The Beginning

Carrie, the kids and I are less than two weeks away from embarking on a 9 week trip to Europe. With our departure date June 2nd, 2012 rapidly approaching, I thought it would be fun to document online for our friends and family to see both the trip and the preparations leading up to the trip.


Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to backpack through Europe, Asia, and North Africa with different friends and Carrie. I kept a journal on each one of these trips and occasionally I will revisit my experiences laid out in each journal. It is fun to revisit the experiences from each trip and remember what it was like to be 22 in the middle of Cambodia during a civil war or drinking  wine out of a Nalgene bottle on the Eiffel Tower, or trying to explain to Carrie why she had 100 mosquito bites from a crappy hotel in Cairo because I forget to book a hotel  prior to landing in Egypt at 1 in the morning. A journal is part of the travel experience, and it allows the journey to live with you years after your return. Consequently I decided to move  from pen and paper and use the Internet as my journal. This was the genesis for the Ross Family Blog!


Most people that know me, understand that I look for any excuse to travel. For the past 11 years that has not been an option as our children were too young, and the thought of flying to Europe with young kids was not appealing.  All this changed in April of 2011 - up2speed was sold and the kids were at a traveling age (Isabel 10, Eli 9, and Kalli 6) to truly appreciate a once in a lifetime experience. I proposed a trip abroad and Carrie said YES.


Once the decision was made, the real work began, and yes, it has been a labour of love planning and organizing a trip to Europe.


My goal is to blog every few days during the trip. I will do my best to be as detailed as possible and fill each entry with pictures, videos and insight. I encourage you to respond to the posts. Please excuse  spelling and grammatical errors, Carrie is the English teacher and I am unemployed :)