Well, 2010 brought the smallest travel radius I have experienced since my freshman year of college. Seriously. No mission trips to Mexico, Guatemala, or Indonesia. No fun trips to Florida, New York, Oregon or Colorado. No London or Northern Ireland. Josh just reminded me that I did go to San Diego for a conference in January of 2010, but that hardly counts in my mind. I traveled alone and spent a week at a hotel/convention center in workshops about trauma from 8:00am-6:30pm and most of the rest of the time cross-stitching and watching t.v. in my hotel room alone because I about 24 weeks pregnant and tired and didn't feel like investing the energy in meeting other attendees that I could hang out with. I did skip out on workshops one afternoon and ate a delightful lunch overlooking this view:
I really enjoy traveling alone - briefly. I like figuring out what I'm doing and where to go on my own every once in a while. When I'm with other people I can be pretty indecisive because I want whatever decision is made to make everyone happy. When I'm on my own I can just do whatever I feel like and not worry about other people being bored or disappointed. This mode of travel is usually fun to me for about two days, at most, and then I really wish for company. So, California was not an awesome trip in 2010.
The rest of my travels were confined to Arkansas and adjoining states. In June we took Liam on his first road trip and went to Tulsa to watch Toy Story 3 with his Papa and Grandma at the IMAX. Grandma Jenny is a HUGE fan of the Toy Story movies and claims that Buzz Lightyear is her favorite actor, so she was very excited to introduce Liam to him and the whole gang. In retrospect I probably wouldn't recommend taking a 5-week-old to an IMAX. Even though he slept the entire time, I couldn't really relax and enjoy the movie because I was so anxious that my newborn would be deaf from over-exposure to loud noises. He seems to be okay.
Later that month we made a brief trip down to Little Rock to visit our friends the Spensts and the Pollacks; and then went on to a conference Josh was participating in that was held in Hot Springs. In July, while Josh was leading a father/son trip to Colorado, Liam and I went to St. Louis with my parents, where we were able to introduce him to his great-great-uncle Ralph and great-great-aunt Ruth, as well as some of his 2nd and 3rd cousins. I also got to enjoy a Cardinals baseball game with my dad - the remaking of our tradition throughout my childhood of traveling to Kansas City for Royals games, just the two of us.
The fall brought several trips to Silver Dollar City for Liam and me. The first time we went in early fall with Nana and Liam rode on his first ride.
The second visit was just last week: Josh and I took him to see the Christmas lights, and we were not disappointed. Liam LOVED them.
He did NOT, however, love Santa Claus.
Our third trip was today, with Nana & Aunt Abbie. I got a couple of cute shots, but haven't gotten them on the computer yet.
Liam's longest trip of 2010 (other than the one to California from inside my belly) was our Thanksgiving trek to Nashville to visit Aunt Millie & Uncle Kyle (Josh's sister, Heather [last name is Miller, hence Aunt Millie ... hoping he'll be able to pronounce that sooner than he'd be able to say Heather] and her husband). We drove through the night both ways, which was a great decision because he slept for the whole 8 hours of each trip. He had some teething issues which made sleep scarce while we were there, but he enjoyed getting to be the center of 6 adults' attention (Josh's parents met us there) for two solid days. He was also very impressed with Uncle Kyle's musical skills.
2010 holds just one more trip for our little family. We'll spend a couple more days with family in St. Louis for the holidays. As for 2011, I think a trip to Colorado may be in the works, and I'd love to introduce Liam to some old friends in Kansas City at some point. Beyond that I'm not really sure, but since every outing is a new adventure for a little one, I can't wait to explore with him.
P.S. When I began & titled this post I was thinking we really hadn't done anything this year. The exercise of thinking through each month and looking at pictures reminded me that even though we didn't do anything exotic, we had lots of special and memorable travels. What has diminished in the flashiness of our travels has been more than made up for in preciousness.
2 comments:
1. How about Alabama?
2. Why were you up at midnight? Do you not have a baby? ;)
1. What a great idea! It'd be so fun to visit you guys sometime!
2. I know. For some reason Josh and I have been staying up super late this week. We think it's because it's Christmas week and we feel like we're on vacation, even though we're really not. Thankfully, Liam obliged us this morning by sleeping in until 8:00.
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