Back At Last Back at last in the U.S., Jamie and Michelle Rines with children Andrew, Nathaniel and William get ready for their cross country camping trip.

It was life as usual, but it was life unlike anything they had ever experienced.

They gazed at the pyramids of Egypt, swam in the Dead Sea, and sampled the pastries of Paris. Michelle and Jamie Rines also helped settle squabbles between their three children, coaxed them into doing their schoolwork, and tried to get them to try new foods.

In the fall of 2006, Michelle and Jamie began a round the world trip that landed them in France, took them across western Europe to Asia, Japan, Hawaii, and seven weeks of camping and sightseeing in this country, from Seattle, Washington and back to Maine.

It was a trip they had been talking about and planning for the last 15 years. The idea to travel with their children, Andrew, 14, Nathaniel, 9, and William, 7 originated in 1991 when Michelle and Jamie were working in Thailand. While they were there, they met a couple who were traveling with their children around the world.

"We thought, someday, it would be fun to do that," Michelle says. And "someday," for the Rines family, began when they arrived at Logan Airport in August of 2006 with enough clothes and school supplies to last them for a year. Jamie, a physician with Mid Coast Medical Group, had gotten a leave of absence from his practice, and they had planned, roughly, where they would be from month to month. And, their pets, Freddy, a black rabbit, and Roxie, a standard poodle, were placed with friends.

The adventure began with a mad rush at the airport after they learned their original flight plans had changed. They had been re-routed on a different airline.

No problem, they were told - they could just catch a shuttle to the other terminal. They waited and waited until they didn't dare wait any longer, and, clutching all their luggage, ran through a series of parking lots to the other terminal. They made the flight, and later learned the airlines would reimburse them the cost because of their heroic mad dash.

Their first night in Paris, Michelle and Andrew, the oldest, couldn't sleep, so they spent some time sitting outside on their hotel balcony looking at the lights of the city. The next day they bought sandwiches, and walked down to the banks of the Seine, where they enjoyed their lunch and watched les petites mouches (the small boats, nicknamed flys) travel up and down the river .

The plan was to enroll the children in the International School of Lyon, an English speaking school, from September through December. But before they began, they took some time to travel in western Europe, and once school began, often took trips on the weekends.

Each of the children kept a journal, in which they wrote their impressions, and pasted in memorabilia like tickets and post cards.

Before school started, they stayed in the Swiss Alps for five days in a hotel that was accessible only by cable car. One of their scenic memories, in addition to the spectacular mountain views, according to one of the children, was "really big slugs."

After a few trips on the subway and bus with his parents, Andrew felt confident enough to travel to school every day by himself.

"It gave me a real feeling of independence," Andrew said.

His favorite part of the trip to school every day was ducking into a shop between the subway ride and his bus ride to devour a "pain au chocolate" (chocolate croissant). Andrew even found time to take piano lessons while he was in school.

One of their favorite memories of Lyon was going to the circus, where Nathaniel says, "I saw my first real live penguin, and I saw a guy take a live duck out of a suitcase."

The children found their school much bigger than the Woolwich Central School, which they have all attended since Kindergarten. Seven-year-old William said, "I was in the first grade, but they gave me a lot of second grade work to do."

Nathaniel says his two good friends at the school were Sebastian and Tom, and he was sorry to have to say good bye to them when they left after four months.

"I missed the school," he says. But more adventures were on the way, as they began traveling again.

They rented a car and drove through the Italian Alps to Florence, Italy, where they rented an apartment for a week. They visited the Uffizi Museum and took advantage of the maze of rooms to play "I Spy" with one another.

From Florence, they took a train to Venice, then off to Rome, where they rented an apartment for a week.

"Driving into Florence and Rome were both pretty hairy experiences," Michelle says. Italian drivers quite often take advantage of driving up on the sidewalks if they can't get where they want to be.

And in Rome, the children did what all Roman children do - Nathaniel lost a tooth!

One of the joys of visiting Rome in January was they rarely had to wait in line - even to get into the Vatican. They were able to take their family photos in front of the 85-foot high Trevi Fountain without crowds of tourists around them.

While they were in Rome, they continued their home schooling, by making clay figures of Julius Caesar and his comrades, then making a videotape of Caesar's assassination by moving the clay figures around.

They took a day trip to the ruins of Pompeii, the Roman city that was buried by an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius over 1,900 years ago. Buried under ash and pumice, it wasn't discovered again until 1748.

"It's like an outdoor museum," Michelle said. "Remains of streets laid out in grid form can still be seen."

From Italy the family flew to Egypt. "This is the only country where we had signed up to take a tour," Michelle says.

There were supposed to be 10 to 15 people on the week-long tour, but the five-member Rines family were the only ones on the tour, so they had their guide, Ahmad, "all to ourselves."

In Cairo, they visited the Pyramids, and wrote in their journals about the structures - among the most spectacular and enduring symbols of the ancient Egyptian civilization.

From there, they took an overnight train to Luxor, where they boarded a small cruise boat, with about 60 people on board. They spent four nights on board, traveling down the Nile River.

They loved the food in Greece, especially gelato. One day they found a discarded kite on the beach, and got it up into the air.

It was "a tearful good by" when the Rines family had to say good by to the Howell family after a week.

"This is the first time we really felt homesick," Michelle says.

Their next destination was Istanbul, Turkey, where their tiny hotel room, prompted no shortage of togetherness. Schooling continued, but mom and dad had to settle occasional outbreaks of bickering. Aside from this, they loved the sounds of the city, the mosques, strawberry shortcake at an outdoor market, and the good nature of the Turkish people.

They crossed from one continent to another - Europe to Asia - by going across the Straits of Bosporus.

Before they left the United States, the Rines family had arranged to work with an organization called Cross Cultural Solutions, which matches people who want to volunteer with organizations in foreign countries who need help. They chose to volunteer in a small town in India called Dharmsula, in the Himalayan Mountains.

Their original plan was to volunteer for three weeks and travel for two weeks.

"Traveling in India is pretty difficult," Michelle says, "so we decided to stay put and volunteer for four weeks. They volunteered in a government school, where Michelle worked with preschool students, taught crafts and English. Discipline of students there is a bit more aggressive than in this country, she said. Teachers would pinch the students to get their attention. During her time there, she quickly learned how to say two phrases - "sit down," and "be quiet."

They had two bad experiences in India - William fell into a "scorpion bush," which left welts over much of his body, and they had to huddle under a cement roof when they got caught in a huge hailstorm.

Their next stop was Japan. By this time, it was May, and the family was looking forward to visiting Jamie's brother, who has lived in Japan for over 20 years.

"By the time we got to Japan, we were really tired of being tourists," Michelle says. So they spent time just visiting, relaxing, swimming, and doing laundry. From there it was off to Hawaii, where again, they just relaxed, went snorkeling, and did a little sightseeing.

From Japan they flew to Seattle, Washington, where Jamie's sister lives. They had made arrangements to have their Honda Pilot driven to Seattle, towing a used pop up camper, which they found in Uncle Henry's. They spent seven weeks coming back to Maine that summer, taking in some of the nation's most spectacular parks. In the Grand Teton National park, Nathaniel remembers his mom and dad walking ahead of the children on a trail, when he suddenly spotted a cinnamon colored bear just a short distance of the trail in the woods.

"I yelled out bear," he said. His parents turned around to look, but the bear apparently wasn't interested in tourists that day, as he ambled off into the woods.

Asked how she sees their journey now, Michelle says the home schooling was a lot harder than she thought it would be, given the three different levels of abilities, plus toting all their school supplies everywhere they went.

"Getting the kids to write was a challenge, too," she says.

What was the biggest joy in coming home? The kids all said it was seeing their friends