Travel Blog Re-design

Currently my family and I are on a world trip and in Guatemala. I need a little bit of help with our family blog. I know absolutely nothing about wordpress or how to create a website, but I've managed to get a domain and set up a very beginner blog. I was sort of hoping to "learn along the way" but honestly the with all the fun of travel and really crummy third world wi-fi I think I need to call in reinforcement. I'm jsut not happy with the look of our blog and want it a bit more user friendly. Mostly the blog is a travel journal. A way for us to share our experience with family and record our experiences. Here is our website so you can see what I have so far...... [login to view URL] Here are some things I'd like to see in our blog... 1. I want a better travel map showing our [login to view URL] blue line zip zagging all over the world... 2. A counter that tells how many months, weeks, days on the road 3. I don't like that our blogs just run, on and on. A picture with a small excerpt from each post would be better. Then the visitor can pick which post they want to read. We have 4 authors and it would be nice for people to click on certain authors. 4. Pictures are a big part of our blog. I'd love a slider at the top rather than a fixed image. 5. I'd like to make sure the website is backed up so we don't lose any content 6. When we have a new post I'd like our subscribers to get notification and maybe even our FB friends too and I'd like people to leave comments on each post or be able to email us if they like Here are a couple other travel websites that I really like.... [login to view URL] [login to view URL] Let me know what you think and a proposal for getting our site a bit more functional. Onc the basic design is in place I'd like us to be able to make updates with posts and pictures and such Thanks, Lorie