We started the year (and this blog) around a campfire in our backyard on New Year’s Eve. After everyone else went to bed, Sophie and I went back outside and sat around the warm embers thinking about the year ahead. We were excited (and maybe a little nervous), but mostly we felt blessed to have this time to focus on travels, friends, family and each other.
We ended up having an amazing year, with a wide variety of travel experiences. We started the year with a trip to the Florida Keys with Sophie’s parents. Audrey was able to join us for a weekend in Miami as well. It was nice to spend time with family in the warmth of south Florida.
We embarked on our Pacific Tour on February 1st, visiting ten countries over two months. It was exhilarating being immersed in so many different cultures and experiencing so many amazing things: modern cities, ancient temples, breath-taking nature, new foods and traditions.
Our next trip was to Europe in June to visit friends in Switzerland, family in France and visit Portugal for the first time. Since I wasn’t working, we had time to explore more in each of these places.
We enjoyed our summer in Minnesota, splitting our time between home and “up north” at our family lake cabin. We tackled lots of house and yard projects at both places, enjoying not being rushed to get everything done on weekends.
Then this fall, we took a 67-day camping trip to the East Coast. We drove through Canada to Maine, then worked our way down the Appalachian mountain range all the way to Tennessee. We were able to meet up with our kids and old friends along the way, and ended our trip at my brother Paul’s in Iowa for Thanksgiving. We loved the freedom and flexibility to explore that camping gave us, and were so happy to spend time hiking, biking and immersing ourselves in nature. America is beautiful.
It’s now December and we are catching up on housework, catching up with friends, and getting ready for the holidays. Our kids will be coming home and we will spend time up north with my family. Sophie and I sat around the campfire again last night, staring at the embers. We don’t have anything planned yet for next year – but we both agreed we want to continue our adventures while we still can. We don’t know yet where that will bring us, but we’ll be sure to post here when we do.
We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and enjoyable adventures (whatever that means to you) in the coming year!
Leave a Reply