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Love Week: Amanda – ‘How I Fall more in Like with my Husband’

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Day Six of Love Week and just one day away from our 10th Wedding Anniversary. While we are in Wales celebrating with family and friends I introduce you to Amanda, an expat living in South Korea with her husband. As both military brats, with a background in theatre, and a love of travel I really connect with Amanda. She is a perfect example to me of how friendship knows no borders (or languages) and you can become friends with someone who may live on the opposite side of the world from you. Six months ago I may have sent out a tweet here and there but now I look forward to seeing what Amanda is up to through twitter from England and getting to know her better. The world may be very big with lots of places to explore, but at the same time it is very small. I really like being reminded how we can take a different view of something and see it even better than before. Today Amanda does that with sharing how she daily falls in further like with her husband. We can all fall in love, but finding how to sustain that love over the years is key. As we celebrate ten years of marriage that fact becomes ever more important in my eyes. Please make Amanda feel the love today for the sixth day of Love week and without further adieu I leave you with her and her guest post for today.
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Photo by AURENTHIA STUDIOS 2010
Hi all, I’m Amanda and I blog over at Living in Another Language. My husband and I have been married since August 16th, 2010, after dating just 4 months. Before you have a heart attack about this, you should know we had been friends since 2006, where we met in a work-study program in college.  We currently live in South Korea teaching little kiddos how to say their ‘ABC’s’ and other things. Namely English…and for kicks we throw in a little Spanish every now in again (why not?). 
Back to the topic of this post. I’m so excited for Bonnie and her husband’s vow renewals! Although I don’t know Bonnie outside of blog-land, I totally wish I could be there for her big event! Since she’s gone getting ‘hitched’ again, I thought about writing a ‘how-to,’ on the first years of marriage. Who am I kidding. I don’t have a PhD in anything, I’ve only been married for 3 years, and I’m 24 years old. Pretty credible don’t ya think? Nixed that idea real quick. Cue cheesy grin. 
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Photo by Chris Smith Photography 2010
I’ve decided write about how I spend every day of my life falling more and more deeply in ‘like’  with my husband.  Yes. I said like. Here’s the deal. I’ve loved my husband for 3 1/2 years. ‘Love‘ goes a lot deeper than ‘like’, and it’s harder to fall out of. ‘Like’ is something that’s very easy to fall out of, and so many couples my age (married or not) get caught in a pit of un-like…which can lead to falling out of love if it gets crazy bad. Yikes. 

Hopefully I haven’t lost you yet.

Here we go-how I fall more in ‘like’ with my husband:
1. I have a list saved on my phone of 100 reasons I adore my husband. Every time I have a bad day, I read this list and it makes me smile and get all warm and fuzzy inside. 
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2. He’s not afraid of the unknown and encourages me to take the leap of faith with him. I seriously have the greatest adventures with my husband. Heck. I moved South Korea where I didn’t have family, didn’t know anyone, didn’t speak the language, or didn’t know how the heck I was going to to do my job (I’m not a certified teacher). My husband has always been there for me as I’ve had small panic attacks due to the lack of friends (I was a huge socialite back home), as I’ve broken down and cried over not being there for my sister’s pregnancy or birth over her sweet baby girl, and as old friends have unexpectedly passed away. Guys-It’s hard living overseas. But it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to our marriage. We only have each other to lean on for support, and as a young married couple we have grown so much by this.

3. My husband loves to play. I should rephrase that: my husband and I love to play! Whether it’s tossing the football, playing Kinect (I suck at it), jumping in the waves of the ocean, making music  or even experimenting in partner yoga,we love to do things together! I think playing is so important in our relationship. It helps us forget the stresses of the day and unwind the right way: with each other.  We’re both open to trying new hobbies, and when we’re not good at them, we love to laugh with each other. 
4. We talk. About everything. First of all, my husband and I have no secrets. We talk openly about the past to each other as well as the present struggles we may be facing. D really doesn’t have much of a choice…I don’t have many girlfriends I can just yap all my problems to. He has to step in and fill that void, and thankfully he does it with such understanding and has a great listening ear! 
5. We both enjoy life. I am so thankful to have married a man who enjoys life just as much as I do. Whether its drinking a cup of jasmine tea in the morning and reminiscing about the last 7 years we have known each other, or jumping in a shark cage to witness great whites (that’s booked for January 2014), we’re ready to take on the world together, hand-in-hand. We love new experiences, old experiences, crazy experiences, and everything in between. Life is our biggest adventure, and we’re both on board to live it to it’s fullest! 
So do I ‘love‘ my husband? I freaking adore him. Do I ‘like’ my husband? Oh yes…way more than I could possibly even say. Sure, we have our moments: the times that just aren’t ‘working.’ But overall, at the end of the day, D is always there for me and I’m always there for him. 
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Photo by Chris Smith Photography 2010
What about you? What do you do to fall in ‘like’ with your significant other? 
Have you found that learning to ‘like’ each other better has lead to a more successful and loving relationship? 
Follow our adventure on: 

Love Week: Chelsea – ‘Newlyweds Abroad’

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Are you loving LoveWeek?  Here in Wales Ryan and I are having such a great time celebrating our 10th Wedding Anniversary week with family and friends.  My sister Zoë just got into Wales yesterday night and so now our wedding party is complete! I have been so excited about sharing posts from this week that it will probably eventually become a series.  I was so inspired by Chelsea’s posts about her wedding that I was equally excited to ask her to participate in Love Week.  I love getting to know more about Chelsea because she is one of those loving life to the fullest individuals.  I have only known her a short while and she is always so helpful to me when I am in trouble or have a question from blogging or to where she gets some of her neat travel items like hammocks or tripods.  When she wrote back that she would love to participate I knew her post would be a perfect fit as she is a fellow expat living abroad.  It is why I come back to read her blog week after week, to read about the daily expat life and the latest travels that she takes with her husband around the world.  My husband and I moved abroad together after 8 years of marriage. But what would it be like to move abroad as newlyweds?  That is what Chelsea brings us today as day 5 in Love Week.  Thank you Chelsea so very much for writing on this subject and I know it will touch many lives out there in the blogger world. 

Hey there! I’m Chelsea and I blog over at Lost in Travels. After my man and I got hitched two years ago, we started getting cold sweats every time we even thought about ‘settling down’ in our hometown. We wanted to do something out of the ordinary, something adventurous. We wanted to spend our lives traveling the globe. So what did we do? Sold all of our belongings that wouldn’t fit in two 50-pound bags and took the first flight to South Korea to teach English to snot nosed adorable little kids and never looked back!

As you can imagine, living abroad can either be a blessing or a curse for a couple. In my eyes, it’s the exact opposite of long distance dating. Before we were married, we spent the first ten months of our relationship long distance, on opposite ends of the country. We hardly saw each other, only talked on the phone, and heavily relied on the presence of family and friends for support and advice.
Once we moved overseas, it was quite the opposite. Starting out we were working at the same school which meant seeing each other 24/7 in the most literal way possible. Knowing very few people, we were our own support system. In addition to that, the time difference of being 15 hours ahead of our home town made it difficult to just pick up the phone and call people closest to us. We were told by friends who had paved the way for us in Korea that living abroad was the best thing they ever did for their marriage, they had grown closer together than they had ever imagined. I wish I could say that as soon as we touched Korean soil, it was marital bliss. But that would be far from the truth. The first few months were hard; in addition to trying to get used to everything new in our lives (new career path, new language, new food, the list is endless) we were also still adjusting to married life since we moved just four short months after tying the knot. I remember thinking at one point ‘I thought living abroad was supposed to be easier!’ Thankfully, after a few months of being in Korea…it clicked. We grew accustomed to the new culture around us and more importantly, we grew together, worked together and began reaping the benefits of living abroad as a married couple.
While becoming our only friends overnight, in a strange land, were we lived, worked, ate and socialized together 24/7 was a challenge at first, it has turned into one of the biggest blessings I’ve ever experienced. Not only did we have more time to spend with each other than we ever did in the States, but we were also our only support system for the first part of living overseas. Back in the states I had the bad habit of calling a friend or my sister when we had a fight. In Korea, I didn’t have that option. It forced us to sit down and figure it out completely on our own, and quickly. Because who wants to be mad at their only friend for too long? We learned quickly how to rely completely on each other and I don’t know of any situation where that would have happened for us if we lived stateside. Living abroad has taught us to love in a completely different way than I ever thought possible and I am eternally grateful for that.
As hard as it can be living away from family, friends and virtually anything familiar, we have found the benefits far outweigh the hardships that we have encountered from living abroad.
Thanks so much for having me Bonnie and congrats on your marriage renewal! I hope you’ll stop by my blog where I talk about our daily lives as expats in the land of kimchi, along with documenting our world travels. Be sure to say hi, I would love to hear from you!
Follow along on our adventures:

Love Week: Belinda – ‘All in the Name of Love’

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Normally on Tuesdays I bring to you a travel post post, but I am in Wales this week for our 10th Anniversary.   I thought it only fitting that I let my cohost for the #TravelTuesday blog hop, an Expat living in Northern Wales, guest post!  Belinda from Found Love. Now What? I am proud to call my friend, even though we have yet to meet in person. It is not hard to fall in love with her when you read her blog or watch her Vlogs.  She has an infectious smile, a warm bubbly personality, and never falls short with the compliments.  She has traveled the world, has gone through a Long Distance Relationship (LDR), and now lives the adventure known as being an Expat.  I could only hope she would say ‘yes’ when I asked her to guest post and was so happy when replied back enthusiastically.  I was so excited to share this post with you all as it is so honest and full of heart.  Thank you so much Belinda.  I do not know if I say it enough, but I really do thank you for everything you have done for me and have done for us as a blogger community.  You have definitely impacted my life for the better and I am glad to call you friend.  


Greetings A Compass Rose readers, my name is Belinda and I am the girl behind the blog, Found Love. Now What? When Bonnie invited me to guest post for her Week of Love, I jumped at the chance. After all, my blog has love in the title…so it was a perfect match.

Love. Just that word alone swells a million little emotions and memories,making it tough for me to pick just one element of love to write about. Where to start? What should I focus on? A love between a parent and child? Between siblings? Between friends? Husband and wife? And how do you know when it is there? Or if it is real? Now, these are questions that have been asked by humans for years upon years. I won’t be discovering new answers any time soon. But here is what I know: Love can change people.
Love can move mountains, or make the impossible seem possible. Or in my case, close the distance of 5,000 miles. You see, my British husband Neal and I were in a international long distance relationship for over 18 months, the entire time that we were dating up until our wedding last May. And I wouldn’t have been able to make it through the days apart, without keeping my mind on the bigger picture having everyday with my love. I got to the point when I needed a visual reminder for what it was all for. All the tears, all the compromises, all the frustrations and countless goodbyes at airports. On my dry erase board in my old apartment I scribble two simple words:

When I was apart from Neal, and my heart was aching I looked at these two words and it refocused my heart and my energy. I knew that the distance part was only for the short term and I would have a million everydays together. As each day went by, we were one step closer from removing the distance and finally be in the same time zone. {Major moment, right?}
I was often asked by friends or family, “How do you do this… navigating the distance?” My reply was always a simple shrug and a smile. If navigation a long distance love was the challenge set forth by me, I would embrace it fully and with open arms. I always kept life in complete perspective. Each time left Neal’s side at the airport, I knew where he was going and how to get a hold of him. Our distance made me have a whole new appreciation for military families who are parted from their loved ones without many details or certainty. 
  {Sidenote: If you are a member of a military family, my heart sincerely and humbly thanks you.}

Reflecting on my time going from a long distance girl friend/fiance and now wife, I have learned a few lessons, but the biggest is that love is far from perfect. Love isn’t perfectly wrapped like a present, sometimes love is messy and inconvenient and challenging, but in the end beyond worth it. I met in Neal in a bar in New York City one hot and humid evening. I was on a work trip, while he was on holiday. We struck up a conversation, had one too many beers, and I left him my card. I never thought in a million years, that I would ever hear back from Neal. But I did. And from that first e-mail, my life has been transformed and evolved all through the power of love.
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I wanted to share with you one of the readings from our wedding that highlighted the transforming power of love and how it can be our destiny:
From The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
“When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke — the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certainly an omen — the omen he had been awaiting, without even knowing he was, for all his life. The omen he had sought to find with his sheep and in his books, in the crystals and in the silence of the desert.
It was the pure Language of the World. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.”
Of all the things in the world I believe in, I believe in love the most, without question and without fail. Love that rocks you to your core. Love that challenges you to be a better person. Love that has you grown and change all the way through your life. I also believe in loving your everyday moments… to cherish them and appreciate them with all of your heart. Thank you darling Bonnie for including me in your wonderful Love Week. Many wishes on your vow renewal and your marriage in the upcoming years!

Love Week: Casey – ‘Marriage: In a Word’

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It is the third day of Love Week! If you are just tuning in, my husband and I are in Wales celebrating our 10th Wedding Anniversary in Wales with family and friends.  While we are away I am hosting Love Week on the blog and have eight different friends guest posting about Love.  Today I introduce you to Casey, a military wife blogger currently living abroad in Germany.  One of the reasons I love following Casey’s blog is because she lives a lifestyle I had growing up as a military brat in Europe.  They may be stationed on a military base but they get out and experience their host culture as well as jetting around the world to see other amazing sights and experience other new adventures together.  What a great way to keep a marriage flourishing and reason why I was excited to see what she would come up with for her guest post. 
 I hope you enjoy today’s guest post and thank you so much Casey for taking the time to join us in Love Week!  Remember to follow the hashtag #RyanAndBonnie on facebook, twitter, and Instagram for other exciting picture updates while we are in Snowdonia!

While Bonnie is away celebrating 10 years of wedded bliss in the most romantic way I could ever imagine (CONGRATS, you two!!), she was kind enough to ask me to write a little something about love & marriage from my perspective. Having been married to my high school sweetheart for almost 6 years (officially on July 28th!), I figured what the heck. After spending over 13 years with the same handsome fella, I guess I know a thing or two about love. But then I thought, I’d really like to know what my husband thinks about love…and even more specifically…our marriage. So, like all smart and seasoned wives do (take note, ladies!), I liquored him up, filled his belly with meat, and coaxed him into having a heart to heart with me. Like a good blogger, I’m going to share my findings with all of you! My one and only question to him?

If you could describe our marriage in just one word, what word would it be?


His word:
Fun



I wholeheartedly expected him to say something smart-alecky like, “annoying” or “high-maintenance” (because that’s what boys do), but he won TONS of awesome husband points with the best answer ever. Fun. I couldn’t agree more. What’s even better, he elaborated! Ladies, it’s amazing what a few sausages and a half-liter of Hefeweizen will get you. He began telling me how lucky he felt to have married his best friend. How there is no one else in the world he’d rather go on vacation with because I find all the fun stuff (I think he means the donkey riding, Oktoberfest, & the dead Parisian cave, I’m sure of it). How proud he is that he found a girl who shares his same sense of humor, silly quirks, and understands the way his mind works (well, most of the time, at least). He expressed his gratitude to me for following him around the world, no matter where the Air Force sent him (ahem, thank YOU for bringing ME to Germany, babe…I’m the lucky one!). And for uplifting him with funny letters & photos when deployments separate us. He spoke of how he listens to the guys at work talk about their wives like they can’t stand a single thing they do, and how he shakes his head in disbelief as they recount said frustrations. He can’t imagine living in a marriage where you just “survive.” He looks forward to coming home from work each day, instead of dreading it. He mentioned he didn’t mind sitting quietly with me. The silence is never awkward (I laughed, because usually he’s farting, so it’s a little awkward for me). He even admitted that he loves grocery shopping with me, because I let him buy Fruit Loops and Doritos (that’s because he’s my excuse to eat them ;)). He told me how he couldn’t wait to show me off at squadron functions, because I’m the life of every party (even though I throw meat pies in your face??). And when there are no parties, he said he loves that we can stay home every night of the week and still make memories in our pajamas (get your minds out of the gutter, we watch a lot of TV…in our pajamas. Innocent, I swear). 😉

As he took another sip of his freshly topped off beer, he continued…and continued…until there were tears streaming down my face and I had to ask him to stop.  My heart was full, and people were staring. And then he said, “Our marriage is fun because it’s easy to love you! And you’re easy on the eyes, so there’s also that.” My husband, ladies and gentlemen, bringing me to tears & laughter since 2001. 

I don’t think I could have summed up our marriage any better, but of course, D was going to make me try. He then asked me what word I would use to describe our marriage. My word?

Fulfilling


I told him how he is everything I ever wanted in a husband. How God broke the mold the day he made D. I told him how I used to pray for a godly man; a man who would pray over our family every night at dinner, a man who would provide and protect, no matter the cost, a man who would support me and encourage me when the world seemed against me, and love me unconditionally with a fiery passion. God gave me exactly what I’d prayed for, and more. I explained that even though I complain about the long separations, never-ending workdays, and living far from our families & friends, I was thankful for the life being married to him (and the Air Force) has provided us. I feel fulfilled everyday that I get to call him my husband. He just smiled, took another sip of beer, and said, “Everything you said, ditto.”

So, there you have it, friends. Our 6 year marriage and 13 year love-fest, summed up into 2 simple words, with very important meanings to us both. Turns out, my husband is kind of a sap. Truth be told, I already knew this. He loves writing me silly poems and leaving them around the house. Or mailing a letter addressed to me that arrives in our mailbox, just so I can get mail and feel loved. Maybe I didn’t need that beer and meat to get him talking after all? Although, it never hurts! Ladies, I challenge you this week to ask your husband, your fiance, or your significant other what their word for your marriage or relationship would be. Their answers might just surprise you. And be prepared to answer the question yourself! Then come visit me over at We Took the Road Less Traveled and tell me all about it. While you’re there, I hope you’ll follow along in our fun and fulfilling adventures abroad in Germany! Don’t worry, it’s a fart-free zone. I’d be happy to have you all! :)

xo-Casey




Love Week: Jade – ‘Why I Love My Husband’

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Today is the second day of love week and I am so excited to introduce you to one of my Expat blogger friends, Jade, from London. Technically Jade is from Australia and she lives in London with her husband living the expat life. She has been so helpful to me in recent weeks with questions about visas and landlords. Honestly expat life would be so lonely without an amazing friend like Jade. Though we have not met in person she is someone I already talk about with my husband as one of my friends and look forward to our first blate. Thank you Jade for being able to guest post for me while we are in Wales. Cheers!


Hello everyone! I’m Jade and I’m an Aussie expat living in the amazing city of London, England. When Bonnie approached me to guest post on her blog for Love Week, I was happy to accept and excited to have a chance to write about my experience with love. I have been married now for seven years and living overseas for the same amount of time as we moved six months after our wedding.

When my husband and I first met, I was nineteen and loving life as a single girl in a vibrant city. We were introduced by a mutual friend who though we might enjoy the company of each other on our long commute from our outer Western suburb of Sydney in to town each day. After only a few short months of knowing each other, we had moved in together and were already planning our first attempt at becoming an expat couple in the UK. Sadly, it was not meant to be and we had to put off our adventure until 2007. I think making the decision to pack up and move over to the other side of the world isn’t one to take lightly and to do so, with only one person you know, takes guts and a whole lot of love, so I want to share with you five reasons why I love my husband so much that I packed my bags and moved to London for him!

  1. He lets me play stupid computer games instead of doing housework. Not every day but one day a week, he gives me a free pass to muck around online & play dolls with The Sims 3 as much as I want. He met and married a computer addict and surprisingly, it’s only taken ten years to come to terms with it!

  2. He understands that I need to see my family and spares no expense to make it happen. I last visited Australia in 2011. I was originally going for two weeks after a contract finished. I ended up staying for three months so I could spend Christmas with my family. He didn’t mind one bit. He also doesn’t mind that I’ve decided just today that I want to go home again soon, so he’s been searching flights for me

  3. He bought me a puppy to keep me company. We are a child-free family and intend staying that way until we go back to Australia, which means there is a high chance that we may actually not have children at all. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want something to love on when times are tough and I’m missing my family. After our first six months in London, I had my first ever homesickness experience and was so upset – G came home from work with a picture of a puppy in a frame and a note to say that I would be receiving a parcel in six to eight weeks. Sure enough, a puppy in a Royal Mail plastic box arrived to the day, eight weeks later! (Note – we are not reckless puppy purchasers! We had been thinking about it for ages, but I had not been in touch with our landlord to find out if we could have permission for a small animal, secretly, the Mr had already sorted it all out!)


                          4.    

                        1. He might have been places I haven’t been but he wants to experience them through my eyes for the first time. He’s been to far more places than I have, although I am slowly catching up. When I suggest a city he might have already been to for a visit, he doesn’t say no, because he knows how much I love to experience new places and have new adventures and he’s more than happy to play tour guide. He says that seeing my face light up is his favourite thing about traveling.
                        2. He challenges me every single day. Life isn’t perfect and neither should your relationship be. We both have faults and he’s quite happy to help me become a better person by challenging my thoughts & actions if he thinks they’re wrong. He’s never rude about it, he’s simply presenting a new point of view to help me become the best person I can be.

                        It might seem trite, but having the love of my life on the adventure of a lifetime has made it just so much better. I love being in love and I wish for everyone to have love in their life!

                        Happy Anniversary Bonnie & Ryan – may you enjoy another ten and more together!

                        Love Week: Chimerikal – ‘First Date’

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                        Welcome to Love Week!  Today is Day #1 and we have just left for Wales to celebrate 10 years of marriage with family and friends!  You can follow along with the hashtag: #RyanAndBonnie  and feel free to send us messages on twitter using that hashtag! I have asked my blog friend, Erika, to be a guest poster today and gave her the theme ‘love’.  She came back with an amazing outlook on her First Date.  Since the First Date is where it all starts, I thought it only fitting that we commence Love Week with Erika.  I ‘met’ Erika only recently when we were participating in the blogging Every Day in May challenge.  People come in our lives for a reason and I knew from reading her blog we were destined to be friends.  I hope you all enjoy reading her post today and have fun getting to know her just as I did.
                        Thank you Erika for accepting the challenge to guest post for me. <3 

                        Hey everyone! I’m Erika from Chimerikal and I’m super honored to be a part of Bonnie Rose’s Love Week. A bit about me? I’m a semi-nomadic girl in my mid-twenties who blogs about traveling, growing up, and self-confidence (basically: life!). You can read my blog here. 
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                        I recently celebrated my one-year anniversary with my boyfriend and I thought it would be fun to talk about our first date. And given the circumstances, it’s pretty miraculous that we ended up going on a second one. :)

                        After a disastrous day in New York City, I found myself sitting on the curb in-between two parked cars, scarfing down a salad in between gulps of water. Cars passed noisily in the distance and every now and then I got a whiff of exhaust fumes in my face. Ah, we couldn’t have designed a more romantic setting for our first date. 
                        Had it really been less than a day ago that I had been nervous about whether or not we would get along? About how I would look and what I would say? I laughed to myself as he slid closer to me on the curb and took my hand in his.
                        Tyler — the guy sitting next to me — and I had met about two months prior at a wedding. 
                        I was a bridesmaid and he was a groomsman. Looking back, it definitely was one of those moments that felt like it was straight out of a movie. I remember thinking: “I can’t believe this is happening” as Tyler asked me to dance and we talked the night away. And our fate was pretty much sealed when I caught the bouquet (at least, that’s what I choose to believe, haha).
                        From that day on, we communicated everyday, but we were in a long-distance relationship — separated by quite a few states. As luck (or destiny) would have it, we both had overlapping dates that we would be on vacation in New York City. We arranged it so that we could spend a couple of days together. I was excited but nervous — would we hit it off like at the wedding? 

                        In retrospect, I now realize I was worried about all of the wrong things. 

                        I should have instead worried about:
                        1. Starting our day off with the surprising news that his rental car had been towed.
                        2. Being told by the NYPD that it was at the tow pound. 
                        3. Walking a bajillion blocks to said tow pound which was “down the street.”
                        4. In the pouring rain. (Surprise! Doesn’t matter if it was August and it had been sunny all week long.)
                        5. The cats and dogs falling out of the sky. (Seriously, it was raining like CRAZY.)
                        6. Arriving at the address only to find ourselves at a museum of sorts. Where were the cars?
                        7. Finding our way around that building to the other unmarked, hidden building with misleading signs.
                        8. Only to find out that we needed the rental car agreement.
                        9. Which was back at the hotel. A bajillion blocks away. In the pouring rain. 
                        10. Walking back to the hotel to get dry clothing — including warmer clothes.
                        11. Leaving the hotel only to have it be bright and sunny. Of couuuurse.
                        12. Deciding to go to Central Park to cheer ourselves up, only to take the Subway in the wrong direction. 
                        13. Arriving, sitting and relaxing, then deciding to take a Pedi-cab to the nearest subway station because we were tired of walking. The driver pointed to his sign and said it would be $15. 
                        14. Which was a sort of steep price because we were poor students on an already tight budget in NYC and we knew the car being towed would pretty much eat up all of the “fun money” we had (and then some).
                        15. But surprise! After a lovely ride through Central Park, our driver tells us the ride is $40. 
                        16. He drops us off in front of the Museum of Natural History, which is where we wanted to go originally but opted out of it earlier that day because it was too expensive. How much? $20 each.
                        17. Shocked and deflated, we decide to walk to the tow pound instead of ride the subway since we were running out of money.
                        18. We get to the tow pound, which is overflowing with people. Earlier, there had been about five people there. Now there are about forty. 
                        19. We then proceed to sit on the hard linoleum floor by the public restrooms because there are no chairs left. 
                        20. For three hours. Comfy.
                        21. Finally, we’re called up and told that the total for the day’s events comes to $500+ dollars. Let me enter that into my currency exchange calculator… and yeah, that comes to about $17,489,984 in broke student dollars.
                        22. We drive back to the hotel in the rental car and look around for free parking that’s actually free. 
                        23. After finding a spot (and verifying it’s free over and over again), we walk around looking for food. We end up picking up food from places that don’t have seating. 
                        24. So, we sit our tired selves down on the curb, wedged in-between parked cars. 
                        25. And we look at each other, smile, laugh and say we’d do it all over again. 
                        My first date with Tyler was disastrous, but I’m so thankful for it. Because I got to see him for who he truly is — I got to see his character. And he got to see mine. (Through the smudged make-up, scraggly hair, and oversized jacket that I sported for much of the day. Thanks rain.)
                        That date set a solid foundation for our relationship — a foundation of support, communication, trust and endurance. It allowed me to open up in a way that I never would have before — for I was the kind of girl who had my walls up pretty high. 
                        Falling in love can be beautiful, but relationships often fall apart when life doesn’t go our way. I feel so fortunate that I got to see how he is — how we are — when obstacles (like a million of them) are thrown our way. 
                        In our misery, we found joy together — laughing at our misfortune and holding hands the entire time. And when I found myself thinking that I would live that day over again if it meant I got more time with him, I knew that we had found something pretty special.
                        To read more about Erika’s misadventures in travel and other semi-nomadic reflections, visit her blog or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Bloglovin‘. 

                        Weekly Wishes #4

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                        Another beautiful week here in Bath, England and this one will be a very busy one.  My mum gets here on Wednesday, our friends get here on Thursday/Friday, and Saturday we leave for Wales for our Vow Renewal week.

                        This weekend I auditioned for my first round of Pantos for the 2013-2014 Holiday Season. If you are not familiar with the UK’s Pantomimes they are a huge cultural aspect of theatre here. They traditionally start on Boxing Day and run for two -three months. The one I auditioned for yesterday is Cinderella and will run in January.  It was a really fun audition with a lot of fun people.  I ended up going with my American accent for this one since I felt it would make a fine character choice of the parts for which I read.  Theres an audition for another Panto on Tuesday night and I ‘m hoping to take my boys and go to that one as well.  I loved going to the Pantos as a young girl with my dad when we lived in England. I would love to be a part of them again.

                        “Oh no you wouldn’t!’
                        “Oh yes I would!”

                        If you do not get the reference above, due search some clips of Pantomimes on YouTube.

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                        Weekly Wishes # 4 
                        w i s h e s   t h i s   w e e k

                        Basically this week I just want to be able to get things complete and ticked off my list before we leave.

                        That is my wish for the week.  Some of the things I am wanting to get done this week are as follows:
                        – Finish altering my wedding gown and get it pressed
                        – Find shirts and braces/suspenders for the boys
                        – Mail my gift to Intan of Syfnz Says for the Nectar Collective Snail Mail project. 
                        – Pack my entire family for Wales in the most compact way possible
                        – Remember to take all the garbage and recycling out!!!!
                        – Finish reading Pride and Prejudice for the #JaneAustenBookClub
                        – Finish scheduling all posts and tweets for the week in case I do not have WiFi while in Wales. 
                        There are a good one hundred other things that need to get done but those are a bunch of the ones on my mind right now.

                        Q: What are your Weekly Wishes? Have you linked up?
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                        It is with great pleasure I introduce you to one of my sponsors this month, Jade, of An Invisible Crown blog. She is a fellow expat living in England who hails from Australia.  One of my favourite things about visiting her blog every week is seeing all her photographs.  I love photographers when if I see their photo out of context, I can tell who took the photograph.  She has a beautiful style in that way with the way she sees the world and documents it.  But do not take my word for it, see for yourself.