Michael’s family lives in Arizona, so we always plan to spend time there. We love spending time with Mike, Melissa, Violet, and Barrett. They are gracious to have us stay with them. They have an amazing setup: a beautiful house, a gym, and a backyard with a trampoline, a playset, a pool, and a pickleball court. The last time we…
We took the weekend off from skiing to drive to Las Vegas. It is only a three-hour drive from Brian Head. Our friends, the McIntyres, who we met at a worldschool hub in Ecuador, were in Las Vegas for the weekend for a National Cheerleading competition. Their son Austin was competing. We checked into our hotel on the strip…
Our ski adventure continued in Utah. We arrived in Brian Head just in time for a fresh snowfall—five inches of powder greeted us on our first day! The mountain looked like a winter wonderland, and the conditions were perfect for skiing. Soft, fluffy snow made for smooth runs, and Henry and I spent the morning cruising down the slopes, enjoying…
We promised Lucas and Henry skiing after spending time in the warmer climate of Southeast Asia. Our first ski spot for the 2025 ski season was at the Purgatory Resort in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. We met up with Michael’s mom, his sister, and her family for a fun week of skiing. We stayed in a great…
The Watkins don’t sit still for long. After a few weeks in North Carolina, we packed our car and headed west. The first stop was in Colorado. Our friends, the McDougall’s, who we first met in Bulgaria and traveled within Asia, are in Longmont, CO. We spent 10 days with them. Lucas and Henry get along so well with their…
I grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. My dad still lives there, so that is where we headed after Atlanta. Lucas and Henry think of my dad’s house as their home base– if we had to say we have one. They got to decorate the “kids” room in the house. The first Friday we were there, we went to the…
My sister, mom, and youngest brother live in Atlanta. Many of our friends do too. We saw many of our Atlanta friends as well as our worldschool friends, the Crabtrees while they were passing through Atlanta. My friend Jewel also drove from Chattanooga to Atlanta for a visit. It means so much to us when friends take time to meet…
We touched back down in the United States for Thanksgiving in Sunnyvale, California. My oldest brother Sam and his wife AC live there. We also saw our niece, Nell, a junior at UC Santa Cruz, and we met our long-lost cousin Dan, also a student at UC Santa Cruz. We enjoyed spending time with them. It was the perfect spot…
Our time in Southeast Asia was incredible, but there is so much more of the world to see. We spent our last days in Bangkok wrapping up Lucas’ Invisalign, seeing friends, and eating our favorite foods before returning to the United States. Lucas started his Invisalign journey in October of 2023. After 13 months, his treatment is complete and he…
Mainland China was not on our list of places to go on our Asia itinerary. We did not want to go through the visa process. Then we found out about the transit visa. You can get up to 144 hours in certain regions of China without going through the normal visa process. You have to fly into China from an…