Home Sweet Home

We made it! After 24 straight hours of travel we are back in our cozy little house. Lee did amazingly well on the flights. He slept through most of the first 4 hour leg then we were able to keep him happy enough on the 14 hour leg where he didn't scream once until we landed in Seattle. He then proceeded to lose his shit as we taxied to our gate. Not bad. We are trying to get back to normal sleep pattern and it's going marginally. Luckily Tommy's mom who has been taking phenomenal care of Jacques, Cleo, the chickens and our house while we were away was around to feed us and ease us back into our world a bit. 

We had an amazing trip. I had a lot of apprehensions going into it, mostly about the baby. What if he doesn't sleep, what if he gets sick, what if he...?! None of it happened and if it did we could have managed it. I'm glad we did the trip despite knowing all the what ifs and we had a great time. I learned a lot about traveling with a baby! I had some successes like packing the perfect amount of diapers. Only had 4 left over. Pack light and be portable, it always pays off(and no I didn't need more then 2 pairs of shoes). Toms are the best travel shoe for anyplace warm. I wore them all over Kenya and all over India. They pack small, are comfy and surprisingly tough. Always bring two hats for the baby. Ask the locals. People are more then happy to help but can't do a thing if you don't ask. Always eat at the kinda sketchy restaurant. There's a reason it's busy. And be curious. 

Lee smuggled back a meat tooth and meat tooth 2.0! Customs didn't even check. I think he grew a little too. Ok, time to take a nap. Thanks for joining us on the adventure! 

Back surrounded by his toys! 

We bought this awesome brass slide bolt as our souvenir. It's called a Kerala lock and was on a lot of the old buildings we saw. We found one at a hardware store and needed it. Now we just need a place to put it! 

Final Few

Another couple days of relaxing in Varkala. We visited the good lunch spot in town again, lounged on our porch and had tea & cake, played in the sand and swam in the sea. Had great dinners with our kiwi friends who we will never forget and fell asleep to crashing waves. The last two days the sea has been tumultuous. Massive waves relentlessly booming onto shore. We've stayed out of it just playing in the sand or the foam, it's pretty scary. You'll see someone swim out then 5 minutes later come stumbling back to shore. The water is a little bit colder but otherwise the weather hasn't changed. The locals don't know much more then "it's not a good day for swimming", but seem to imply they get events like this periodically. 

We get a taxi to the airport at 1:15a to catch our 4:30a flight to Dubai which takes 4.5 hours. Then the 14.5 hr stretch to Seattle on Emirates again. Lee has been getting another tooth(the one next to his meat tooth) and it's been making him uncomfortable and fussy. I'm a little uneasy about the long flight but we'll get through it. Tylenol seems to help a little. 

Overall it's been an amazing trip, we're planning our next adventure already! 

Castaways

Hello! Sorry for the gap in posts but we've just been playing in the ocean and chasing Lee around. The water here is warm, I say just over 80 degrees. There are just enough waves to play in but you don't have to go far out to bob around with the fishes. The water is a crystal clear blue. Lee was pretty unsure of the sea at first. We've been slowly getting closer & closer and today he played in the water just like at the pool. He's still eating his weight in sand which makes for interesting diapers. 

We went into Varkala town looking for a baby hat. The manager of where we are staying sent us to a multi level clothing store much like we had expierenced in Kochi but more like its frumpy sad small cousin. They pulled out a few hats with visors, ball cap style. One said puma on the bill and had a sad excuse for a Nike swoosh on the front with decorative buckles on the sides. It was ridiculous. The clothes here for boys are ridiculous. Lots of English words out of context. We settled on a nice grey cap that says "style star" and "fashion" on it. They brought out a ton of clothes trying to get us to buy something. We saw a salmon colored tank top and short set we couldn't pass up. The top has Mickey Mouse, a monkey and an elephant on the front and says "SARFING" in big letters on the back. The matching shorts say "Eeyore" on them. Hmmmmmm. We're pretty sure sarfing isn't a word but have since dubbed riding in the baby backpack sarfing. Lee had a long day of safring. While Tommy hoists the pack onto his back, "sarf's up!". Well worth the $3 spent on the outfit. We had some lunch at a great local spot, roamed a bit. The area is a bit more depressed, dirty, less friendly. I attribute it directly to the type of tourists that have taken over their town. It's mostly downtrodden seeming dirty, cheap, hippyish travelers roaming the beaches and town. They don't seem to really respect the local customs and as our Kiwi friends put it "seem like lost souls". It's like a bunch of sad 40 year old yoga hippy types are searching for their place in the world and wound up here. Sitting in the western style cafes writing in their journals. Then a few people like us mixed in simply here for vacation and culture. It's an odd scene that's obviously worn on the locals. They still fawn over the baby. We have met a great kiwi family that we first came across in Ft Cochin and are drying right near us here. They are both ICU nurses and have two kids, 6 & 9, and have been traveling through Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and now India for the past 3 months. We have been enjoying lively dinners with them, it been fun to make friends on the road. We have been going to the beach in the morning and evening and a little adventure, tea and cake in between. I've even started reading my book(thus no blog posts). We have two days left and only small plans. It's been a a nice few mellow days. Ok, onto pictures!