Lima, Peru: The buddy pass has landed

My hiking friend Sandra's arrival in Lima, Peru early yesterday morning has been a long time coming. Just as Kathy and I discovered en route to Rome, Italy last weekend (link), flying standby can require a lot of flexibility and patience.

Following a hike last summer, Sandra told me at Dairy Queen about her dreams to spend a year backpacking around South America, followed by Europe, and then Australia... But I'll let Sandra share her complete, ongoing story on her own blog.


Here is a photo from our Mount Hood area hike:

Hiking up Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain with NW Wilderness, for my buddy Chatchay's birthday

Sandra excitedly took me up on my offer of a Delta buddy pass to fly from Portland to South America (hopefully in the Business Elite class cabin!) on the cheap.


But things went sideways last week, the result of scheduling conflicts which pushed back Sandra's itinerary a bit. The remaining flights to Peru, Argentina, Chile, and even Australia looked uncertain. Long story short, a planned overnight stay in Atlanta with her cousin Bob was extended by four nights until she FINALLY got an upgraded seat to Lima. And two of those nights were spent in the ATL airport. Without earplugs!

Sandra sustained an impossibly positive attitude throughout what became my longest buddy pass ordeal to date, by far. It was all part of the adventure. In contrast, I've sponsored other buddy pass riders who scored Business Elite seats overseas with less effort and also a bit less graciousness (including a good friend who nurtured a cold shoulder until recently regarding a trip to Italy, and another who was strangely harsh to Kathy). But the opportunity to do my small part to help so many other friends like Sandra achieve her dreams make it worth the risk!

Sandra's sunny outlook has finally landed her in the sunnier climate of South America. And she'll be backpacking through for quite a while... until she reaches the next continent.


Safe travels, amiga! Our paths may cross again in some of the most unlikely corners of the world.


Readers can stay up to date with Sandra and her world travels by following her travel blog, appropriately titled www.bucketlistchecker.blogspot.com. The link is also on my sidebar below.

Southern Oregon road trip, Pt.1: Visits and hikes

It's no secret (depending on the trip, anyway) that we've been flying a lot in the off-season.  While a typical spring or fall Hamilton weekend away can easily snowball into an overseas adventure, some of our summertime family trips happen right here in the U.S.

Earlier this year, Kathy began devising a plan that would involve:

1. Rivaling my international trip-planning exploits with Kathy's domestic leanings.
2. Our first ever road trip as the Hamilton Four, now including baby Levi.
3. Visiting friends anywhere between Eugene and Roseburg.
4. Using a Groupon for the Wildlife Safari in Winston.  Kathy will be sharing a blog post about the safari and those friend visits in a few days!

In exactly the same way as I plan for those international trips, our friends in southern Oregon were put on notice that we may be passing through.  Everyone who responded with interest to my messages/calls got penciled into our itinerary.  The only difference here in the U.S. was that Kathy handled all of the non-social logistics of the trip this time!  I just came along for the ride.

The drive down south

Working on connecting with friends, and getting started with stamping our McMenamin's "passport" in Eugene during the journey to the Umpqua Valley

Hiking and exploring the Umpqua Valley

The beauty of the Umpqua River

Fly fishing on the Umpqua River

Starting the evening rounds early in Roseburg

Lena's first time in a swimming pool!

Winding down in Roseburg's warmer waters

Kathy's been anxious to share about the following day in Winston, so she'll be our guest blogger for this upcoming week.  I'll start rounding up some safari photos for her in the meantime.

Bonus:  Kathy writing Part 2 will buy me some time to tackle my massive backlog of traveling and outdoor adventure posts!

Coming the week (after) Thanksgiving...

Part 2- Kathy shares about the Wildlife Safari!

Seattle: A warmup for Daddy-daughter travel season

Plans to return to Munich, Germany over the weekend were shelved for a couple of nearer adventures here in the Northwest.  On Saturday, a dozen of us got together for a 17.6 mile hike/scramble on Mount Hood to the Mooney plane crash site and Mooney Tarn, including the Elk Cove trail, Pinnacle Ridge, and some off-trail action.  Stories and photos are coming soon!


Garth's Blog skips over many of my international travelogues (or I often post them later).  Friends who follow my blog grudgingly accept this.  But hopefully I'll be uploading more international posts now that Kathy is almost ready to let me take Lena along overseas!

For now, here is our OTHER adventure from this weekend:

We've come a long way since Lena: International Baby of Mystery (link).  At three years old, Lena already has Daddy's sense of adventure, exploration, and restlessness.

And I'm praying that our 8 1/2 month old Levi will, too!

Lena's vacation in Spain last Fall was so long ago...

En route to Madrid, Spain

...So, with Mommy's permission, I figure it's WAY past time to get Lena flying again.


Flying Lena to Seattle on Friday for lunch with my friend Michael Alben (living in Burien) was a good place to start.  Let's call this a "dress rehearsal" for some upcoming kid-modified, Garth-style international trips.

PDX Airport

Mommy holds back tears long enough to drop Lena and me off at curbside.  Kathy's dry eyes lasted all the way to the PDX cell phone waiting area, where she awaited my text assuring her that Lena and I were assigned seats on board.

A groggy Lena tugs her little roll-aboard luggage though the TSA checkpoint, charming everyone.

Lena's is giddy for her favorite part of flying:  The airport people-mover!

Delta'a PDX rampers Jeffy and Cindy load up our Skywest CRJ for departure.  Lena's car seat is sitting on the ground, next to the aft belt loader.

Seattle - Burien

Rather than this church parking lot, imagine Lena dragging her luggage to a kid-friendly hostel or friend's house in Italy... or anywhere in the world!

After Michael picked us up from SEA-TAC airport, he showed us around his house, his church, and the town of Burien.

Michael gives us a tour of Burien Evangelical Church (don't let the name "Evangelical" fool you), including the music room upstairs.

Downtown Burien

Seahurst Park, on Puget Sound

The journey home to Beaverton

Vine video-  End of a Daddy-daughter trip:  A sleepy Lena boards our flight home from Seattle to Portland.

Flying back to PDX:  Lena is too young to fly standby in Business Class, so we sat in the comfy Economy Comfort row again.

Riding the Max train home from PDX airport to Beaverton:  Lena is in desperate need of her afternoon nap.

Reunited with another future traveling, hiking, and climbing companion:  Baby Levi!

Garth's Blog will return in late October with...

Climbing Mount St. Helens again!

A visit from Afghanistan

The Twitter-authorized version of this family photo

After I flew home from the Netherlands last weekend from another friend-visiting day trip in Amsterdam (link), Kathy and baby Levi flew home from the Easons' trip to Bend, Oregon.  Tom and Lora drove Lena home to us the next day!

Rather than one super long Eason family post, we're gonna split this up into two entries.  Kathy will be coughing up the second blog post about visiting Brent and Cheryl in Bend later this week.

A few get-together photos with the Eason family in Salem are below, in honor of Tony's home visit from Kabul, Afghanistan last month:

3 1/2 month old Levi meets Uncle Tony for the first time

A late Easter egg hunt for Lena

"No, THIS way, Daddy!"

Eason family dinner

Levi enters the Grandpa Tom look-a-like photo contest

With the Original

And now for a final quiz:

Question:

What happens when someone takes a family photo and nobody is looking?

Answer:

The birth of Levi, Pt. 3: Lena meets Levi!! (with video)

Posted from Belfast, Northern Ireland this morning:

Part 3 of this story actually happened on January 16 in Beaverton, Oregon.

Loading our newborn son Levi into the car at Providence St. Vincent hospital

The time had finally come. After three days in the hospital, our two day old Levi was finally ready to come home with Daddy and Mommy.

As mentioned previously in The birth of Levi, Pt. 2: Levi's first two days (link), the moment when our nearly 2 1/2 year old Lena would meet her newborn brother Levi was one of the most anticipated moments of my entire life. I wanted everything to be perfect. As I drove Kathy and Levi home from the hospital, I asked Kathy to phone her parents at our house to make sure Lena would be ready.

My heart lept into my throat as we pulled into our driveway. I gently set down Levi's car seat on the ground, and Kathy approached the door.

Anticipation...

Tom and Lora opened our storm door so little Lena could step down into the sidewalk. I fired up my Galaxy Note's video camera and held my breath.


My lack of technical expertise is preventing me from successfully uploading the clip here to Garth's Blog.  But the photos that follow are still shots from that priceless video:

Lena gets a first glimpse at her baby brother, Levi.  After months of buildup, is this what she was expecting?

Lena goes in for the first kiss.  It's an air ball.

Inside the house:  Lena's arms involuntarily pop up at the sight of Levi, in anticipation of holding her new baby brother.

The first sister-brother kiss!!

And finally, here is the first ever photo of our whole family together:

Introducing the newly expanded Hamilton clan!  Lena is happier than she looks.

So let's end on an even happier note.  My video upload above may have failed, but anyone who missed the Vine that I tweeted on January 16 is in for a treat.  Here's a 7 second video clip of Lena trying to say baby Levi's name, while holding him in her lap:

 Click in the upper right corner of this Vine video for audio of Lena trying to say, "Levi"!


This was, without exaggeration, one of the greatest days of my life.  Our family is complete.  Lena and Levi are perfect together!

Unproductive: Reflections on paternity leave

Mommy naps at home earlier today, holding our 11 day old Levi.

This is another share from my other blog, originally posted on Thursday.  I'll try not to make a habit of this, but I just haven't found the time to complete any new updates to the "Garth's Blog" site recently.

My belated family Christmas post is almost ready.  And pictures from baby Levi's birth last week are coming soon!

Our newborn baby Levi turned one week old yesterday [Read: Wednesday]! Yet the week zipped by so quickly that it seems like Levi was born only a few hours ago.

After confirming that my mom was available to care for Kathy at the house today, I felt confident enough to return to work this morning. Let's hope I made the right choice.

Think returning to work after vacation is tough? Try returning after paternity leave.

Kissing Lena and Levi goodbye several hours ago, I tore myself away from domestic bliss in the middle of the night. So many memories from this past week brought an irresistible smile to my face. But I also chuckled while suddenly remembering the list of things I expected to accomplish during my paternity leave. As if.

Now, I don't typically aspire to be Mr. Super Productive. That title belongs to my amazing dad, Doug Hamilton. But I DID have over a week off from work, right? And even the most travel-starved husband/ father would never dream of dragging his wife, daughter, and newborn son onboard a series of international flights during this time.


So just for kicks, here is a to-do list of tasks and fun stuff that I earnestly thought I would get started on (yet never touched) during my paternity leave's "free time":

• Get some friends together to log a massive amount of climbing, hiking, and trail running miles
• Carry Lena and newborn Levi on a flat, easy hiking trail that a recovering Mommy can join us on (rescheduled for this weekend!)
• Design and begin my latest weight training program
• Reevaluate my entire 2014 student ministry goals and vision
• Submit another of the nine book reports due for my credentialing process
• Study for my upcoming sermon on 1 John
• Draft an agenda for our upcoming Alumni Council meeting at Warner Pacific College's Homecoming
• Play some Uncharted 3 on the PS3, as 2 year old Lena always pleads for me to do
• Delete dozens of rarely used apps on my phone, tablet, and laptop... But not before I:
• Brush up on speaking the ol' español for our upcoming travels (Duolingo app)
• Learn to play guitar (Gibson's Learn and Master Guitar app)

Laugh if you will, but I was dead serious about tackling every single one of these. At least I thought I was. In practice, I didn't even do the stuff I'd NORMALLY do in my free moments, i.e., drafting mobile updates (okay, I posted a few here) to this blog and it's mainstream counterpart, "Garth's Blog."

So was this a week of wasted opportunities? It certainly could have been, had I prioritized anything on that list over family time at home instead. Playing, praying, reading together, taking care of Mommy and the munchkins, getting to know my baby boy Levi, enjoying visits from family and friends, and helping Lena understand and deepen her relationship with our newly expanded family have all been more important than any part of that list.

It felt like the best week ever, spent with what now feels like the perfect family. And it was gloriously unproductive.

Noordwijk, Netherlands: The almost daddy-daughter day trip

Running on Noordwijk Beach in the Netherlands last weekend, with friends from around the world

How did last weekend's impossibly fun day trip to Noordwijk turn out differently than planned? There were a couple of last minute changes:

1. I swapped out a friend visit in Amsterdam for a one night stay in the coastal town of Noordwijk, the Netherlands.  Why?  Because...
2. ...This trip was intended to be a daddy-daughter weekend away.  But at the last minute, the decision was made to keep our precious two year daughter old at home.

Lena would've loved her quality bonding time with Daddy in the Netherlands, and her hard working Mommy surely deserved a relaxing bachelorette weekend at home. And on the heels of my brief friend-visiting spree in northern Italy last month (link), I was anxious to squeeze in one more overseas family outing before our baby's January due date.

Sadly, Mommy was concerned that Lena may have still been recovering from a cold. So less than three hours prior to departure, Lena was removed from my flight listing.   Kathy requested that I reshape our travel plans for the Netherlands into to a solo day trip.


Even with these two last minute changes, the trip played out like a dream.

The bus from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to Noordwijk took about 1 1/2 hours (2 hours for the return trip to Amsterdam the next morning) to reach the coast.

The peaceful views of the Netherlands' misty countryside made my transition from a cushy 8 1/2 hours in Delta's Business Elite cabin to a public bus that much smoother.



My early morning arrival at the Flying Pig Beach Hostel gave me a chance to rest up before heading out for the day. Bianca from northern Ireland at the reception desk generously invited me to join the community for breakfast, making up in advance for my 5:45 a.m. checkout time that would send me away hungry the next morning.

I explored the town of Noordwijk for a while before heading back to the Flying Pig to round up some people.  A brisk beach run was the cure for my airplane/bus ride blues. Ishai and I assembled a crew of the willing and able from our hostel.  Israeli mountaineer Ishai, Brit Sophia (training for a marathon!), and Americans Christine, David and I all hit Noordwijk Beach to stretch out our legs.

It wasn't all sunshine and sand, of course. A couple miles or so in, a light drizzle escalated into a hail storm. We turned around, but not in time to spare our faces from a stinging microdermabrasion of ice pellets. We splintered apart into pairs running all directions, yet somehow hilariously got back to the hostel doorstep at the same time.

**********

Here's a first: That night, we stayed in. When checking into any hostel, my customary shtick is to drag my fellow backpackers/accomplices out of their beds, couches, hammocks, etc. to join me for a rambunctious night out on the town.

No need. The Flying Pig is already a popular hangout for Noordwijk's locals. And our beach hostel had all the right ingredients for a memorable night: a fun party atmosphere, music for dancing, comfortable places to chill, and the perfect mix of people.

Our night at the Flying Pig beach hostel begins!

As always, it was my mates who made the night so unforgettable. The night flew by for our gang of five fearless beach runners plus Stu, Mariah, Rick, Jacques, Keelie, Kat, Michael, Bianca, Vanessa, and everyone else who drew us in for the laughs, stories, surprisingly deep discussions, and ridiculous drama.  I wouldn't have traded a minute with those friends for the extra hour or so I could've spent sleeping.

My night continued straight on until dawn. It was cringe-worthy to wake up Sophia (and Kat!) at 5:45 a.m. to get my passport back, but the rest of my return trip went off with a hitch.  Fading quickly, I was out like a light as soon as I boarded the early morning bus to Amsterdam.

It seemed as though I didn't finally wake up until my plane prepared to land at PDX 13 hours later.

Waking up to the familiar views of two of my favorite climbs, Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams

Back in Portland I helped a friend in Italy fly back to the U.S. with one of my buddy passes, hooked up with a compadre here in Beaverton, and then hurried home to Lena and Kathy, the love of my life.  I walked into the house to find my baby girl in good health.

Lena, I'm glad that you're feeling better now. I still owe you a daddy-daughter trip.

Better start packing!

Coming up on Garth's Blog...

Recent family surfing weekends at the Oregon Coast!

And then...

Lena's 1st international trip to Madrid, Spain!!