Happy New Year

Happy New Year Friends! I cannot believe 2018 is over, seriously where did the time go? Here is a quick review of our year. I have been MIA the last few weeks because we’ve been traveling. How do people travel and blog? Goal this year, learn to do it. What a fun year though, we visited several west coast cities. We also had a stint in Germany for a month, while there we visited several cities in Netherlands, Belgium, and Dunkirk. Lastly, we went to Texas a few times to see family. I cannot wait to see what the new year brings.

Favorite Places

• European Cities
  • Kinderdijk
  • Gouda
  • Dunkirk
  • Strasbourg

• US Cities
  • Temecula
  • Anaheim
  • Seattle
  • San Diego

Favorite Activities

• European Parks
• Disneyland
• Cheese Market
• Haribo Candy Factory
• Christkindlmarkt

Could Have Skipped

• Rhine River Cruise: At least from Cologne, it was mostly industrial views from here, and outrageously expensive.
• Brussels: It wasn’t that impressive to me, personally I find the smaller cities more beautiful.

Biggest Life Lessons For Me & New Year Goal

Our family learned so much this year. When we arrived for our month stay in Germany they were having record breaking temperatures. Shockingly, we learned that we could in fact live without air conditioning (albeit, I don’t prefer to). We learned that less truly is more, we don’t need all the stuff we are so accustomed to here in the States. I promise you will not die without your cellphone, wifi, social media, large house, and expensive cars. It was nice to live a simpler life for a month.

Another wonderful lesson the Europeans taught me, quit caring what others think. I am learning to quit caring what others think. This is a hard one for me, I am a perfectionist and struggle with self confidence. I worry constantly about what others are thinking. My husband told me recently, not everyone is going to like you, and that is okay. No matter what I do, people will always judge, just let the haters hate, and as Taylor Swift said, “Shake it off.”

Biggest Life Lessons For the Kids

For my kids, they learned that they could live with a lot less too. In Europe they had no television in English, only three small Lego sets, and they did just fine. They loved for us to walk downtown and order ice cream. They all gained confidence too. My oldest is painfully shy, yet she even would order in German. We bribed them with ice cream if they ordered. Whatever works friends! I was so proud of her, she even helped me out recently when someone was speaking to me in German. I was completely clueless as to what this woman was saying to me. My oldest looks at me and proudly declares, “Mom, she is asking if you only have daughters or if you have a son. She only has daughters.” Ya’ll I almost cried, it was one of my proudest moments. This is why we travel.

I cannot wait to see where God leads us this new year. I desperately want to get my kiddos involved in a service project of some sort while we are in foreign countries as we do volunteer at home. While they know how blessed they are, the best lessons are hands on lessons. I’d love ideas on how to go about this. Happy New Year and God bless to all of our friends and family. As you can see in our quick overview of our year it was a wonderful one. It was filled with trips to some pretty amazing places.