It's been a hot minute (you could say almost 10 years) since I've written on this blog, formerly named traviews. I've been wanting to share our travels for some time, but I guess I became so busy and didn't prioritize this website. Looking back, I wish I had, though—more so that I could have a nice, little journal of our travels with my fresh perspective instead of trying to recollect my memories. At the beginning of this year, #tenyearchallenge was trending on Instagram; and I started reminiscing about our last ten years.
We went from these weekend road trip views in Tokyo:
To these weekend road trip views in Honolulu:
Ten years ago, we were living in Tokyo, Japan, and my hubby recently deployed for the second time on our second son's second birthday. (I still can't tell if that's better than him deploying two weeks after his birth.) Since Tokyo, we've moved six more times with the military, which included another assignment back to our favorite city, Tokyo! It was amazing to live there again with TJ & CJ so we could create more (and they could now retain) lasting memories in a place that we fondly think of as home.
We traveled to Singapore, the Philippines, Mexico, South Korea, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Canada, Portugal, Spain and France (Europe was kid-free!). And we've had many road trips across the US in California, Utah, Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, New Mexico, Nebraska, Missouri, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Hawaii and South Dakota. There were also some kid-free trips in Washington, DC, Maryland and Illinois. We loved camping at Yellowstone as much as we loved staying at the Westin in San Antonio. And we loved skiing and snowboarding in Lake Tahoe and Vail just as much as we love paddle boarding and swimming in Oahu and Manhattan Beach. I think our most favorite activity, though, was eating our way through our travels, and always making room for dessert.
As for me, my career changed as our family moved and changed—I went from being a stay-at-home mom to when TJ and CJ were little in Japan to working from home, and then working back in a traditional office setting back in the US. Prior to moving back to Japan, I had the unique opportunity to learn Japanese with my hubby in an extremely fast-paced and challenging 18-month program in California. My time was cut short, though, after I gave birth to our third son, LJ, a year into the program. At the time, I wasn't sure if I should have worked instead of learning a new language, but my Japanese teacher made a comment to me during one of lessons. She said that no one could take away what I learned from me, and that I would have an even more enjoyable and different experience my second time in Japan with the knowledge and skills that I learned in the class. She was completely right. Living in downtown Japan during a pandemic year where there weren't as many foreigners traveling and/or employees who spoke English, I was so grateful for knowing as much of the language that I did so that I could communicate daily with others. I couldn't imagine living there without that knowledge now. And we received our best souvenir from Japan—our fourth child, a baby girl, IJ, whom joined us this past fall. As much as I enjoy working, I also enjoy being a stay-at-home mom. This time, I'm trying to savor everything a little more because 10 years flies by so fast. I look at TJ and CJ, and I can't believe they're 13 and 12 now. The days are long, but the years are short.
So, I guess you can say we've been busy these past 10 years. I'm looking forward to sharing our local and faraway travels and outings with you. My goal is to not let another 10 years pass by. 🙊
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