How it all started, just a lil' history.....

I remember the day, well not the exact day but it was a time period this winter that has just past. I was living in a house share with four other roommates. 

House sharing has been my way of life for many years. I tried the relationship living situation but that was unsuccessful, for many reasons. I tried living with family 👪 and while very loving 💖and fun, we are better off visiting with each other rather than trying to live together ✌.

So, when I moved into this house share, there was one older gentleman who over-saw the house, he was the main renter and then four of us sub-rented the bedrooms and shared bathroom space. We were three women and two men. This worked in the beginning but slowly as the roommates 👸👹👿 changed, the household changed. 

Cam 👦, one of the other renters, and the only other male; he and I became good friends. His place of origin is New Zealand 🐑, where he was raised and then after school he began to travel ✈. We discussed our love of new countries, sites we wanted to see, environments, but mostly we love food 😋, wine🍷, great skiing 🎿and golf 🏌, among the many other interests we enjoy.

Our small household was slowly dying, the inhabitants were failing to be a positive influence and the situation became very distressing and the three remaining sane mates, vacated quickly 💨. 

Cam had planned to move back to New Zealand🐑, Amanda (roommate #2) she literally left in the middle....sshhhhhh... of the night, telling no one until Cam and I reached out to her to make sure she was alright, she was, and then I left 🙋💨. 

It's a long story to come around to the short version of the beginning of my friendship with Cam and the reignition of my passion for travel and why I needed to do it now!!!

He reminded 💡 me of a promise I had made to myself years ago, living the life of wife and mother, I wanted to put 100% of myself into raising them and living the best life I could at that time. 

Through long conversations of the big, wide world, and all the opportunities; the what if's and how to's, bubbled 💭 to the surface of my consciousness and I realized I needed more. I needed to figure out how to get more; out of life, out of my self, to live a better and more valuable life, just for me.  

 ME!

I had made that promise years ago. I didn't do what others had done by donning a backpack and traveling in my 20's all over the world 🌏, staying in hostels or camping on mountain tops ⛺in Switzerland, or eating cake 🎂 in the Black Forests of Germany. No, I didn't do that. Perhaps I was anxious, I had doubts, fears, and instabilities that would impede me to navigate that kind of responsibility but raising children? Heck yeah! I could do that. I know, I know, it's backwards 👈. Funny huh?

I began to think seriously about where I wanted to go, to begin. Cam 👦was leaving. He had made his plans long before I came along but when I dropped him off at his friends house before his flight 🛫in a day or so, he said, "I'm gonna buy you a ticket 🎫." I just smiled, hugged him and said, "don't make promises 🔮." We said goodbye that day but for us, it was only the beginning but we didn't know that then.

I was slowly making plans to be somewhere overseas by the end of August, I had set my time frame⌛. I was looking at different opportunities to work I could do anywhere.  I wasn't sure but I was staying the course and just knew something would come along and he did 👦.

"Pack your bags honey! I got you tickets!" Cam had pulled the trigger. 👉🐑I was headed to Australia and then, parts unknown. As open ended as this sounds and possibly un-nerving 😰😟for some, for me it was exactly how I wanted to begin. Cam is the perfect partner and travel companion 👫. 

We go together like ramma, lamma, lamma, da-diggity, dig-de-dong 🎶

Now, in the next blog is the beginning, how my trip started and I will try to write often because each day has brought interesting experiences, amazing new sights, sounds, smells, views, people, and I will share it all!