Travelling with kids is crazy.
My head is pounding.
My throat's dry.
My back hurts.
And I couldn't be happier!
Why?
Today is my first day in Ho Chi Minh city with my wife Alexandra and our two kids, Emilia and Zach.
How'd we get here?
Step One: Mold Is Not Your Friend
Just over twelve months ago, we were living a quiet life in a beautiful Appalachian log cabin situated in Katoomba, in the picturesque Blue Mountains an hour and a half west of Sydney.
I loved that house, and Alex and I thought we'd live there for the rest of our lives.
Who wouldn't want this, right?
And our kids loved it too. Here's our daughter's room...
But it wasn't meant to be.
Out of nowhere, Alex started collapsing without warning.
She'd spend days at a time in bed, with no obvious reason.
Doctors had no idea what was going on.
Nobody could give us any answers.
And then Dave Asprey released his documentary 'Moldy'.
One fateful evening we sat down to watch the documentary.
And that night would change our lives forever.
We discovered that ALL of Alex's symptoms could be explained by toxic mold exposure.
Every. Single. One.
As we scoured our beautiful home, we discovered there was in fact a plethora of mold in every room.
Katoomba is a cold, damp place. The heating is on in every house roughly 90% of the year.
Perfect conditions for mold to proliferate.
So, we decided to sell up and go on an adventure!
Step Two: Stop Before You Start
With our house sold (within forty-eight hours), we had enough profit left over to completely clear out any remaining debt and finally becoming 100% debt-free (and we still are -- which is an awesome feeling).
Alexandra was a professional dancer in Europe when she was younger, having trained at the National Conservatoire de Dance in Lyon, France.
So when the opportunity to buy a struggling ballet school in a rural town came up, we decided to invest some of the profits of our house sale into what we felt was a great investment:
A ballet school.
Originally, the plan was to buy the school as an investment, employ staff from France, and let them run the show while we travelled the world with our kids.
It didn't quite work out that way!
Instead, we found ourselves living in Tamworth -- a cute, little town in rural New South Wales, Australia, for the next twelve months.
Step Three: Deaf But Not Defeated
Within twelve months, Alex managed to triple the size of her dance school -- which is no small feat in a country town.
Now we once again have the freedom to travel, and as such, we've finally set off on our adventure.
It's a bittersweet victory though, because in November 2015 a virus attacked my gorgeous wife's auditory nerve, causing deafness in her left ear, and near-constant tinnitus and nausea.
It's been a rough ride.
As always, Alex has risen to the challenge in ways I don't think I'd have the strength to - and has grown her business to a team of nine awesome staff, and manages to get through every day with a smile on her face despite the daily struggle of learning to live with her newfound deafness.
Step Four: Burden Your Parents
Ok, so maybe not actually "burden"... but I'm sure they're glad the car trip's over.
Before we left for our Vietnamese adventure, Alexandra and I spent a few weeks in Los Angeles, California.
Alone.
Which meant my parents graciously took care of our children (who are wonderful... and a handful!).
To cap it all off, two days ago the six of us "enjoyed" a six hour drive from my parent's house in Wagga Wagga back to Sydney for our departure -- crammed into a car with all of our luggage.
I was lucky enough to get to sit in the back with the luggage, which afforded me virtually no leg room at all (a fact I used as mental rehearsal for our economy class seats on the flight to Vietnam).
Here's a shot of my legroom...
Step Five: Make It Happen
The flight was an adventure in it's own right.
My kids are excited about the trip, and understandably unsure of what to expect.
We've broken them out of their everyday routine... taken our daughter out of school... and flown them half way around the world to a place where they don't speak the language.
I'd love to say they explained that calmly in a respectful manner, but who am I kidding... they screamed their freaking heads off for an hour and a half on the plane.
Oh yeah... an hour and a half SOLID screaming.
Mostly from my son, Zachy Bubbles, but Emilia joined in at times too.
I've trained in Jujitsu for a long time, and I'm not proud to admit... I honestly considered choking them out a couple of times ;-)
I'd had visions of our family happily snuggling on the plane... talking about what we're most looking forward to on the trip, and generally having a loving, connecting experience.
Instead I think some passengers suspected I was trying to remove Zach's appendix mid-flight without anaesthesia.
Turns out... both kids were EXHAUSTED.
And after a very long struggle to make it happen, I finally got both of them to drift off to sleep -- after which they went back to their wonderful, happy little selves, and were a joy for the rest of the flight.
Step Six: Look Out The Window
Right now I'm on the twenty-seventh floor of an awesome apartment building in district two of Ho Chi Minh city.
My kids are watching Postman Pat on youtube.
It's seven forty-two am.
They've been up since roughly two am, because their body clocks still think we're on Australian time (which is fair enough), and as a result, Alex is now crashed out on the kid's bed after spending half the night awake entertaining them.
Now it's my shift!
It's been an entertaining start to our three months overseas, and I can't say I'm disappointed with the view.
And as soon as Alex wakes up, we'll head out into this awesome, hectic city and find some food.
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Hi, I'm Nick.
When I was 13 a friend gave me a book on body language, and my obsession with understanding (and influencing) people was born. It's lead me to the heights of entrepreneurial success, the lows of depression, finding and marrying my dream girl, meeting my heroes, travelling the world, writing my book 7 Minute Mindset, smashing most of my life goals before I was 30, and now to writing here on Steemit. You can find my intro and verification post here.