Flashback Friday series: Intro

So, I had a little epiphany recently.

Ever since I started posting my Travel recaps (when I started this blog in 2020), I have occasionally thought, “Oh… wouldn’t it be neat if I had travel recaps like these from ALL of our trips as a family??”

But we got married in 2007. From 2007-2020 is quite a long time to go back in time.

Then I thought, “Well, I would at least really like to have a list of all of our trips. The dates and where we went, compiled neatly into a chronological timeline.” (Basically like this.)

Maybe this is just me, but I feel like fairly often something comes up about one of our past trips, or maybe I’m looking for a specific photo, and then I start scratching my head saying, Hmm, what year did we go there?? Was that 2015 or 2016? Etc.

I figured though that since I obviously didn’t HAVE a blog all those years ago, that that ship had sailed and I was out of luck.

But then! I was inspired. Namely by Elisabeth going back in time to recap her pre-blog Paris trips, and Daria sharing about her solo (pre-blog) trip to Iceland with her toddlers! (😳)

I realized: Why can’t I go back and (sort of) recap all those trips?? This is my blog, and I can write whatever I want! *I say “sort of” because no part of me wants to actually attempt to do the long-winded, photo laden posts that I currently tend to do for our family trip recaps.*

However, I can at least put together a little something for myself to look back on. (And anyone else who is interested in going back in time with me. 🙂 This means I can also add the trip destination and dates to my master list, thus completing my chronological Family Vacation timeline!

My idea is to write a very general, brief post, mostly just hitting the highlights of where we went and any major events that stand out. And of course, some photos.

One perk: We really didn’t travel nearly as much when the boys were little (though we still did some). This was for a multitude of reasons: One, we had kids young!! I was only 23 when we got married, and 24 when Ethan was born. Our kids are also only 15 months apart. So for several years it was like, Whirlwind City of new marriage, new jobs, crazy RN hospital shifts, new babies, then toddlers, moving several times…. Yikes.

Travel was simply not high on the priority list back then. We also honestly did not have a ton of vacation time at work OR a lot of extra cash to spend on travel then, either. Looking back, we did way more local adventures at that time. I have hundreds of photos of things like the zoo, botanical gardens, local lakes and beaches, the State Fair, festivals, the Arboretum, a local cave, Brewers games, Halloween events, and much more. In hindsight, this all made so much sense, and we had so much fun, in a low key, non-stressful way. Now the kids are older and the time has come where we tend to do fewer local adventures- but this is the season for a bit more “real” travel! It all worked out as it should have for us. 🙂

Anyway, for now I just wanted to share this little introduction to the series. I’m thinking I’ll publish these recaps on Fridays, coining it “Flashback Friday”. 😉 (It was going to be Travel Tuesday, but I didn’t have time to post about this on Tuesday, and I did today, so, let’s go with Flashback Friday. 😆 Or maybe it won’t even be every Friday, just some Fridays, when I get around to it.)

Stay tuned next Friday for a mini-recap of our honeymoon!! (and photos of 23-year-old me!). (Spoiler- it was Disney World, Universal Studios and St. Pete Beach, Florida. Ivan had never been to Disney and had always wanted to go, so that was where we went.)

*I totally understand that checking out recaps of our trips from over 10 years ago might not be everyone’s cup of tea. That is perfectly okay! (Though I promise to keep these way shorter and quicker to read than my usual travel recaps.) Feel free to skip any of these though and check back for regularly scheduled content! I do think some readers with younger kids might get a kick out of seeing which destinations we chose at different ages with the kids.

And, no matter what, it will be nice for me to at least have some sort of organized record of our trips. ❤