Mother of an Angel -- Wife of a Saint -- Student of Life and the World
The grass is always greener on the other side. Or is it? So many people spend their lives believing if something were different they would be happier. If I had a — spouse, child, different job, different appearance, etc –, I would be happy. But would you? As we enter into our sixth month of the wait, I sit her contemplating happiness. I want to make...
“My wish for you Is that this life becomes all that you want it to Your dreams stay big, your worries stay small You never need to carry more than you can hold And while you’re out there gettin’ where you’re gettin’ to I hope you know somebody loves you And wants the same things too Yeah, this is my wish” — Rascal Flatts Dear Expectant...
Different animals have different gestational periods. Opossums only have to wait 12-13 days for their off-spring to arrive. Asian Elephants, on the other hand, have to wait 616 days, or 20.5 months, before setting eyes on their child. So the question we are posing to you today is, how long will it take for us to see our child?
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Patience is a virtue. Sadly, it is not one I possess. So the concept of waiting to wait is very difficult for me, to say the least. What is “waiting to wait?” As our previous posts explained, we went to the orientation, seminar, finished adoption education coursework, completed a stack of paperwork, and had four sets of interviews. All of that is in...
When you think of the birthparents who make an adoption plan for their child who do imagine? Does your mind suddenly wonder to episodes of “Glee” and the stereotypical captain of the football team and the head cheerleader? Or does the pendulum swing in a completely different direction to visions of a down on their luck substance abuser, possibly with a...
I have always known Darin and I would be parents. I just didn’t know our journey was going to be one with so many twists and turns. After years of fertility treatments and the delivery of our angel, our fertility specialist told us that my eggs are no longer viable. Our next step was to try egg donation. So, I started research egg donors. But something just...
10 Things I Have Learned in My First 10 Days in Aotearoa (New Zealand) 1. The Maori people are beautiful souls who are raised in a tradition of valuing one’s ancestry, respecting nature, and honoring eachother’s spirit. 2. New Zealanders (or Kiwis, as they call themselves) are some of the most hospitable people we have ever encountered. Nearly every day...
Did you know that if you inform your local police department that you are going to be on vacation they will increase patrols in your area to check in on your house while you are away? Any time we leave our home for more than a week or two, we inform the police department in our city. They have a form online that we can complete that asks you for your address, when...
Many people have asked: How does one go about planning a 100 day trip? My only response is lots and lots of research. We started by determining the dates of travel. We knew we had a window of time that we could take this trip (leaving after a family wedding but being home for Thanksgiving). The original travel dates planned would have come to a total of 98 days so we...
This song has inspired me twice now. Once when I left my job of five years to go back to school full time to get my MBA and now as we embark on our next journey. I’m hoping that you can listen to the words and let it inspire you. I’m not recommending that anyone walk into work today and quit your job. However, I do recommend that you start to ask if...
“Mythbusters” posts will address some common misconceptions about career breaks and global travel. This post is to answer one of the questions we have received most often when telling our family and friends that we leaving our jobs to travel: How can you afford this? No, we are not independently wealthy. No, a wealthy long-lost relative did not die and...
A little less than three years ago, we unknowingly began a 12 month journey that changed our lives forever. In September 2008, my father went into the hospital with kidney stone problems and never returned home. I was daddy’s little girl. He was retired my entire life and he was always there. The passing of my father rocked me to the core. I didn’t know...
After a wake-up and cleanup of the beach house, we took a quick ride to Makakilo to see Sophie’s place and then off to the airport to catch our flight home. Hawaiian Airlines did another great job of good food, excellent service, and a pleasant trip home. We arrived into Oakland around 10pm and finally got back into our own bed! Another fantastic trip — Can’t wait...
Can’t believe it is already the last day on Oahu, but the final day on Oahu was just as wonderful as the others. This morning, we headed into the car, and starting heading north. For the first time, we left the “cityscape” of Oahu and moved into the farming and agricultural area of Central and Northern Oahu, as the island transitions from skyscrapers and dense...
Now, at first glance, the thought of spending a morning at the Swap Meet seems a little strange, but until you have been to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, you may have to adjust your mindset. As we woke up to a leisurely morning, we had breakfast and made our way our out to Aloha Stadium. It was a a breezy, overcast day, which made for slightly cooler temperatures and...
This morning, we were up, showered, and ready to roll by 9:00am to head into Pearl Harbor to experience the World War II Valor of the Pacific National Park, the USS Arizona Memorial, and the Battleship Missouri. These stops had a tremendous amount of history, emotion, and contemplation as we enjoyed the museums on the site, recognizing that this location was the...
After an incredibly simple and fast disembarkation in Honolulu, we were picked up at the Honolulu Cruise Port by Sophie, Edie, and one of Sophie’s friends, Bernie, who was gracious enough to offer his vehicle and served as our guide for the day. We took a quick drive through Waikiki to show Darin the sight, but quickly made our way towards the coast to our first...
We arrived in Nawiliwili a little before 8am and decided to sleep in a bit before our 9:30am meeting time for our Kauai Photo Tour. We met up with our driver and made our way north and east to Kapa’a town, where the Photo shop was based out of and where we would meet our driver and guide for the day. The staff at the shop are incredibly friendly and they are...
This morning, we woke up to the rolling of the sea swells as we anchored out in the harbor of Lahaina, Maui. Today is a tender port and we will be renting a car to see the island of Maui for the very first time. Though we made good time into the port, the tender process was slowed significantly as the differential between the ship and the tenders varied by up to 8...
After 5 days at sea, we arrived into the port of Hilo, Hawaii on the Big Island on time at 7am, completed Immigration and made our way down to the gangway for a 7:30am exit from the ship. We were picked up by the local Enterprise Rental Car shop (all the Rental Car companies had mini buses and vans for the incoming ships… Yes, we were joined in port today by the...
The final day at sea entry is a set of odds and ends of bits and pieces of observations, ideas, and notes that didn’t really fall into any particular area, so it ends up in a single posting here… 1) Small Ship Simplification — The smaller ship concept has won us over, and though everything is a bit smaller than we are used to, overall any compromises are minimal and...
Today’s At Sea entry is actually a mixture of two elements of the ship, the first focuses on the physical movement of the ship, and there certainly has been a good share of it, and the other music, entertainment, and activities on-board. As we left the gentle waters of Tahiti and the other Polynesian islands, we began our 5 days at sea heading due north in the...
Back for the next installment of the Day at Sea entries… Today’s entry is on the Staterooms and Passenger Decks… For this trip, we elected to take our very first Guarantee stateroom (meaning that Princess can place us in any location as long as the category of stateroom is equal or greater than the one we paid for). In this case, we purchased an Oceanview category...
Today’s Day at Sea entry on the Royal Princess is about its Public Areas… Given the smaller size of the ship, we were wondering what kind of compromises needed to be made to the public areas as the ship was shrunk down for the smaller ship cruise experience. Outside public areas: There is only one pool on-board and it is located mid-ship Deck 9. In addition, there...
The sea day entries, as they have been on the last few of our trips, will not be specific to the activities we did on these days, as generally we take sea days very mellow. Instead, these entries will be focused on a different aspect of the Royal Princess, the ship we are on for this cruise — its amenities, staff, and public rooms. Today’s entry — Food and Dining on...
This morning was actually a slow start morning, as our tour didn’t depart from the tender dock until 9am. Given that we arrived into Bora Bora’s tiny tender point of Vaitape at 7am, some people were actually coming back from shore when we boarded our tender at 8:30am. When we arrived to the Vaitape pier, we exited the tender, walked 6 feet to the left, and saw on...
After docking in the main port town of Uturoa, on the island of Raiatea, we quickly disembarked the ship and made our way to a small dock just about 50 yards away from the ship to meet up with today’s shore excursion “L’Excursion Bleu” and Bruno Fabre, our guide for the day. Bruno has been in the business for 15 years and comes with a lot of positive recommendations...
An early start for all as today is one of our three tender days and ensuring that we start our independent tours on time is always a key requirement to see everything we hope for on our trips. As we awoke, the ship was still en-route to Moorea, as we had departed from Papeete at 4am this morning. Given that Moorea is only 18 nautical miles away, it only took about 2...
The day began early as we had hoped to visit the Marche Municipal (The City Market), a massive, two story building that covered nearly two city blocks that made any farmers market at home look like a roadside stand. Hundreds of vendors, some with little more than folding tables, to entire “shops”, built entirely into the building come together in a massive connected...
We’re back and we’re excited to be crossing one the major travel destinations off our bucket list with this 17 day trip to Tahiti and Hawaii. As with many of the destinations on our list, Tahiti is a long way away from home, so today is a heavy travel day as we make our way from Oakland, California to Papeete, Tahiti via Honolulu, Hawaii. Up at 5:30am, we...
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