Year 2 Day 5 of 7

Day 5 of 7

I have always loved traveling. When I met Jared, he had never been out of the US . I told him I had the travel bug and wanted us to travel frequently. Our first vacation ever was a trip to Gatlinburg where we not only visited Gatlinburg and Cades Cove, but we also drove the Blue Ridge Parkway and went to see the Biltmore Hotel. After that Jared and I made a list of all the places we wanted to see and when he died we had completed that list except for 3 places. Our first trip out of the country together was a Caribbean cruise. We were traveling with my family and we had a wonderful time except for the part where we the two of us and my nephew were left at Carlos and Charlie's and had to walk back to the cruise ship while the rest of my family went in a taxi. After that we traveled three or four times a year and eventually it became five or six times a year.  My all-time favorite trip is still when Jared and I went to Italy and saw Pope John Paul II and he blessed our marriage. That was truly a once-in-a-lifetime moment and something I will never forget. Many people thought when Steven was born, we would stop traveling. That never happened, we just took him with us. Steven took his first plane ride at 2 months old to attend my friends Benjy and Cheryl's wedding. Then when Steven was 6 months old we flew to New York City because I wanted him to see Santa at Macy's on 34th Street for his first Christmas. I know, a little neurotic. But thankfully my husband went along with it and we had a wonderful vacation in NYC. When Steven was 4, we took a family vacation to San Francisco and thoroughly enjoyed visiting that city and the Muir Woods. After Jared's second lung transplant when he was septic, we decided to head to Europe and visit Spain and tour the UK.   One of my favorite memories of that trip was when we were visiting a sheep farm and got to see baby lambs be born. Steven, who  was 6 years old at the time said  “mommy I thought I saw their penises but it was just their umbilical cords.”  All of the adults in our group cracked up. One of my favorite snow vacations was when we went to Mount Tremblant in Canada. We took a family snowboarding lesson and I was absolutely terrible. I will stick to skiing.  But Jared and Steven loved it and to this day Steven refuses to put on a pair of skis. Jared had always wanted to see Hawaii, so we went. And the water was freezing cold in April so Jared and I decided not to surf but we so enjoyed watching Steven surf . Hawaii was absolutely beautiful and we all have our first helicopter ride together on that trip. And then in July of 2014, we traveled for an entire month. We took a Caribbean cruise, a cruise around the Greek Islands, and spent a week in France. As you all know, when we came home from that vacation Jared was admitted and died six weeks later. Taking vacations and making those memories is something I will always treasure.  Life is an adventure.  Live it!