Welcome to More Kids Than Suitcases. We're a family of five living in beautiful Kelowna, Canada and enjoying every minute of it, although you'd never know it by how much time we spend somewhere else. It's not that we don't love Kelowna. We do, but there's so many places to see in the world that if we don't hurry up and get going, we're going to miss something. We've been dragging our kids around with us for seven years now, and we've barely scratched the surface of our own continent, never mind the other six (although I get some fairly stiff resistance when we talk about Antarctica).
The most important thing we've learned though, is that while traveling as a couple is easier, traveling as a family is more fun. Sure there's more arguments, more grumpiness, and a whole lot more sarcasm (Wait..why is this fun again?), but at the end of the day there's nothing like getting to share memories with your family (No..that can't be why). Plus there's other people around to pull the suitcases (There it is!).
I'll introduce you to our traveling circus, but please remember that editing privileges are reserved for family members over the age of 18. My kids may disagree with the way they're portrayed in a story, but they're still a few more years away from getting to voice their opinions (Unless you follow us on
Facebook. They've been known to chime in there.).
Steve - Every family should have a ringleader. A planner. An imaginative mind who can handle adversity and turn bad situations into amazing experiences, then relate those stories in poetic prose. We don't have anyone like that. I'm just the guy who can type. However, despite my lack of qualifications, it's my voice and my version of things that you're going to hear most of the time.
Lori - I'd love to tell you the story about how Lori and I met, but it's been 17 years and we're still arguing over the details. I tell it as a nice, romantic boy meets girl story. She insists on using the word "stalking", whatever that means. Lori is a world class wife, mother, teacher, shopper and baby holder. No seriously, if you let her hold your baby, you might want to keep an eye on her because she will forget to give it back.
Talon - Our first born. We raised such a smart, polite young man, right up until he learned how to talk. It's been nothing but sarcasm since. He's an avid gamer (although I guess all teenage boys are) who emerges from his room only to request food or update me on his ranking for whatever game he's playing (Top 300 in the world for both Guitar Hero and Call of Duty Black Ops). This summer we went to a professional gaming competition, and he showed me just how many people were actually making money playing video games for a living. We're still making him do his math homework.
Neve - My little red haired dancer. Neve splits her time equally between dancing, picking her outfit, and asking her parents to buy her a puppy. This apparently doesn't leave her any time to actually clean her room, which is our one constant battle. I think next time she asks for a dog I'll tell her that I already bought her one and it's probably buried underneath all the clothes on her floor. It's worth a shot.
Leeds - There's nothing I can tell you about Leeds that wasn't already explained in
The Paris Pool Incident. She's a has hundreds of Littlest Pet Shop figurines and Webkinz, all of whom have names that I am supposed to remember (Really, there is a test each night.). She would love to get over to England and see the city she is named after, but what she really wants to do is go see the castle that bears her name outside of London. I think she may be putting the fact that Lori calls her "princess" together with the name of the castle, and she's figuring on making some kind of claim of ownership. If it was my castle, I wouldn't want to argue with her.
