My partner Monique and I were so excited to hear that after all of our efforts – submitting multiple videos, various callsbacks, face to face interviews in LA, etc. and out of 40k applicants – we were chosen as one of the 11 teams to compete in the Amazing Race (AR) 16! My next thought – now how am I going to be away from my hubby, and 5 & 8 year old for a whole month, without any communication?!  Since I couldn’t share the news with too many people (we were under strict confidentiality) I found myself going introspective and having a lot of sleepness nights, not so much worrying but praying and thinking about all that I needed to do to make sure things were in order for my family when I left.  After all, I’m the person who leaves the house and calls my hubby w/in 10 minutes thinking of “something else”, especially since we have two businesses together.  Up until my AR experience, I’d never had a day where we didn’t talk, so how was I going to get through 30 days of not seeing or talking w/him or my kids I kept thinking?  I knew my kids would be in good hands b/c my hubby is truly a hands-on dad – sure my daughter’s hair wouldn’t look as cute  when I returned a month later but I knew they both would be well cared for, even though mommy was gone.
 
Mo & I were fine while we were running the race through the streets of LA (literally), various cities in  Chile, and Argentina because our time was not our own (we barely had time to sleep and eat some days).  We were often strategizing of how we were going to get ahead of other teams, looking for maps, scouting out the best routes of travel - we were really trying to win that million bucks!  Sure we missed our families immensely but we thought if we sit and think too long we would get weak and we needed to remain focused.

Now when we got eliminated with 2 weeks left before we all returned home, the tables turned drastically!  Suddenly we weren’t on the go every moment. We went from racing through airports, making split decisions, having a camera and sound guy every moment to occasional camera time (which was somewhat of a relief) to a beautiful mansion in Puerto Vallarta with people waiting on us hand and foot and having more free time than I’ve ever had in my life.  So you may not be feeling sorry for me at this point. I know my hubby wasn’t.  But you really had to be there! Mo and I were truly prisoners in paradise!  We were grateful for the chance to rest especially after coming off such a physically and mentally rigorous experience.  But as beautiful as Puerto Vallarta was, it was hard not being to share it with my family, and even more of a challenge not being able to communicate with them for such an extended time.  Additionally, after experiencing so many exciting challenges  and seeing so many beautiful places around the world I couldn’t wait to share it with my family and get back to “reality”! We’ve constantly been asked in interviews and by people in general, what was the hardest part of being on AR, and for us as wives and mothers it was unquestionably being away from our families and not being able to communicate with them.   Forget walking across a 300 foot cable atop a city in Chile or running miles through an Argentina rainforest with a 30lb backpack on my back.  I was missing my babies!

I will never forget when we were eliminated and we got to the hotel with the production team. They were so nice because you never know the emotional  state of a contestant just eliminated (lol).  We came in the beautiful hotel in Argentina after running all day through a miles & miles of mud, cow & horse dung around 100 acre field  trying to finish our last detour.  We looked and smelled terrible! I looked around this beautiful hotel and saw Christmas decorations and started crying.  I didn’t even realize it was Christmas time and this was my favorite time of the year with my family.  As I write this now, that feeling is coming back to me b/c it was such a jolt for me.  It was as if I had been in a time warp, in a bubble but everything else was still moving forward and celebrating the holidays while I was racing around the world trying to win a million dollars.

I started to wonder what my kids were doing.  Did they decorate the tree without me, did they put the  stockings on the mantle, did they have lights out in front of the house?  What the hell was I doing running around South America… I wanted to go home NOW!!!

I was counting down the days, one by one.  It’s amazing how as beautiful as your surroundings are, when you not with those you love, it’s a totally different experience.  Not to take anything away from my partner, I love her too. She and I have had some phenomenal traveling experiences together that started back when we studied abroad in Kenya while in law school. And being on AR and experiencing travel in such a unique way was truly a blessing that only she and I can really ever understand (& those other few hundred people who’ve been on AR over the years.)  But I’m sure she would agree in my saying that we would have traded it all for just one hug from our babies in the middle of those 4 weeks away.  Seeing my hubby and kids days before Christmas was worth a million bucks for sure!!!