We started of 2024 with Storm Henk dumping more than 150% of the usual rainfall and lashing the British isles with gale force winds. Winter was bleak and cold. Not the best start to the year having many unwritten essays AND the dissertation waiting to be written. Worse still, the landlord also dropped the bomb on us by informing us that we had to look for a new home by summer. Though he did promise he wouldn't evict us before my graduation, it was still a hard pill to swallow. Life had to go on and birthdays have to be celebrated because the kids will be sad if you don't. Those who are parents and/or with my birthdate will know. We devoured Colin the Caterpillar and drank bubbly pretend champagne! ​

Note: Because this post is really just highlighting the year's events, I won't go into the details because there are dedicated blog and social media posts about all our travels this year. They are free to access!

Januarys always feel a little sad for me because, December. You have all the wonderful gatherings, decorations, holiday seasons and celebrations in December and then it's back to the grind very abruptly. And this explains why I didn't sound excited describing my own birthday. I've never associated my birthday as something celebratory because it always falls on the first couple of days of the new school year. Though we follow a very different routine now, it is still hard to shake those feelings accumulated over 16 years as a student and 5 years as a school teacher.  

But part of us moving to the UK was about healing and exercising our freedom to choose how we should live. Therefore we chose to make homeschooling flexible, rigorous and interest driven at the same time. Despite all the challenges, it was a good year for homeschooling. 

We've got two very motivated students who have chosen a skill on their own accord and practice so that they could excel. We've also got two students who breezed their UK SATs that we just decided to administer on a random day. I feel that we are definitely on the right track in terms of ensuring our kids do not go through the same educational traumas we encountered. These traumas shape you as a person and it is very hard to undo them. 

So while Debra very valiantly held the fort for homeschooling and cooking, I was imprisoned to my chair and laptop for most of January till May. Most of the 19,000 words required that semester was penned in the bleak mid-winter. Gwyn became so accustomed to seeing me type on Microsoft word that she would sternly question me about the word count that barely moved. 

My chair imprisonment was only punctuated by a terrible flu and a surprise visit from the kid's favourite aunt. 

It was a really nice time together and we thought she'll probably visit again in a couple of years for another holiday. There were lots of tears while we travelled home from Heathrow that evening. 

All the travelling around gave us the momentum of seeing more places in February. In between trying to work on the major research paper, I fell into an absolute rabbit hole of wanting to see Scotland. We did try and visit Shakespeare's hometown to make up for it. That just made us want to see what the land of unicorns, whiskey, bagpipes and deep history had to offer. 

Still can't believe we drove a total of 12-13 hours for the return trip. It was a good couple of days in Edinburgh we are so glad we said yes to the adventure. 

Spring was a little disappointing because yeah the chair imprisonment! It was getting all consuming and anxiety inducing because the dateline was drawing close. Despite cracking my head over the ethics approvals and data analysis, we found time to walk off our anxieties along the seaside town of Skegness. We also managed to pop by an amazing brand new cafe in our community, watch the squirrels, enjoy the blooms, bring the kids for their first live concert.

I think it is worth highlighting that when went for the unveiling of the late Queen Elizabeth II's new statue, the kids told the reporters there were okay to be interviewed (and made it on the actual BBC News) with their friends. I don't know how they turned out so audacious and confident. I don't think Debra and I are good examples haha! 

At this point, the birth pangs of the dissertation baby was getting unbelievably unbearable. But I'm happy to announce that the dissertation baby was born successfully and I was released from my chair. Just in time, t-shirt weather and sunshine was upon us! So we made use of all the long sunshine hours and saw Cambridge as well as Hafren forest. It felt so freeing to be behind the steering wheel and not the laptop, on the camera trigger and not the word counter. 

We also got to yell the whole building down because Man United beat Man City to win the FA cup in the finals. To be honest, I completely lost faith by half time. The kids made the trophy that morning in faith and I was absolutely ashamed for feeling a fair bit of doubt. 

With summer in full swing and a window of good dry weather in sight, we were once again beset with the question "to go or not to go". I sprung the question on the family at an emergency meeting around our bed and the council voted 3-1 to do CORNWALL! We packed our luggage that afternoon and headed down for the ridiculously picturesque south west coast. 

This year we have been very fortunate to be visited by my entire family. They flew into the UK for more than 2 weeks to be with us and visit the place. We are also really fortunate to be given the right to vote in UK's General Election this year. These are things we don't take for granted at all. And to top it off our children have decided they would like to make their commitments to following Jesus. 

It was great showing the family the land we call home now. We traversed beautiful parks, museums and enjoyed meals and rode steam trains. It almost felt like the two weeks happened in a flash!

At no point of pursing this I dared expect to be conferred a Master's degree with distinction. Not even in my wildest dreams I would conceive the idea of topping my course. The majority of my Singaporean education has taught me that I'm never good enough. So I did doubt myself. Moreover, it was hard going back to school more than 10 years after undergraduate/post-grad teacher training. These are positive memories will help me say no to negativity for the years ahead.

With this chapter closed, we focused on enjoying the rest of summer and then addressing the elephant in the room. But first we decided to take the kids to the cinema for the first time in their lives. Yes tell me these kids grew up during Covid without telling me so. We throughly enjoyed The Minions but it made them talk gibberish for the next few days about bottoms. haha!

The rest of our summer was dominated by going for property viewings and hosting viewings for our landlord. We were anxious to move while there's sunshine and long daylight hours. This was punctuated by our little trips to Sheffield for the Monopoly Trail, the Black Country Museum as well as the seaside town of Skegness. 

When you know that the Earth is going to do its tilt in a couple months time and you won't get this much sunshine, we were naturally very motivated to make the best of summer. Our second Balloon Festival (even better than last year!), numerous meet ups with friends to enjoy the countryside, more Welsh mountains and the Royal Mint where we realised what could make our boy smile the widest....GOLD! 

As summer drew to a close, that also meant that it was Birthday season! Yummy cakes, family time and presents. Love their big smiles whenever there's cake ❤️

What made the kids smile even more was that their favourite aunt was going to be in the UK from Autumn semester for her studies!

But it was also around the beginning of Autumn that we received the 2 month notice to vacate our home. A lot of end September and October was a complete blur. We searched every major town in the county for a home because we didn't want to give up the community we've grown with for the past two years. I still call it our miracle because it is! One day, Debra suddenly received a call from a friend who just landed in Spain for her holiday, we were a little confused as to why she would call us while on a nice holiday! By the end of the call, our search for a home was ended. We were offered a property in the very village most of our community and friends live. 

So while the leaves were falling and storm season began again, we were now suddenly thrusted into a new direction. We had two months to pack all our belongings, plan and purchase all the furniture/appliances we needed for a partly furnished house and move in November. Before that we had to sell our beloved car and get a bigger car to do the moving ourselves and also accommodate anyone who visited us. 

​It was a month of madness.

I don't know how but we even managed to squeeze in an entire day at Legoland Windsor to surprise the kids. They really enjoyed the spooky theme for Halloween! As if we didn't have enough excitement in our lives, we took Gwyn on her first legit roller coaster ride and I was genuinely scared as an adult. ​

We were rewarded with one of the most beautiful displays of the Aurora Borealis right from our study's window. It's like the skies threw us a farewell lights show before the endless packing went on. Eventually, we did get there after 4 full car loads and many trips up and down the stairs of our old apartment. My watch recorded me climbing 61 floors on one of the days. 

We made it!!! After an entire week of unpacking, building numerous Ikea furniture, slogging it out in the garden, extracting carpets, my laptop no longer recognised my fingerprint. And we were absolutely shattered. Just in time, the kids got to enjoy this winter's first snow! (Yes, Gwyn scored a headshot 😂)

We visited Christmas markets, put up the Christmas tree and did our best to settle into the new home, surroundings and our new routines. We've been truly blessed considering how precarious it was just 2.5 months ago.

We were so excited to enjoy all the Christmas festivities in the village church and actually did manage to attend a few. We managed the yearly Christingle service, Carols by Candlelight, Kids Christmas party and trail with all the good people and friends! In the midst of all these, we were also acutely aware that my dad would be so happy to be part of this. 

We squeezed in a trip to Cambridge and before we knew it, it was Christmas Day! 
Opening presents was the first order of business before the best lunch of pigs in blanket and mouth-watering goose fat roast potatoes. As per our family tradition, we watched the King's Christmas speech (it was the Queen for many years). 

Sadly by late Christmas afternoon, Debra and I were completely down with high fever. Things ground to a halt. Over the next few days, the kids too developed high fever. A trip to the supermarket medicine aisle confirms that there's a massive spread of this horrible flu. 

We are all on the mend now and hope we can enjoy the last day of 2024 before we welcome 2025. This is how our year went. Huge challenges, more than sufficient grace. Time and time again, we have been reminded that miracles do happen! From all of us at Hiro & Jack, we pray that you'll experience that too and have a very joyful 2025! 

We've travelled as a family from the time Matt was 3 months old and then when Gwyn came into the scene it was a 3 year old and an infant. Those were hard days I must confess. If you are not going to read the rest of this post, just remember that understanding and meeting each child's needs is the key. 

We've been asked a lot about how we are able to go on adventures and travel extensively even though we have two children in tow. I don't claim that we know everything but we do have a system that we follow. It works very well for us and can work for others too. But we most definitely don't claim that it works for every child. Neither are we going to leave tonnes of Amazon links of products you can buy. This post is really a plain and simple guide to how we did it and perhaps it could be of help to you. 

It boils down to FOOD, ENTERTAINMENT, PLANNING and EQUIPMENT. 

Whenever we travel, we almost always do two things: 

On road trips, we calculate the amount of driving needed and estimate where we'd be. Stops are intentional and the food places are decided before we even step out of the house. Search for restaurants on google maps and read the reviews. This is especially essential if you have dietary restrictions like we do. We search for restaurants that serve gluten-free food or naturally gluten-free dishes. We avoid places that aren't child friendly. Also, when meal times happen when it is supposed to, you eradicate the low-blood sugar, "hangry" tantrums that even adults are susceptible to. 

When flying airlines that don't serve food, skip the timings that cross into meal times (e.g. 3 hr flights from 1130am to 230pm or 530 to 830pm). It'll be too early for your next meal but you'll be at the check in, going through security and sitting in the plane with an empty tummy. Throw in a delay on the tarmac, you'll have disaster. 

We ALWAYS carry a snack bag when we are travelling. Protein bars, gummy bears, crisps and fruits. This is an emergency stash that we sometimes don't tell the kids we have (if not it'll be empty before we even get on the motorway). It is especially important because sometimes we are up a mountain and the day's activities are strenuous. We get hungry faster and we need a snack boost. They come in handy to stall time when we are stuck in traffic and facing a delay. 

There will always be parts of a journey that's boring. So we can't blame kids when they fuss. Just imagine being strapped into a carseat with a 5 point seatbelt for hours and not being able to properly look outside the window. I'd scream too. 

Our strategy is to download music on our music app that everyone enjoys. We also download songs that the kids love i.e (The Wiggles, Disney songs, Frozen soundtracks, Ed Sheeran). So we are all singing, the kids sometimes fall asleep after awhile and it works very well for us.

We also let the kids decide what goes into the "entertainment" bag. They carry this backpack of toys, games and books that they enjoy. When the kids were babies, we always brought 3 of their favourite toys in our bag. When we travelled across South East Asia for 7 months, the kids each had a small case of Lego that they can conveniently open, play, put back and carry wherever we went. When their minds are focused on a toy or distracted by a conversation, they are less likely to get upset or uncomfortably bored. 

Tablets and screens are always the LAST resort. They are used sparingly and really a treat in the most trying circumstances when we've exhausted all options. 

A trip to London for example takes 2 hours.

10 MINS: we'd be chatting about the plans for the day, how long it'll take, when are we stopping and the regular reminders about feeling carsick and needing the toilet.
20 MINS: we'd play their favourite music and sing along. Sometimes they fall asleep after that, sometimes they start playing with their toys.
30 MINS: Swapping between playing a card game, reading a book, playing with their little fiddle toy/other toys and annoying each other.
15 MINS: Then it is song request time again and sing along again.
20 MINS: Good chance they will take a short 15 minute to 30 minute nap at this point.

By this point we'd stop for a quick toilet break and maybe share some crisps or gummy bears before finishing up the last 15-25 minutes with a lot of reassurance (WE ARE REACHING SOON!), random conversations and spotting things out of the window. 

On plane rides, invest in kids headphones (with an airline adapter) please! Airlines these days don't always provide proper listening equipment that fit a kids head/ears. When we are on plane rides or waiting at a restaurant, we would always carry our own colouring sheets, pencils and play simple games like tic tac toe. Doodling is definitely way more fun than staring at the wall while waiting for food. 

Going on travels empty handed and unprepared is recipe for disaster. 

It is easy to squeeze as much into a day as possible to make your money's worth when planning a holiday. Dragging everyone along activity after activity is not going to be enjoyable. 

By the time the kids are 2 or 3, we got them involved in choosing what to do for the day. E.g. We are going to the Zoo! Show them the maps before hand and decide which animals they want to see. Giving them the agency and involving them in planning helps them look forward to it. It gives them an idea of what they can expect. It meets their needs. 

When you travel with babies and children, LESS IS MORE. 
We say that because babies and children have significantly higher needs. They need more sleep, they need to be fed and entertained more frequently than adults. These things take time and realistically, you can only cover so much without neglecting those needs. 

Our strategy is always doing ONE major thing a day. We travel slow.
The rest of the time can be spent relaxing at the hotel pool, running around the square or having a snack. ​

Last but not least, having the right equipment can make your life way easier on a trip. We cannot emphasise the importance of wearing appropriate shoes. Nobody is in a good mood when their feet are soaked and sore. If your holiday involves walking, wear comfy supportive shoes!

Apart from that, here are some things that we never go on a trip without. 

Travelling with babies equipment list:
1. A light foldable cabin approved pram
We hate checking it in, waiting for it and hoping it isn't lost)

2. Steriliser bags (Microwavable ones).
Put the dummies and bottles in the bags with a little water and pop it into the microwave. You have clean sterilised stuff in no time! 

3. Baby Carrier
Yes we bring BOTH the carrier and the pram. Sometimes the baby just wants skin contact so a carrier keeps your hands free! 

3. Baby bath soap, shampoo and toys
Bath time with some floating toys is always a really nice way to relax and reset the mood! 

4. Muslin squares
Get the larger ones. They can be used for so many purposes. You can use them to cover surfaces to lay your baby on (even as temporary cot bedsheet), shade the baby from the sun, keep the baby covered and warm, used as a swaddle and they are perfect for peekaboo too! 

5. Toys and snacks
 Something with buttons, something to chew on, something sensory, pick the child's favourites! 


Travelling with kids aged 4 to 10 equipment list:
1. The entertainment bag
A selection of their favourite books, games, toys, colouring sheets, soft toys and pencils

2. The snack bag
Crisps, protein bars, chocolate, gummies, fruits, biscuits and drinks.  

3. A torch light 
Seemingly useless but surprisingly useful to in keeping the kids occupied on walks in the evening. Very useful when things get lost in the car. 

4. A small camera
Another very useful tool to keep the kids entertained and on a mission when travelling. You'll be surprised at the perspective and things that turn up when going through their pictures at the end of the trip. 

Special mention: Pick up a stick/small tree branch on walks or hikes. Infinitely entertaining for the kids. I have no idea why 🤣. 

Have we missed anything out? What is your list of things that you'd never leave home without? Put them in the comments below and let's all share our experiences!