Travel Memories From Around The World & Roadschooling
May 17, 2022
We are so happy here in our Barcelona beach resort apartment and one of the great things about doing our camper van conversion/renovation is we are clearing out things that we have stored in our camper for over a decade. So it is a bit like xmas here, discovering so many world travel, roadschooling, worldschooling and American van life in Europe momentos, books, souvenirs etc that bring back such great memories and so much gratitude.
This is me, no make up, learning the iphone & how to take selfies and photos of all the beautiful flowers, pools, nature on my morning walks & best things to do in Barcelona & following my own top tips for summer travel in Europe cheaply! I love the bungalow & my weight loss tips are working as I am down 128 lbs now & that is Heavenly Reyna's old top hand-me-down I am wearing!! Nuff said! :) More to go, but getting there.
First, we found the crocs and all the pins. Actually not all the pins as Heavenly already has a ton of pins from around the world, but now we see she has many, many more & they are all amazing! Every one has a story as we think about the place and people.
Gar did a few twitter threads (@GarReynaDesign) on some of our cool surprises like Heavenly at the Van Gogh museum at 5 years old loving sunflowers, museums & art as she does today. ( We had lots of sunflowers at her first 5 years home too). Great to remember how we used books, painting, diary writing, immersion, & travel as ways to enrich her roadschooling education! She called this city "Bikesterdam" & loved sleeping on a house boat here on the 1st night of our world tour!
Honestly, I am once again flabbergasted at her first diary entry with such an amazing writing ability for a 5 year old. Seeing all her diaries again amaze me. She was an extraordinary child, so giving her an extraordinary childhood around the world, is the only thing that made sense really. It was a risk and gamble, but now that she is 21, we can relax and know we made the right ones and rejoice in all the fun we had along the way.
How many five year olds write like this? I know I didn't, even though my brothers and I all began reading at 5. Heavenly taught herself to read at two, so it's always been a bit of a wild ride, and I doubt if she still understands that as it all seems normal to her. When one sees this level of writing & creativity at 5, it is not really a surprise that she is an extraordinary trilingual songwriter today. ( And it was not all by accident as I started language learning for her in the womb and we worked very hard from birth to help her learn languages even before we traveled the world). Cool too to remember her first reactions to RV living..."very fun"!
Aw, baby teeth, what a find we had forgotten! Yep, Heavenly lost her first baby tooth traveling in France's Cote D' Ore waking us all up in our camper van at 3am. The big decision then was does the tooth fairy pay in Euros or dollars for a traveling digital nomad American kid.
By chance we discovered the oldest vineyards in Greece that are three centuries old and remember how much Heavenly enjoyed the wine caves & drinking cherry juice in her wine glass & running around the sea view Santorini vineyard. All of the memories flood back and the wine bottle looks the same today in Barcelona as when we bought it fifteen years ago in 2007! Since, Heavenly grew up on a Pinot boutique vineyard she has done wine tasting all around the world.
A stuffed camel from Jordan, moose from Sweden & bear from Italy made us smile and now decorate our bungalow in Barcelona. Traveling as a family with a young child puts a different spin on everything.
Books were the key to our homeschooling/worldschooling method & what could be better than reading about Gaudi while you sit on a Gaudi bench resting in beween visiting Gaudi masterpieces in Barcelona?
So good that Gar is now rereading this book to remember what she took in at that age. We have more books than anything in our camper because Heavenly has always been a veracious reader. The funny thing is, she wants to keep most of them, so we will have to see how this works out.
Discovering some of Heavenly's art from when she was 6 made us smile and now adorn our bungalow. Note there is Mona Lisa again and her favorite beloved dog ( that belonged to her best friend in Barcelona). Art has always been important in our family & she was always a prolific artist, we even have a Mobile art gallery and self portrait, drawing travel, . creative projects and more. With an artist father, grandfather ( and great grandfather on the other side), she was painting from babyhood, so it is great to see her enjoying art again as she had a period in her teen years where she gave up art.
At the Louvre first visit ( just like at the Van Gogh above) we got a special diary and this was my favorite description she wrote at five as she analyzed this masterpiece for the first time.
I am so grateful that Heavenly has been to the Louvre already many times starting with her first visit at 5 and that she has been able to see so many of the world's greatest museums and greatest art. I think it still impacts her today ( even if she does not remember every single visit, it all sinks into a consciousness, especially because she so loved it then and still loves art and museums). She filled her teen bedroom with art photos.
Discovering clothes we traveled in like this dress that Heavenly wore in Portofino, Italy are sparking our memorie too.Most we will give away and I have found a source for Ukraine kids here, so hopefully they will go to make others happy.
Since we just left Paris, these guides made me smile for all our visits to this magical city & the fun it was to do it with my darling daughter.
Some of my favorite pictures and memories are of Heavenly and I in Paris on that first visit where she celebrated her birthday and it was the center of how one tries to prepare & explain a "world tour" to a 5 year old through books, a Madeline play she did and celebrations.
I am so grateful for all our travel
And our wonderful mother daughter travel & visit on her Mozart Ignite tour when she was 16
So this has been such an interesting time, being present with the beauty, perfect weather and peace here, eating outside in nature, walking and biking as we also relive the past as we go through our camper and prepare for our future. Everything feels timeless now.
We are so happy here in our Barcelona beach resort apartment and one of the great things about doing our camper van conversion/renovation is we are clearing out things that we have stored in our camper for over a decade. So it is a bit like xmas here, discovering so many world travel, roadschooling, worldschooling and American van life in Europe momentos, books, souvenirs etc that bring back such great memories and so much gratitude.
This is me, no make up, learning the iphone & how to take selfies and photos of all the beautiful flowers, pools, nature on my morning walks & best things to do in Barcelona & following my own top tips for summer travel in Europe cheaply! I love the bungalow & my weight loss tips are working as I am down 128 lbs now & that is Heavenly Reyna's old top hand-me-down I am wearing!! Nuff said! :) More to go, but getting there.
First, we found the crocs and all the pins. Actually not all the pins as Heavenly already has a ton of pins from around the world, but now we see she has many, many more & they are all amazing! Every one has a story as we think about the place and people.
Gar did a few twitter threads (@GarReynaDesign) on some of our cool surprises like Heavenly at the Van Gogh museum at 5 years old loving sunflowers, museums & art as she does today. ( We had lots of sunflowers at her first 5 years home too). Great to remember how we used books, painting, diary writing, immersion, & travel as ways to enrich her roadschooling education! She called this city "Bikesterdam" & loved sleeping on a house boat here on the 1st night of our world tour!
Honestly, I am once again flabbergasted at her first diary entry with such an amazing writing ability for a 5 year old. Seeing all her diaries again amaze me. She was an extraordinary child, so giving her an extraordinary childhood around the world, is the only thing that made sense really. It was a risk and gamble, but now that she is 21, we can relax and know we made the right ones and rejoice in all the fun we had along the way.
How many five year olds write like this? I know I didn't, even though my brothers and I all began reading at 5. Heavenly taught herself to read at two, so it's always been a bit of a wild ride, and I doubt if she still understands that as it all seems normal to her. When one sees this level of writing & creativity at 5, it is not really a surprise that she is an extraordinary trilingual songwriter today. ( And it was not all by accident as I started language learning for her in the womb and we worked very hard from birth to help her learn languages even before we traveled the world). Cool too to remember her first reactions to RV living..."very fun"!
Aw, baby teeth, what a find we had forgotten! Yep, Heavenly lost her first baby tooth traveling in France's Cote D' Ore waking us all up in our camper van at 3am. The big decision then was does the tooth fairy pay in Euros or dollars for a traveling digital nomad American kid.
By chance we discovered the oldest vineyards in Greece that are three centuries old and remember how much Heavenly enjoyed the wine caves & drinking cherry juice in her wine glass & running around the sea view Santorini vineyard. All of the memories flood back and the wine bottle looks the same today in Barcelona as when we bought it fifteen years ago in 2007! Since, Heavenly grew up on a Pinot boutique vineyard she has done wine tasting all around the world.
A stuffed camel from Jordan, moose from Sweden & bear from Italy made us smile and now decorate our bungalow in Barcelona. Traveling as a family with a young child puts a different spin on everything.
Books were the key to our homeschooling/worldschooling method & what could be better than reading about Gaudi while you sit on a Gaudi bench resting in beween visiting Gaudi masterpieces in Barcelona?
So good that Gar is now rereading this book to remember what she took in at that age. We have more books than anything in our camper because Heavenly has always been a veracious reader. The funny thing is, she wants to keep most of them, so we will have to see how this works out.
Discovering some of Heavenly's art from when she was 6 made us smile and now adorn our bungalow. Note there is Mona Lisa again and her favorite beloved dog ( that belonged to her best friend in Barcelona). Art has always been important in our family & she was always a prolific artist, we even have a Mobile art gallery and self portrait, drawing travel, . creative projects and more. With an artist father, grandfather ( and great grandfather on the other side), she was painting from babyhood, so it is great to see her enjoying art again as she had a period in her teen years where she gave up art.
At the Louvre first visit ( just like at the Van Gogh above) we got a special diary and this was my favorite description she wrote at five as she analyzed this masterpiece for the first time.
I am so grateful that Heavenly has been to the Louvre already many times starting with her first visit at 5 and that she has been able to see so many of the world's greatest museums and greatest art. I think it still impacts her today ( even if she does not remember every single visit, it all sinks into a consciousness, especially because she so loved it then and still loves art and museums). She filled her teen bedroom with art photos.
Discovering clothes we traveled in like this dress that Heavenly wore in Portofino, Italy are sparking our memorie too.Most we will give away and I have found a source for Ukraine kids here, so hopefully they will go to make others happy.
Since we just left Paris, these guides made me smile for all our visits to this magical city & the fun it was to do it with my darling daughter.
Some of my favorite pictures and memories are of Heavenly and I in Paris on that first visit where she celebrated her birthday and it was the center of how one tries to prepare & explain a "world tour" to a 5 year old through books, a Madeline play she did and celebrations.
I am so grateful for all our travel
And our wonderful mother daughter travel & visit on her Mozart Ignite tour when she was 16
So this has been such an interesting time, being present with the beauty, perfect weather and peace here, eating outside in nature, walking and biking as we also relive the past as we go through our camper and prepare for our future. Everything feels timeless now.
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