Ottawa fun

I think the assumption is that since we are travelling the world with four young children, we must either have super powers or be incredibly organized or both. Unfortunately, we are neither. We are normal and disorganized and rarely have control of all our children, let alone ourselves, but are willing to accept these bitter truths and hassles in the name of fun. 

This past week was a testament to our disorganization as we realized the next leg of our trip was more of a concept than an actuality. We wanted to leave our plans flexible but really the fear of being stuck with no place to sleep in rural Hungary and no means of transportation other than our feet was daunting. So, in the matter of a few days we managed to book about five flights, several car rentals, about twenty accommodations, and haphazardly plan a three week walk. It was a bummer to do -especially the bit that involved phone calls in Slovakian and our bank freezing our account due to our Eastern European spending frenzy. AlI can say is we are now in better shape but far from done, and it is incredible that Jakob can write emails in Italian after a month of duolingo. 

Despite having to take responsibility for our plans we have managed to have so much fun in Ottawa with Jakob's family. We behaved as all Canadian families should, watching hockey together, strolling among tulips, having bagel brunches, driving through forests full of begging Canadian mammals, having tea and cake on chilly afternoons at Shirley's, gawking at swollen rivers and tales of sandbagging, playing Scrabble, jumping and climbing all over aunts and cousins, moaning about taxes, and pressing our noses to windows as we watched the snowfall (yes there was both snow and flooding during our brief visit). Volcanoes and coral may be cool, but there's nothing like family.