travel with special needs – Mom Dad CuppaKids

Hitting Reset & The Trust Factor.

by Jenn & Chris on July 31, 2017

We Started Again. In The Middle of Our Lives.

You just gotta believe it will all work out.

We talk a lot about the universe in our world. About it aligning; putting energy into the right place; thinking positive and about trusting the flow of life.

Sure, to some it might seem all a bit Hippity Dippity (as my family/friends have been known to call it).

To me, I can absolutely 100% feel when I am fighting what should be moving along naturally in our life.

I seriously love pushing past my comfort zone. I like taking on challenges.

But trusting and letting go of what should be?

To stop worrying and let things flow to what will?

Mancora Peru beach — Letting things flow led us unexpectedly to one of the most beautiful beaches in South America. Mancora, Peru

Mancora was where we randomly saw humpback whales breaching just off the coast

Well, that’s probably one of the biggest challenges of my life.

Being totally open.

Letting things flow.

Goddamn, F#&%ing trust.

Take all of my life’s baggage, issues and protective barriers, bottle it up into one word and throw me the middle finger.

There you have it. That word is trust.

I hate and love it all at the same time.

Kids swinging swing at the end of the world — Our kids flying high on the swing at the end of the world caused me to work on some trust issues. Banos, Ecuador

Super tight spaces are not our favorite but this was a great lesson in the kids leading our trust & flow as we ventured to Pailon Del Diablo for the day

We have been home for 2 months and I have these panic moments that our trip feels like it’s floating away like a dream.

Before we came home, I cried that we were coming back to Canada.

I wasn’t ready to finish with our travels. Our family was so deeply connected and enjoying every ounce of travelling together. It felt like a special space and one I didn’t want to let go.

Yet we could sense that it was the right time. We had used up the majority of our budget, we were all starting to get tired of laundry and moving every few days and we could all feel an ache to see family & friends. (When the Acropolis came in at #27 of cool things we had done on the trip, we knew we had hit travel weary).

The kids got a chance to reconnect with friends and finish out the school year. It helped with getting ready for the adjustment to a new school, all the requisite kiss-my-ass (did I write that out loud?) IPRC, IEP, transition school meetings were had and we got things tidied up for school plans for the fall.

We came home to living a life of transition. It has felt liberating and like walking a cliff’s edge all at the same time.

We are starting our life again. Finding jobs, a place to live, and creating a plan.

In the past 2 months, I have felt like a rudderless sail, creative inspired, slightly depressed, tearfully grateful, intensely curious, over-stimulated and quiet. The quiet has been good. Taking a step back from the digital space to be fully present with people and nature has been a really healthy choice.

This is, and always will be the place that keeps me grounded – Galla Lake

But we still have had those burning questions that have been asked an infinite amount of times since we got back.

“What are you going to do now?”

This is where that damn trust & flow has played a big role in staying the course. We believed, we focused on the positive and we breathed through those moments that in the past would have sent me straight into an anxiety attack.

A lo and behold.

I am happy to share some big news for our family.

Today, Chris is starting a really exciting venture with Union Foods as the Director of Construction & Design. He will be responsible for overseeing the development of the majority of Union Station’s new food ventures with a forward-thinking, innovative company. (This is also the group that owns the ridiculously delicious Union Chicken at Sherway Gardens). If you haven’t gone for brunch and tried their Chicken & Waffles you are missing out. Trust me.

For me, I am reigniting Hart & Galla with some small upcoming events and select social strategy design for companies that fit well with our personal ethos. I am also putting it here for accountability (Gulp!) that I am working on a book proposal about our trip and plan on putting energy into MomDadCuppaKids daily. I am intent on writing more actively on this blog of personal stories, travel tips, world schooling, simplifying your life, event ideas, and special needs dialogue. My hope is to inspire people with a “hey, if we can do it, you can do it” energy and totally open to any ideas you might have.

We still have no permanent fixed address but for now that is fine.

For now, we will just Trust…& Flow.

Travel

Lessons Learned While Traveling the World as a Family

by Jenn & Chris on November 11, 2016

We are two weeks in to this Round The World experience and already we have “learned” so much in the process. How we function as a family, how to school on the road, how to long-haul travel, the uniqueness of different cultural behaviours, different foods and 1,001 new & exciting discoveries have all been added to our repertoire.

Under the guise of life lessons mixed with travel experiences, I will list a few that we have already taken note of that will help both the global backpacker and the week long family vacation.

Write down where you are staying (on paper)

I know this sounds a little simple but we got caught with this the very FIRST day of our trip.

My partner in crime as we strolled around Quito

Spencer and I are early birds, so we left the AirBnb we had arrived at late the night before in search of coffee and breakfast first thing. I had opted to do an Easy ROAM day. This is an option TELUS (a Canadian cell service provider) offers as a solution to utilize while traveling. For $10/day you can simply use your phone similar to how you would use it at home. No panic on giant roaming charges. All in for $10. We are finding that we are opting for ROAM days on days where we are relying on Google Maps, Trip Advisor, AirBnb, Skyscanner or Booking.com. We love the ability to function like at home except here’s the kicker, sometimes phones don’t cooperate. As we were out and about, my phone started doing wonky things and suddenly just shut down. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, save for the fact that I had no memory of where we were staying. Nor did we have a way of contacting our crew. If it hadn’t been for Spencer remembering a landmark and the directional view we had been looking at it from the apartment window of the AirBnb we might still be wondering the streets of Quito.

Everyone’s got something to give

Case in point with Spencer guiding the way above, we have discovered the best way for us to work as a team on this journey is to respect that all our family can contribute. Spencer has been using mad skills searching for flights (which for a kid obsessed with airplanes is right in his wheelhouse) and has found us cost-savings of almost $3000. Lauren in the meantime is our Accoms expert. Given a budget and couple of parameters (we all agree wifi is ideal), she has been diligently searching out places to stay in a number of upcoming destinations. She saves to the wish list and as long as it nets out review and cost wise we book. Her last two choices, the Blue Door Housing in Quito and the Hostel Princesa Maria in Banos have both been awesome selections. Daily, we also appoint a decision maker. This means that ultimately if we can come to a decision or need to make a choice, the decision maker gets final say. It has worked for everything from attractions to go see or lunch spots to choose and gives the kids a sense of responsibility for the group & budget.

Blue Door Housing - A fantastic place to stay in the heart of Old Town Quito — Blue Door Housing – A fantastic place to stay in the heart of Old Town Quito

Trust & Flow

Things might not work out the way you expect it, but that is becoming part of the fun. It’s not worth getting all up and excited about delayed flights or missed opportunities. When we just let go and trust the flow, things always seem to work out for the better anyways. Our flight was delayed 5 hours coming home from the Galapagos but it meant the most extraordinary experience of an almost entirely empty plane for us to enjoy.

Our tour plans to Otavalo the previous Saturday didn’t work out (one of the kids were sick) but we ended up experiencing Otavalo in a far more intimate way 2 weeks later with an extremely knowledgeable tour guide. Alejandro not only showed us the market & gave us detailed facts on the indigenous population and local customs but also took us to a local Ecuadorian hole-in-the-wall that served amazing authentic food for $3/plate. Trust & Flow is a big part of who we are.

Getting a chance to see these colours and touch the beautiful textiles of Otavalo market was an experience we will never forget

We can learn something every day.

This has become a mantra for all of us on this trip. We are learning so much about our family. We are learning so much about might be able to help change the world. We are learning so much about how we are all connected. We are exploring. We are adventuring. We are challenging ourselves daily. Whether its about where we are or who we are, this has most definitely has become our global classroom.

Learning the transit habits of an iguana

Discovering the family dynamics of Sea Lions on the Galapagos

Family Matters Real Life Travel

Finding the Edge of Comfortable

by Jenn & Chris on July 19, 2016

When everything feels icky & squirmy & totally uncertain

Mom Says:

I was a bulging, sweating, 8 months pregnant hot mess in the middle of one of the hottest heat waves we have ever experienced. My husband will recount to you tales of woe and suffering as he endured the words “I’M UNCOMFORTABLE!!” more times than I care to remember. It has become a standing joke between us, one that is typically accompanied with boohoos and mockery to indicate said Uncomfortablist is being entirely unreasonable.

On a happier pregnant days — On a happier pregnant day at the cottage

The word comfort has been an enemy in so many ways throughout my life. At the start of our marriage, I would share with my husband (often) my thoughts that the minute we were comfortable, we were done for. Comfortable meant being normal, stagnant, conforming and lacking passion. I didn’t want us to ever get there. I wanted us to strive for date nights and spicy moments so that the notion of comfort would never take hold.

I am often found pushing myself past my comfort zone. Whether it’s skydiving, scuba diving, motorcycling, bungee jumping, or climbing mountains, I have done it all. At the start of every one of these adventures, I am scared poopless. Every. Single. Time. Until I do it & then realize that that wasn’t so bad after all.

The whole fam came out to support me when I jumped out of a plane. I hope we are teaching our kids to be fearless. — The whole fam came out to support me when I jumped out of a plane. My only hope is that we are teaching our kids to be fearless.

I like it & I don’t like it. It feels icky and squirmy and often disagreeable. Yet something about pushing through the hard parts, to conquer and achieve a challenge on the other side makes it so worth the initial grossness of it all.

The thing is, I have started to think of my comfort zone as exactly that. It’s just a zone. It’s not your prison cell. Your zone can take on different shapes or sizes. The more we push, the bigger our space of allowable adventure becomes. We just have to keep pushing out the walls.

As we hit our 3 month window before we leave on our #CuppaRTW Round The World trip, I have recognized I have that uncomfortable feeling once again. This feels new for me because this time it’s not just me getting out of the zone. We as a family are taking this on, all parts of it feel foreign and unsettled.

I have been trying to explore what is actually causing these whirl-a-gig butterflies inside me and I think for the most part I have figured it out.

We are planning to not plan which for a planner makes things all kinds of up in the air. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster that’s pulled out of the station and already on the ride but need to get past the urge to hold my breath through the whole thing because its a long time before its over.
I am curious how we are going to manage surviving as a family 24/7 over the next many months. We are a strong team and we all love each other dearly but we already know we are going to plan for breaks or we will end up killing each other before we get out of South America. We have even invented a safe word to roll out on the days for the kids (or each other) are driving us so batty that we might say something we regret. We are also planning on taking days in which one of us takes the kids and in which we each take one kid to keep things different and exciting.
Very soon, we will no longer have a home. We are letting go & rid of most of our stuff. The grounding stuff. As we start packing up, we are starting to work on how to create a new version of “Home” for us & the kids. We will have no place to come back to and the concept of coming home will now have to truly live in “home is where the heart is”. So how do we teach that to our kids?

I know these are all just growing pains as we start this new chapter in our life. I just can’t wait till my brain is settled on the other side and starts feeling more comfortable (baahaaahaa) with it all.

Climbing Kili was something I thought impossible. Until we did it.

Dad says:

oh, the pain of comfort…

I am, unlike above, comfortable with comfort to a point. The balance I constantly try to strike is to look around and appreciate accomplishments before running off to literally jump of a cliff. There is little joy in a life so hectic that you forget to breathe, look around, smell the roses, you know, LIVE…

Part of joy is enjoy, which is a poorly spelt word that should be in-joy. Get in the moment, relish it, then set you sights on the next adventure.

Changing the World Travel

Who ARE MomDadCuppaKids?

by Jenn & Chris on June 28, 2016

We can all agree there is so so much noise on the internet. For us, its really important that we don’t want this blog to add to the clutter. We want it to be fun, informative, open, and genuine.

As we get closer towards to leaving on our #CuppaRTW: Round The World Adventures, we’ve been thinking a lot on how to bring fresh & new ideas here.

Our hopes are that we can help inspire people one way or another and we do believe we can do it ways that will truly provide value.

But we realized first and foremost that you might not really know us that well.

To keep it simple, this is us.

We’re a bit goofy, awfully fun and a pretty easy-going family who like to dance and who want to live life to the fullest while we are here.

To decide if you would like to follow along on our journey, here are a few

FUN FACTS on #TEAMPOWELL

Chris has a dry, sarcastic, witty sense of humour. Jenn is more silly, cheeky and out there raw.

We met at the airport, during an ice storm at which time Chris convinced the airline to fly me all the way across the country to turn around to get back to the middle as it was the only flight (his by the way) leaving that night.

We love the outdoors and grew up at the cottage. Water is our peace place.

We are the couple that gets put at the table to keep the conversation alive at a wedding or an event.

We were on the Marilyn Denis Show ( a national TV show in Canada) for the Couples Weight Loss Challenge and both lost 40lbs in 5 months. They dubbed us #TeamPowell and its stuck ever since.

We truly are a team and have supported each other through careers, entrepreneurship, extensive travel, special needs and more. Family is key and our rule is don’t ever keep score.

We are warrior advocates for our special needs son who put far more emphasis on the “special” than the needs, working hard to make life more about managing through Autism than Autism leading the conga line.

Our kids have picked up our love of dancing, adventure, exploration and sarcasm.

We climbed Mt. Kilimajaro as a way to celebrate 2 milestones- Jenn’s 40th bday and our 10th Anniversary. It wasn’t as hard as we thought but man were we awfully smelly/put our marriage to the test in the long run.

We love hosting parties (Jenn & Lauren have a particular love of turning everything into a theme) and it would be normal to find people dancing in our living room at 2am.

We believe that we are all one. That one of the essential values to pass on to our kids is to give back & pay it forward wherever we can. To always stop if someone needs help.

We have no idea where this part of our lives will take us next but we are hoping that by journaling this we can create something amazing & positive.

Please let us know what you would like to see so that we can make this the best blog it can be.

And if you have friends who you think would enjoy our energy & sense of humour, please pass us on!

WE CAN ALSO BE FOUND HERE:

Snapchat: JennPowellLive
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/MomDadCuppaKids
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/JennPowellLive
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JennPowellLive
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/momdadcuppakids
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/momdadcuppakids