relishing the life God has given us
Christmas 2020, part 2 | Iowa After spending Christmas 2019 completely alone, the past 5 Christmases far from home, and going through all the challenges 2020 presented, all we wanted was to celebrate the holidays with family. Because of the pandemic we weren’t able to see all of our extended family, but we definitely didn’t take getting to spend time… Read More
Christmas 2020, part 1 | Michigan | Written by Curtis For the Christmas and New Years season we decided to visit both sides of our family and spend time with them for the holidays. We have been essentially quarantined to just ourselves and Charlotte for most of the fall, so we felt that we could safely make the trip with… Read More
This year, we broke our longest-standing Thanksgiving tradition of eating Thanksgiving dinner on a submarine. Yes, it only happened 2 years in a row, but we’ve done something completely different every other year so it only took 2 years to make it a tradition! Not only that, but for the first time in 5 years we were close enough to… Read More
Visiting Iao Valley | Hiking Waihe’e Ridge Trail & Waihou Spring Trail | January 1, 2020 Our second day on Maui focused on hiking around the West part of the island, starting with a quick visit to Iao Valley State Park. Much like Oahu and Kauai, West Maui is an older shield volcano that has been eroded away by the… Read More
Return to Maui | Hiking the Hanomanioa Lighthouse/King’s Highway Trail | Last Sunset of 2019 on Haleakala | December 31, 2019 For our 2019 holiday stand down, we contemplated going all out and taking a big international vacation. However, the financially responsible part of us reminded us that we’re likely moving and selling the house this year and that we… Read More
Christmas 2018 in Hawaii | Holiday Stand Down | December 2018 The last few weeks of 2018 were exactly what we needed — Curtis had a very light schedule and we had plenty of time to relax and spend time together. I remember enjoying holiday stand down last year, but this year it felt so needed. We had a few… Read More