the fact that the store was already open at 7:30 am. However, I was shocked to see the prices of wine and bread, realizing that our days of quality $3 riojas and riberos and $0.25 loaves of bread were now gone. Reacclimatization was going to be a challenge... While it was great to spend some time back here, I would not classify it as a vacation by any means. We had tons to get done in the next 2 1/2 weeks in order to prepare for the new tenants as well as to figure out how best to transition ourselves to Boulder, CO. Fortunately, Suzanne enrolled the kids at Camp Keystone down the canyon during our time here and they could not have been more excited to be at summer camp with other english speaking kids! They were also fortunate to be able to have one last pool party with their LA cousins, Kyle and Kelani as well as getting to spend a few days up in Petaluma with their N. Cal cousins, Alexa and Dominic. While we were sad to be leaving family here in California, we were excited to get to meet our new cousin, baby Braydon, who was born right after we left for Spain last year.

A Rocky Start to Our Adventure Year

For those of you planning to take a family adventure year, be sure to leave yourself plenty of time on the front end before leaving - a valuable lesson learned the hard way for us! While we had certainly planned on using our last week to relax and enjoy our home, it seemed everything came down to the last minute and the stress of leaving was almost unbearable. In the hopes of helping others avoid such a fiasco, I will share with you some high(low)lights of our last day in California: As we awoke to the sound of the moving trucks coming up the driveway, it was clear that today was going to be crazy. Although the packers had started boxing up the day before, there was plenty still to be done. Plus, we were struggling with what items to bring for a whole year, and it was becoming painfully clear we had way too many bags. We had to start jetisoning our luggage, and fast! To make matters yet more complicated, our new tenant, Zen had arrived and we still had to finalize what items to leave with the house for her (as the house was still on the market for sale). So for the rest of the morning, we had people scurrying all over the house with too many questions about what to take and what to leave behind. Now all of this might have been manageable, were it not for 2 additional issues: a) we had still not sold our Camry, and b) we apparently were missing some critical visa documentation. As for the car, in a feat of desparation, I called up the ONLY person who had previously inquired about our Craigslist posting and begged him to come over that morning. I don't think he fully appreciated the leverage he had over me at that point, but ultimately he came and we agreed on a price on the spot. I couldn't believe we were actually unloading the car. Talk about last minute! We hurried over to the bank and started filling out the paperwork and as we returned to the car after transferring the funds, I was shocked to discover the car would not start. Nooooooo!!!!! He looked at me with equal parts scorn and derision as I explained that this had NEVER happened before, and perhaps the battery was low (we had been running the AC while the car was off). Fortunately, a quick jump start took care of things, but it was a very uncomfortable and anxious ride back to the house. I breathed an audible sigh of relief as he finally pulled out of the driveway, thankful that he hadn't demanded his money back. As I got pulled back into the chaos of our move, we received an unexpected call at 12:30 from the Spanish Consulate in Los Angeles. Apparently, they had just received some "very important visa papers" that we needed to pick up immediately. Up until this moment, I thought we had everything we needed. There was too much left to do and there was simply no way I could get down there today. The Consulate informed me that they would be closing at 2 pm (true to the Spanish siesta!) and these papers were absolutely critical for us to establish residency on our arrival. Aaarrrggghhh!!!! I frantically made some calls and begged for help. Ultimately, it took 3 different people to make this happen - Kenny, who made it down to the Consulate right just as they were closing, Justin, who got the papers from Kenny, and ultimately, Michol, who would bring them to our hotel at LAX late that night. I will forever be grateful to the three of them for coming through in the clutch. I still couldn't believe we were dealing with all of this so close to our departure the following morning. We finally got the movers out, and were still hastily trying to lighten our load when the shuttle arrived. We still had about 1 1/2 ours of work! I was stuffing things into boxes in the event that we wanted to ship out extra winter clothes and some optional scuba and camping gear. All told, after all the work to jetison clothes, we were left with 10 bags to check and 6 carry-on items - 16 bags in all! Our entire possessions for the next year layed on the floor in front of me and I cringed to think about how we were going to get all these bags over to Spain, plus keep our eyes on three very mobile children. As we finally loaded everything onto the shuttle and started to head out of the canyon for what might be the last time, Suzanne was struck with an "oh my God, what the @#$%^ are we doing?" moment - and proceeded to break down sobbing and shedding tears. I must admit that this caught me completely by surprise. I wasn't quite so sure myself at that moment, and I felt a surge of emotion and nostalgia for the wonderful life we seemed to be saying goodbye to. I did my best to put on a brave front and focus on the excitement of our upcoming adventure, hoping inside that things would start looking up once we were finally on the plane. I'm not sure either of us could handle another day like this...