Top Ten Things I'm Thankful For #7 - A vast wide world to be explored

I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.

Susan Sontag

One of the great things about travel is that you find out how many good, kind people there are.

Edith Wharton

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.

St. Augustine

For this entry today, I'm grateful for a great wide world open for exploration and discovery.  I'm grateful for travel.  I'm grateful for the places that I've been and I'm grateful for those that I am anxiously waiting to see.

I'm thankful for the ability to travel.  To have a job that enables me to travel and that allows me to take the vacation time to do so.

I'm grateful to have a partner who has as much wanderlust as I do, if not more.  Who has spearheaded a travel program to bring those opportunities to her students.  Who is ready to see the world.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to start showing my children some of my favorite places in the world.  For that excitement of seeing them through new eyes.

I'm thankful for that spirit of adventure, to keep on exploring.

Bon Voyage!

The Traveler Returns

With this post, the wandering traveler is at home.  Back from her second, longer journey with the travel program this summer.

She spent a week in New York with about a dozen travelers in the first part of June.  Then came back home for a couple of weeks.  And for the past two weeks has been making her way through Central Europe with a group of five.

Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, and Heidelberg.

And while she's enjoyed it all, she truly fell in love with Bavaria.  Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, and Heidelberg.  That portion we will definitely be going back to.  Hopefully soon. (I'd go to the rest in a heartbeat as well).

But for now, I'm very grateful she is home.  I'm one tired daddy.  I cannot thank Regina, Granna (my mom) and Mimi (Jamie's mom) for all their help.  This has been more challenging than last year; when Jude was immobile.  His mobility alone makes things much more interesting.

Beyond that, Avalyn broke her collarbone falling out of PapaRock's (my dad's) chair.  Dad had Jude, I stepped to the kitchen, and Avalyn tried to get out of a recliner with the legs extended, falling shoulder first onto the hard tile.  Nice clean break, right in the middle of the collarbone.

Day one of Jamie being gone.  I'm not going to live that one down.

Thankfully, the little girl is on the mend, and there are no more serious instances to report.

While Jamie was on the trip, she read through a book about a family who saved up and essentially took a year off to travel the world with their children.  Five continents, dozens of countries.  Just traveling and teaching them about the world.

This is something Jamie and I would long to do.  It's been in the "if we ever win the lottery/Publisher's Clearing House" realm.  To travel and to truly teach and raise our children.  When they are studying English literature, to go to England and see the Globe.  Go to Oxford and see where Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland, etc.

We have confirmed that we are going to start traveling the world more with them.  So far we have been waiting until they are older.  But I realize, that is more for our convenience than any other reason. 

There's a great big world out their that we want to show them and for them to learn from.

To adventure!  Bon voyage!