Inspiration Mondays: Kiwis, 104 Degress

What do you do on a Sunday morning with your two boys and your spouse?

Go to Argentina, of course.

Two very dear friends of mine departed yesterday on a three-month adventure with their two children to Argentina. It was an adventure planned over many months (years, actually), carefully prepared, and well-dreamed. Travel to faraway places in general is daring. Travel to faraway countries where they don't speak English with two boys under five is... well, fill in the blank.

I say it's amazing.

I've had a couple of chances to say goodbye to them over the past few days, which was hard because I won't be here when they return. It was a proper goodbye, a shaky and throat-clearing kind of sad, but exciting at the same time. I have admired this husband-and-wife team for years. We've been the recipient of their unending kindness, and of their generosity of their time and energy. Both have loaned me their sympathetic ears when I was troubled, and both are incredibly supportive of my decision to move away from here.

Their boys know us best as "those two people who walk past with Rascal every day." They wave at us from their window, and occasionally we find them outside and get a few words of wisdom out of them like, "I'm doing ALL the work," which, at their age, is impressive. I told their dad that we'd probably see them once more as we walked past this weekend, and yesterday morning, we did. We found them outside, waiting for their ride to airport as the boys zoomed around the front yard, working off energy before their long flights, their neighbours standing with them to say goodbye. Rascal marched up and sniffed each boy, who laughed and petted him and chatted away about how similar he is to their friend's dog.

Then, their ride showed up, they started loading up, we hugged once more, and we started to walk away. I heard someone call my name, and I turned to watch Kelly running towards me with a bag of kiwis. "Here, take these," she said. "We don't have anything to peel them with, and you may as well take them."

So, I'm eating a kiwi this morning, and thinking about these two inspiring people, and how much I admire their willingness to ride into the unknown, and their acceptance of whatever comes their way. And I'm thinking about how much I'll miss them.

If you'd like to watch their adventures, you can follow them through their blog: 104 Degrees: A Canadian Family's Adventure in Argentina. Cheers, guys.


Comments

YarnKettle said…
Thanks for the new blog to read. As a list maker I loved their post about packing. But I don't think I've ever had a hockey stick on my packing list.