GlobeHoppers: April 2018

The GlobeHoppers

Stateside for now.

We're a Foreign Service family formerly posted for 3 years to Frankfurt, Germany after having spent 2 years in Manila, Philippines, 1 year in Lome', Togo (no, not Tonga), 3 years in Chennai, India, (3 years in Virginia), and 4 years in Amman, Jordan. Ian and I were supposed to go to Baghdad together in 2019, but that changed and Ian went on alone. He returned in May 2020 in the midst of the epidemic, and here we are now.

I am a former Army brat (lived in Belgium, Zaire, Algeria, Niger, visited too many places to list), now Foreign Service spouse. I tag along where ever Ian takes us and try to keep the family sane. Between 1996 when we got married and 2003 when we moved to Manila we lived in Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and Florida, and visited several other states.

Since 2003 as a family we have been to:

Manila & Cebu & Bohol & Palawan, Philippines - 2003-2005

Singapore, Singapore - multiple times

Hong Kong - Easter 2004

Bangkok & Chiang Mai, Thailand - 2004

New Zealand, both islands - Summer 2004

Sydney, Australia - Summer 2004

Lome', Togo - 2005-2006

Accra, Ghana - 2006

Chennai - 2006-2009

Jaipur & Pushkar & Agra & New Delhi, India - Oct 2006

Cochin, Kerala, India - 2007

Brussels & USA & Beijing & KL - Round the World winter 2007-2008

Colombo, Sri Lanka - 2008

Amman, Jordan - 2012-2016

Hungerford & London & Reading, England - Summer 2013

Cardiff, Wales - Summer 2013

Fanore & Inis Oirr & Dublin, Ireland - Summer 2013

Jerusalem - Thanksgiving, Nov 2013

Cairo, Egypt - Dec 2013

Prague, Czech Republic - Christmas, Dec 2014

Strangford, Northern Ireland - Summer 2015

Edinburgh, Scotland - Summer 2015

Back to London, England - Summer 2015

Tel Aviv and Moscow - October 2015 (I, M, and N)

Vienna, Austria - Christmas, December 2015

Frankfurt, Germany - 2016-2019

Cork, Ireland - Oct 2016 (parents and boys to visit Katherine during her semester abroad)

Dublin - July 2017 (all of us to visit Katherine during internship)

Luxembourg - November 2017 (parents and boys, Thanksgiving)

Paris - Dec 2017 (Ian took Rebecca for a weekend)

London - Hamilton! - March 2018

Budapest, Hungary - May 2018 (Ian and Nicholas)

Essex/Sussex, England - June 2018 (Ian, Michele, Becca, Jonathon)

Back to Copenhagen - Oct 2018 (Ian and Nicholas)

Geneva, Switzerland - Dec 2018

Krakow, Poland - April 2019 (I, M, J)

London - Sept 2019 (M, J)

Parents Only:

Istanbul, Turkey - Feb 2015 (with friends)

Paris, France - Mar 2015 (we won free flights!)

Back to London again - November 2015 (grandma came too for the Dr. Who Festival)

South Ari Atoll, Maldives - May 20th Anniversary Trip 2016

Copenhagen, Denmark - March 2017

Antananarivo, Madagascar - March 2017

Johannesburg & Pretoria SA - March 2017

Berlin - May 21st Anniversary Trip 2017

Copenhagen (again) - October 2017 (with a lunch in Sweden)

Bruges - January 2018 (Christmas present!)

Wroclaw, Poland - October 2018

Copenhagen (again) - March 2019 (with an escape room in Sweden)

London - Feb 2020 (to see Jonathon at university)

Rebecca traveled to Oman with chorus (2013), Ethiopia with Week Without Walls (WWW 2014), Qatar with swimming (2014) and volleyball (2015), and Kuwait with basketball (2016). She also went to Amsterdam in 2017 for a weekend.

Rebecca and Nicholas traveled through Vietnam on WWW 2015 and Thailand for WWW 2016.

Katherine went to Kuwait with volleyball (2014) and France with WWW 2014, and did a semester abroad in Cork, Ireland in 2016. She's was in Dublin for her university internship summer 2017.

Jonathon went to Kuwait with Academic Games (2015) and had a school trip to Berlin (2016). He had a week of canoeing in Sweden in summer 2017, and a week of snowboarding in Austria in 2018. He's now at University in the UK.

Nicholas went to Norway with the Marines (2020).

Ian has been to Ethiopia (2006), Benin (2006), South Korea (2004), Liberia (2016), Central African Republic (2016), Cameroon (2016), Algeria (2017), Morocco (2017), Tunisia (2017), Turkmenistan (2017), Suriname (2018), Brunei (2018), Auckland NZ (2018). He also covers Sanaa and Tripoli (no travel there), Copenhagen and Accra. Ian aided after the Mumbai Massacre (2008), and also went to Bangalore and Hyderabad in India. A life goal for him is to serve in Russia or Canada, or really any place that has a decent hockey scene. He spent Jun2e 2019-May2020 in Baghdad.

It's a GlobeHopper world.

Oh, and checkout our Escape Room adventures! (updated Sept 2020)

GlobeHoppers

Thursday, April 5, 2018

A blog post you should read.