national tourism day

Did you know that today was National Tourism Day? Whatever that means :) We like to do our part in keeping the economy going by participating in all the tourism we can. Give me a choice between name-brand, brand-new clothes and accessories, furniture, and a fancy house (or a house at all) and travel, and well, it's a no brainer that I would choose travel. Hands down. Every time.

I caught the travel bug as a child when my family would load up in our 15-passenger van and set off for week-long road trips across the country or camping trips. My dad had a job that spoiled us rotten when it came to having time for summer vacations. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized that not everyone got a summer full of trips and fun. Our trips were never lavish or exotic. The first time I flew wasn't until I was a senior in high school. But they were always memorable. Including all the times on our van broke down on the side of the freeway. I'll have to share those stories someday.

The bug grew and grew even more when I was a nanny in Germany. I went on 15 different trips in a 12 month period. It seemed like we were packing up for our next trip as soon as we got back from the previous. It became exhausting at times. But exhilarating.

Even though Brandon's job doesn't give us the luxury of a 3 month summer vacation with him, we are blessed that we've been able to sneak in as much travel as we have. Our philosophy is that it's only going to get harder the more children we have, so we want to make as many memories as we can, when we have the opportunity to. That's why I love thrift and garage sale shopping so much so we can contribute more to our fun fund.

We weren't really planning on doing much travel this summer, but things have just worked out* for us to have an exciting schedule ahead of us. We are probably crazy, but it will be fun to get a few last adventures in before baby #2 arrives.

Can you tell I'm excited? Just a little bit. Half the fun of trips comes from the anticipation and planning. Sneak peek of our summer schedule...

*thanks to family trips, delta skymiles, and brandon's job for making these all possible. all photos via the web. i'll have original ones once we actually go there.