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Hello. This post is going to be terrible just a heads up.

Hi. This is Amalia. It’s been a while since I was here. Anyways I’m gonna talk about some pictures, I guess.



This photo was taken I think 6 years ago. This was at the skyline in New Zealand, Rotorua. If you’re wondering what Sophie is sitting in, it’s called a luge. Looking at this photo is bringing back a lot of memories. I was so happy and energetic back then :0. We still have that jellybean plush, Sophie has in the photo on her lap, at home. Sophie looks so small too, like 💀.



Our mom said we should recreate the picture so we did that. The place is a lot different but that would be expected since it was years ago. Not only has the place changed but we have also changed a lot as-well. Ok that sounded really cringe please ignore that. As you can tell in the photo I’m wearing my beautiful Dodgers cap 😌. I literally wear it everywhere. To be honest Sophie hasn’t really changed that much. Still as energetic as always.

I’m also wearing my school uniform jacket in that photo ♥️. I love that jacket <3.



This photo was a couple hours later when me and Sophie went to zip-line. I was gonna do it from the start but I didn’t want to go alone so Sophie decided to go with me because our parents were too scared lol. Even though I am terrified of heights, I still did it and it was pretty fun. As you can tell in the photo I did not take off my hat 😌. My final words before I went on the zip line was, and I quote, “If I’m gonna die I’m gonna die with me hat.” You might think I was overreacting, which I probably was, but it was seriously terrifying. It was so high up and if you fell you surely would not survive.



This is the photo of the zip-line. I realize it doesn’t look that high but trust me, that’s only ‘cause of the angle. Absolutely terrifying but at least I was with my hat 👍. Oh and Sophie.

K that’s all bye ✌️.

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Carrots Project, by Sophie

(Mr.Google) Carrots originated in modern-day Iran and Afghanistan

(Mr. Google) We believe that we began cultivating carrots around the 12th/13th century

(From History 101) Carrots were very popular also Carrots were commonly placed in tomb just chilling next to the dead Pharaohs

(Birds and Blooms) Full of beta carotene vitamin C and potassium along with tons of vitamin A

(Birds and Blooms) Fun fact even just half a cup of cooked or raw carrots contains about 204% of your recommended daily value.

So, hello. In this post I am going to be talking about the beautiful, delicious, delicacy known as carrots. Yes, carrots. Now, no wonder your parents always tell you to eat them because besides from strengthening your eyes, they give you cat like superpowers. They are also filled with beta carotene, Vitamin C, potassium, along with a but ton of Vitamin A. Also, fun fact, even just half a cup of cooked or raw carrots contains about 204% of your daily recommended value. I don’t know who’s eating a half cup of raw carrots but alright. Oh yeah, the best way to eat carrots is just put it in a pan with a bit of butter then add honey and sugar until the carrots are softened, trust me it may cause diabetes but trust me it’s worth it. (DISCLAIMER: I’m just joking STAY HEALTHY PLEASE)

Now, we believe that we began farming carrots around the 12th/13th century. Originating in modern day Afghanistan. Now isn’t that interesting? Also last fact but I bet you didn’t know that carrots were very popular back then, no like seriously, like carrots were commonly placed in tomb just chilling next to the dead Pharaohs. Carrots in coffins… hmmm…

Containing information from:

“Birds and Blooms” “History 101” and of course “Mr. Google”

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Letting Others Get a Word in…

So far, I (Lil) have been narrating our adventures. I have a few more thoughts about New Zealand coming, but in the meantime, the kids have taken a turn at writing blog posts. Not necessarily recounting our adventures, but just taking a stab at whatever inspires them. Stay tuned.

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Is it a Campervan? An RV? Or Caravan?

Because one of the kids has been wanting for years to experience a motorhome adventure, we decided to do this for their 12th birthday.

The campervan experience seemed like something everyone does in New Zealand, and a new adventure to us, so we decided to go for it. The infrastructure is very developed in NZ for campervan rentals and they make things smooth and easy. Because it’s winter in NZ, renting the RV was no issue at all, plenty of availability. I can see in their summer it must get very busy, the infrastructure is definitely set up to handle a heck of a lot more people than what we ran into in the middle of winter.

I was daunted by being in such an enormous vehicle. On the wrong side of the road. But I didn’t have to drive, luckily, Jem enjoys driving and likes driving new types of vehicles.

Because it was winter, it was cold-ish and rainy-ish, in so far as we stuck to Northland (north part of north island). Thankfully most of New Zealand is temperate. The North Island rarely gets below 40. Most days it was 50s for the high, with one or two days reaching 60! Nice enough with a sweater. The South Island has some ski/snow destinations. We stayed way away from those.

By the time we got to the Bay of Islands, it was almost warm. Certainly beautiful.

Travel tip: buy full “stress free plus” insurance coverage. Normally we decline all the insurance offered by car rentals but with such limited experience with RVs, I thought, I did not want to worry about accidentally hitting the roof, or something in a blind spot, so I decided to just pay it. And thank goodness. We had a rock hit the windshield, and chip it, and it was all covered.

Super easy. Credit card rental car insurance doesn’t cover RV rentals and a million things can go wrong with such an enormous car; having the coverage was worth every dime.

So, besides the enormity of the vehicle, and driving on the wrong side, and the wind storms, and the chipped windshield, and the unexpected road that becomes unpaved midway through the curvy mountains on the way to the campground, was the fact that I never knew what to call this vehicle. Campervan is the main term, but they also refer to them as RVs (more common in the US) but motorhome is used too. One thing we did learn — it is not a caravan. A caravan means a trailer camper/fifth wheel being pulled by a car. We had seen one campground saying “not suitable for caravans.” But then said perfect for campervans. So, I figured, those had to be different. I finally learned the difference at one of the campgrounds when a New Zealander asked me at the campground if we were in a caravan. Thinking he meant campervan, I said yes. Then he said, “oh that is nice. You have a car you can detach and drive around.” Ah. No, it’s not a caravan.

Overall, we really liked the van life and now are considering doing this back home too!

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Hundertwasser: Vienna to New Zealand

Many, many years (decades!) ago now, I visited a friend in Vienna. We went to a place I knew nothing about called the Hundertwasserhaus. Very interesting I thought at the time. Obviously memorable since I still remember it more than 25 years later. Since that trip, I had mentioned that “famous” architect Hundertwasser to friends and colleagues. No recognition of this person. So, I thought, I guess he was just a local Viennese architect with one unusually designed building.

We arrive in New Zealand, motorhoming our way North of Auckland through Northland and what do I run into, but a Hundertwasser Museum! What?? How did this guy who as far as I know only did a building in Vienna also have this museum in the middle of semi-rural New Zealand (in a smaller town called Whangārei) and yet no one I know had heard of him?

Hundertwasser Art Center in Whangārei

Turns out, like many an American and European, Hundertwasser had it with the rat race and moved to New Zealand, near Whangārei, in the 70s to get away from it all. He became famous here and they eventually built an art center honoring him, about a decade after he died in 2000, based on one of his designs.

I

THEN I learn, he has a famous building in New Zealand built while he was still alive — a toilet. Yes, really, there is a public toilet in the small town of Kawakawa that he designed. So, this leg of travel became the Hundertwasser hunt. We went out of our way to stop at Kawakawa (I just love the name of that town) to see…a public toilet. We plan to be in Vienna this fall for a few days and the Hundertwasserhaus will be on the must-see list!

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Birthday on the road! Motorhoming and Fox Flying

The twins turned 12 this summer on the road, and, echoing the lament of kids with summer holiday birthdays heard around the world, they were sad not to have their friends available for a birthday party. We try to have fun trips planned for them on their birthday, but honestly, yes, even in this family, one can only have so many Disney birthdays (last year we did Disneyland Paris, for example).

Because we were in New Zealand, a day ahead of the US, they actually got two birthdays, New Zealand birthday and US birthday. For this birthday, we decided to do something one of the kids had long asked for — rent a motorhome and go “camping” / road-tripping. We rented the motorhome the day before their birthday and drove to a nice campground chain, the Top 10, which is basically New Zealand’s KOA.

We took a pleasant, though muddy, river walk/hike for their NZ birthday, headed toward the town of Whangarei.

We saw the largest flock of ducks just hanging around this river on the walk to Whangarei…with one little pigeon adopted by them among the flock. Can you spot it in the first picture?

I wonder how this pigeon ended up in a family of ducks. Our walk ended up in the “town basin” of Whangārei where we had a birthday meal by the water.

Two of us ordered fish and chips and the consensus was that it was among the best we have ever had, including various places in England! It’s easy to forget, given the lush forest vistas, that we actually are at the ocean here.

The next day, for the US birthday we went climbing in the treetop canopies. What amazing ropes courses and programs with zip lines and challenges.

We learned a new term – flying fox. Flying fox is what they call zip lines here. At first we thought it was just this Adventure Forest that called them that but then we saw them advertised in other places that way.

This locally owned Adventure Forest ropes company is a labor of love, and has been for sale for over a year. The owner is looking to retire, after having opened and run the business for 16 years.

It seems like the perfect dream job for a professional looking for an escape from the rat race who wants to leave it all behind and move to New Zealand.

After three hours at our exhausting ropes course, we went shopping for the girls to pick out their birthday presents.

Then, we had 4 birthday cakes (2 each for each birthday), and of course more presents.

Happy 12th Birthday Girls!

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World Schooling Launched…From Tahiti

We launched our first leg of WorldSchooling by going somewhere we have never been before. The beautiful, amazing islands of Tahiti and Moorea. Technically, our first leg of WorldSchooling was New Zealand, but most flights stopped in either Hawaii, Fiji or Tahiti, so we felt like we should stay for a few days in one of the places if we had to stop anyway. So we flew to Tahiti and stayed in French Polynesia for 8 days on our way to New Zealand.

We left out of SFO. That means we upped our departure day to spend 3 days in San Francisco before heading to Papeete. The girls’ cousin joined us for the Tahiti part of our trip.

Girls had their 6th grade graduation/awards ceremony on a Friday and we left Saturday. Of course. (Itching to depart at the first opportunity!) While waiting for our flight at SFO, we caught a glimpse of Airforce One.

We then arrived to Tahiti, where we were greeted at the airport by a serenade!

We stayed at a lovely villa with a pool and the most gorgeous views, of our second destination, Moorea.

The vistas were stunning, everywhere.

We called it the beginning of Worldschool launch but it wasn’t, not really. It was a glorious break. It was the much needed relaxation, downtime before we being the school year. Summer break. Except Winter in Tahiti. Confusing. Tahiti is lovely. French Polynesia and it’s people were amazingly friendly. So many experiences — the security guard who comes over when we double parked and instead of yelling at us to move, offers to walk with us and help with all our luggage to show us where the elevator is around the corner. The person who runs over and makes sure we aren’t lost. The person who escorted us to our rental house to make sure we found it and knew how everything worked. All speaking French. Which is honestly the disconnect because that famous French aloofness is absolutely lacking in Tahiti. (And not lacking in another French island, Guadeloupe, where we vacationed in 2022, so the contrast was stark. And a pleasant surprise.)

The French Polynesian waters, well, the waters are indescribably beautiful and pictures do not do it justice. We loved swimming and snorkeling, and though we generally dislike hot humid weather, we were fortunate to be there on the “coldest” day of the year, what we call the summer solstice, but I guess is actually their winter solstice, June 21. Late June is a very nice time to be in French Polynesia.

That said, while we love warm water beaches, but dislike heat and humidity, we were beginning to look forward to actual winter in New Zealand. It was hard to say goodby to Tahiti, and of course we are already seeing how to plug a few days into Tahiti during our Down Under Module (2024).

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“WorldSchooling, what is that?”

So, we have now begun our (long-awaited) two-year World Schooling years.

Before the twins were born, we decided that at some point in their childhood we wanted them to live abroad for a year or two. But we could not really settle on which country, and very quickly we realized we wanted it to include multiple countries and multiple years. The kids were not even 2 when we decided we were going to travel with them around the world for two years and home school them. Later, we learned there is a technical term for this — it’s called WorldSchooling. We settled on 7th and 8th grade for WorldSchooling, in part because job changes and sabbaticals aligned with those years and in part because who honestly felt 7th and 8th grade were the best years to be in a classroom with 20+ other 7th and 8th graders? No one I know. The kids will never understand what middle school hell we saved them from.

So, we officially began this summer! House and pet sitters were arranged and first plane tickets were purchased (using United miles! Before they devalued!! We are hewing to a tight budget on this venture.) As we get underway, we will be posting some more information about our WorldSchool philosophies and curriculum goals during the 2+ years we plan to be on the road. The general idea is to have 2-3 month modules in a particular country/continent. For example, we are starting with a New Zealand Module (Module 1), and then moving to Europe for Module 2. South America is set for Module 3. We will have several weeks at home in between to catch up on things like dental appointments and work obligations.

We have spent the past several years scouting out various countries and locations — aka vacations aka mini-world-school trial runs. The first year will be mostly a year of repeats, New Zealand, London, France, Chile. But also some new places for us too, Tahiti (stopover on the way to New Zealand), Italy as part of the Europe module, Argentina in addition to Chile.

Sixth grade graduation, let the WorldSchooling begin! (Don’t they look excited 🙃)

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It’s been a little while, sorry about that…

So, I know we probably didn’t have a huge following of our Axelrod Adventures, but we did have a few key important readers, and we have not been keeping our blog current. So we owe all of you who followed along on our adventures an apology. We have many excuses (no one took charge of it, laziness, burnt out etc), but one excuse we did not have was lack of adventures. Well, at least after the first 15 months, which was the longest I can remember in my life, and certainly since we got married and had kids, that I went without traveling somewhere. But eager to get back to traveling, we started back on the road in March 2021 with a trip to Hawaii, and followed it up in July 2021 with Iceland, Portugal in January 2022, back to Hawaii in March and June 2022, and the British Isles with Disneyland Paris thrown in (of course) in July 2022. We visited Chile in November 2022, Guadeloupe for Christmas, and this year, we got back to Japan almost as soon as we could once it opened back up. It sounds like a lot when I write it all but it just felt like a normal couple of years to us.

I will have a post from our visit to Japan shortly, and then will update everyone with our formal launch of World Schooling, which has just started, since the kids have formally finished sixth grade! We will be on the road for most of the next two years and hoping to keep our adventures on our blog updated as we go!

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Back to Japan!

We’re baaack. We went back to Japan for the first time in 4 years. And thus, we are now back to posting and updating our Axelrod Adventures blog. It’s hard to believe that it has been four years since we were last here. The kids were different people then. As Jem says, I have learned and forgotten Japanese in that time.

In 2023, Japan has still been in full pandemic control mode, circa 2021 in the US and Europe. Masks everywhere, chapped hands from hand sanitizer, and proof of vaccine or negative test required to enter the country. But so far, the trains are on time, everyone still nice and friendly (maybe a little wary of all the tourists), and the Family Mart still sells all our favorite convenience foods. And, of course, there is still nothing caffeine-free, diet to drink. The choice of drinks (besides water) is caffeine or sugar.

This trip we split up and three of us came with grandma early; the other one came with grandpa a couple of days later.

There is much to tell about our first few days in country. We went to the ocean near Kamakura and were dive bombed by killer hawks! Who then stole Sophie’s ice cream from her hands, literally. The bird swooped down grabbed the ice cream cone from her hands and flew off. They must have marked us as patsies because not 10 minutes later one swooped down and grabbed the last bite of Jem’s sandwich…from his hands. I screamed louder than I have in 20 years. This bird was huge.

On our first morning Sophie and I were up way too early but headed down for breakfast in our hotel. We knew it was a buffet, but did not realize it was only Japanese options, with no western choices. Sophie gamely ate her first Japanese breakfast.

We also traveled into Buddhist heights — climbing some tiny stairs into the inside of The Giant Buddha in Kamakura.

We had a lovely time in Japan, and the obligatory Tokyo DisneySea and Chandu fest because it would not be an Axelrod Del Campo trip without a disney stop. We successfully replaced our lost at sea Chandu’s (which will be the subject of a future post).

It was nice to be back on the road again! And we are now on the road for the next two years!

Representing BayMax (very popular in Japan) with a Baymax Head (left) and Sporting a New Monsters U Sweatshirt (right)