On the ninth day of Christmas, I hot tailed it to Costa Rica. We had a blast on the Atlantic Coast. Swimming. Scuba diving. Eating bananas. Listening to poison dart frogs chirp. That's the beach life. This ornament is from Puerto Viejo. It is a artistic compilation of Nature. And Costa Rica is every bit [...]
It's the eighth day of Christmas, what did I win Bob? It's a trip to DisneyWorld. This is our most recent Christmas tree addition as we went to DisneyWorld over the Thanksgiving holiday. It was non-traditional but a great way to utilize holiday time off. The girls love the "Magic" of the parks during the [...]
On the seventh day of Christmas, I was completely tired with Christmas shopping, Christmas crowds, and Christmas traffic. This is why I travel, to avoid the madness. A great place to go? Thailand. What does Thailand offer? Warm weather, great food, and kind people. Now that's a Christmas present. We visited Thailand from the most Southern towns (Ao [...]
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... a cruise with all of her fa-mi-ly. Our tree actually has three cruise ship ornaments. One for each cruise that we went on with family. Three different cruises and three different cruise lines. Can't accuse us of being normal. One cruise had terrific destinations [...]
Five Golden Geisha Dolls!!! Here to you, Day Five. Or should I say, Japan? Japan is a country we had full intention on visiting during our RTW (Round The World) journey. Unfortunately, the 2011 tsunami hit exactly a week before we were to land and we were forced to cancel that leg of the trip. [...]
On the the Fourth Day of Christmas, my ornament I give to you... is Australia. By the way, you can't do New Zealand on Day Three and not do Australia on Day Four as it would cause an international incident. Serious rivalry between these two. We flew into Sydney and drove out of Sydney immediately [...]
One guess where this ornament (or Tiki) comes from? Crap, I shouldn't title things so obviously. New Zealand holds a special place in our family's heart. Not just because of the kiwi bird. And not just because of the glaciers. Or glow worms. Or mountains. Or penguins. Or the Maori. It's special because New Zealand [...]
This ornament was from a box of Ghirardelli chocolate. What, how does a cable car get mixed up with chocolate? Well, Ghirardelli chocolate comes from San Francisco, and everyone knows about the San Francisco treat, which is Rice-o-roni, which has a "bing-bing" at the end of the gingle, which everyone knows is a cable car. See, [...]
To lighten the Holiday Season, we decided to share our Christmas tree one ornament at a time and call it the "12 Days of Christmas Ornaments." The tree really should be renamed a "Memory" tree as it is a historical review of our family travels. Each ornament on the tree represents a place we visited [...]
“Remember that thanksgiving we spent in the campervan in New Zealand when we couldn’t find marshmallows for our fruit salad so we bought those ducky marshmallows and cut them up?” Amber said. Sophia answers, “Yeah, [now with New Zealand on her mind] remember when Elizabeth kept touching that object that was supposed to bring [...]
