Tag: Travel

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A trip back to Taiwan – Cassie turns 16!

Titus Project is an international ministry (check out our website http://www.titusproject.com to see all of the locations) and in order to strengthen the different locations and their training, those of us who have been serving in the ministry a long time (including the founder) created a new international team this past year. There are just four of us on the team, and we gathered together in Taiwan last week to film different training video resources. This trip happened to fall right on Cassie’s 16th birthday, and since she was born there and we found cheap tickets, we decided it was a good time for her to see the land of her birth. Cassie and I (Angela) had a crazy experience trying to get there (including getting an emergency passport at the last moment in Vienna) but once we arrived it was a great time of making memories, showing Cassie the hospital where she was born, and of course filming many hours of videos. Amy and Michael (founders of Titus and our hosts) were so wonderful. Sonya Yakovenko and I are the other two members of the team, so we were busy with recording videos. Cassie was our amazing ‘audience.’ Amy and Michael also have 4 adult children and they joined in on the fun of being our live studio audience.

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Travelling with Children

So lots of our friends often ask us how it is travelling with kids. So I thought we’d do a little bit of a journal of sleeping since leaving Canada:

The Flights
Depart Calgary at 15:30
9 Hours to Amsterdam – kids sleep about 4 of those (thank you gravol!), Ang 2.5, Ben – zippo!
Layover in Amsterdam is 4 hours long, Ben gets 20 minutes on the cold floor another 40 min sitting with legs draped over luggage carts.
2.5 Hours to Kiev – Jay – 2.5 hours, Ang 1 hour, Ben and Cassie – zippo! (sensing a pattern?)
Arrive Kiev at 16:40 the next day, skipped forward approx 9 hours.

Night 1
8pm Start with a warm bottle of milk, mix in equal parts love and gravol, hope for the best! :)
11pm Wake to crying baby … crying is the nice way to say it. Ben sleeps through it, Ang saves the day. Cassie is zonked out.
1am Wake to screaming baby … screaming is the nice way to say it. Ang makes warm bottle of milk (no additives), Jay was just hungry. Ben feeds baby. (How do parents do it?) Cassie remains zonked out.
4am Wake to screaming baby … hear a small thud. Pitter patter. “Mommy, Jay is crying”. Evidently, Cassie is no longer zonked out. Dad rescues the day, mom and Cassie fall into a deep slumber.

Wonder how naps and Night 2 will go? Stay tuned! :)

Night 2
10pm Kids are sleeping peacefully, parents think, maybe this will yet be a great night.
1am Thud .. pitter patter, “Jay is crying” says Cassie. Bottle (no additives) for Jay, change his bum and life is back to normal.
1:05am Thud .. pitter patter, “I don’t want to sleep in there with Jay”. We convince her to sleep in her bedroom anyway.
1:10am Thud .. pitter patter… This time we move her to the living room couch.
2am Thud .. pitter patter… Cassie is still wide awake. Gravol for mom and daughter. Convince her once more to stay on the living room couch (Cassie flips and flops worse than a fish out of water).
3am Thud .. pitter patter… We give in and she moves from the living room couch to beside us in our room on the floor. Jay hasn’t made a noise since about 1:30am.
4am Ang finally falls asleep, Ben is left listening to the girls sleeping. After some oatmeal, rooibois tea and a peanut butter sandwhich (still haven’t gone for a proper shopping trip).
almost 5am Finally drifts off to sleep.
1pm We finally open our eyes big enough to get out of bed. We’ll definitely have to set the alarm tomorrow night – even Jay didn’t wake up! Jet lag definitely won this battle.

This is starting to sound like a big brother episode.