Traveling is good for your soul, and it’s special getting to share the experience with friends and family. Seeing places together, or, the first time is something you can cherish forever. I have gone on beach holidays, camping trips, and most recently traveled through Europe with friends. Each trip was completely different, not only because of the locations, but because of who each trip is with.
Continue reading “It’s ok to be different…”
Is having high expectations a bad thing? Should we only have high expectations about some things in our life and not others? I have been thinking a lot about this lately. Making this move to Europe, traveling, and life events that have happened recently have made me take a step back and pay attention to things I may have never paid attention to before.
Continue reading “Expectations Vs. Reality”
AS I think back in 2018, as we all do at the end of the year, I am flooded with emotions. There is so much that happened, it was definitely one of the biggest and most significant years of my life so far. I have learned so very much about family, friends, loss, love and myself. It was a profound year. Yes, there were challenges that I have never faced before, there were also beautiful experiences that I am forever grateful for.
Continue reading “Reflections and Predictions…”
Life is full of ups and downs. It can be something you planned, something that wasn’t necessarily planned but expected, or can also be completely unexpected. When life goes down it can be hard to experience the laughter or even feel the Love.
Continue reading “Love, Loss, and Laughter”
When we decided to move to the Netherlands, we had a list of places we wanted to visit. Zakopane, Poland was not on that list. We had never even heard of it before. I was doing some research for our November trip, when I saw a photo from a Facebook group I am in called Girls Love Travel. The picture was unreal. I learned that the photo was a place called Morskie Oko, near Zakopane.
Continue reading “On Top of the World”
A lot has happened since my last blog post. Things are going really great! We are making friends, getting comfortable in our new home, and traveling more than ever. That does not mean it’s been smooth sailing, but life is pretty boring without a few bumps in the road, am I right? I mean can you imagine riding a roller coaster that just went straight, without any twist, turns or loops. I would not stand in line for that. It’s those turns that show us something different, twists that grab our attention, and loops that make us think and remember to stay grounded.
Our plan when we decided to move to The Netherlands was to do a big trip once a month. In August the big trip was moving here, So we spent the month doing some weekend trips and getting settled. The first big trip we actually sat down to plan was Z’s birthday trip to Disneyland Paris. We were so excited. I was more excited about spending an afternoon in Paris than I was Disneyland, but the boys had wide eyes for Mickey.
How long does it take to get settled when you move somewhere new? I think it’s different for everyone and every place. Personally, I usually have everything out of boxes and in their place within the first two days. I am crazy that way. I get very anxious if things are in a cluttered mess around me. This move has made me really take a step back and embrace the chaos of moving and not being perfectly settled within my normal timeframe. After all, we didn’t move just down the street. Things are getting there though. Z’s room is finished and our room will be there this weekend. I guess I could spend all day working on the house, or I could do what we came here to do. Relax and spend time together as a family. Rob’s new work schedule allows us to spend mornings exploring or playing with Z, something we didn’t have a lot of time for at home.
Breathing. It is something we do everyday, yet somehow in the everyday we forget to do it, at least I do. It’s amazing how just pausing to inhale air through our nose, filling our diaphragm, then pushing it out through our mouth can relax us.
What started as an idea, a dream, something that we thought would happen after Z graduated high school, has happened. We have moved to Holland! When we came for a visit last year, thanks to My husband’s job at Automattic, or as most people know them, WordPress, we absolutely fell in love. The country, the culture, the way they raise their kids, EVERYTHING appealed to us. Holland felt like home, somewhere we were meant to be, cheesy I know. Was it because we were on vacation? Was it because we were so blown away by how safe we felt when back home things are a little… off? Maybe it was simply needing a change.
Thanks for joining me!
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover – Mark Twain
