Grateful Dreamer

Hey thanks for playing along with the picky eater game yesterday! I think even Ryan learned a few things from that post! :) Also, Tamar, I had no idea oxtails weren't...well...ox tails. LOL!!! I'm so literal. 

Ryan and I had the last couple days off for our weekend, and while the weather certainly was nothing compared to the snowfest so many had, it also was just - BLAH. So we stayed inside our cozy little apartment and did things like gush over poop and pee and say the words "sit" and "drop" more times than I think we ever have in our entire lives. Welcome to puppy parenting, right? 

But in the mix of gushing, training, and napping, we also did some dreaming! It was spurred on by the fact that I realized my "Travels and Tours" tab on the blog had not been updated since FEBRUARY 2020! So I went through and added all the links of places we've been since then, including a whole section just for RV travel. I really want to keep that updated, partly for my own archives, and partly because I know how heavily I rely on reviews and ideas I find on blogs when we plan trips, so I want to make sure those who read along here can find the same from us if they want. It took me over two hours to update it, but I feel much better now that this project is complete.

That led me to remind Ryan that we need to plan our next trip! Fun fact: even with the two weeks off we took last summer for our trip out west, we have not even taken a full week of vacation in the year and a half we've been here. I think we've used maybe four days of vacation? We have to start using it or we're going to lose it! It's just so hard to actually be gone for any length of time, so we never do it.

So we started dreaming and planning where we might want to go for our TENTH annual birthday trip, and I told Ryan I think we should just be gone for a year and see it all. :) He seemed to think we didn't have quite that much vacation time saved up. Sigh.

But all that aside, I came away from my reflection and dreaming time with a couple of thoughts, and that's what I wanted to share today.

First of all, as I scrolled through the "Travels and Tours" page adding in those more recent adventures, I just felt completely overwhelmed with gratitude for all the adventures Ryan and I have shared in our almost ten years of life together. This week he looked at my very first vacation scrapbook - made old-fashioned style - from my first grown-up vacation. I remember thinking during that long weekend trip that I took with a friend when we were still single, that I had finally arrived as an adult, because I'd been able to fund and plan for my first vacation. 

I wanted to go so many more places and never knew if I would be able to do it. I didn't know if I'd be able to afford it or have someone to go with - and a hundred other questions, too. To see the number of my dreams that have come true (and some I didn't even dare to dream) with Ryan in this last decade was such a sweet moment. I am grateful he loves to explore, and I'm grateful we've seen so many unique places! 

And then I realized how grateful I am to have someone to dream with about the future. I don't just mean that I'm grateful to have a husband to dream with, though certainly I am grateful for him. But I just mean...I know a lot of people who might not have a spouse who cares about dreaming up vacation plans. It's truly one of my favorite things to do with Ryan. We pick out our destinations together. I usually do the bulk of the research about what there is to do in each place, but he's the king of making the reservations and finding any discounts that exist on earth. He helps with packing (both of the luggage and the vehicle) and takes care of all the stuff that stresses me out - like driving in cities. 

So I'm grateful for both these things. There is equal joy to me in the memories of what I've seen and the dreams of what's yet to be. (I could easily spend a solid week dreaming about itineraries that I'd love to see come true, even if they never do!)

We did come up with some destinations for that tenth birthday trip, and I'm excited to see how it all comes together as we begin to add more pieces and parts! 

Those are the thoughts from this grateful dreamer today!