The U.S. portion of our trip has been by far the hardest to write about. You see contrary to what we expected for our road trip transitioned from exploration to a family & friends adventure. So after much thought, today you will hear a different side of our travels as I try to convey how our trip has developed. There will be follow-up blogs that I will publish in August with the usual information & resources for various places across the country that we were lucky enough to visit, the dos & don’ts of trying to travel in the U.S., what we needed & what we could have done without, & of course the funny & frustrating things we encountered along the way.
Some short background information about us is that we were married 2 years ago in Hawaii and both of our families & many friends are spread across the country & at times the world. For us this meant that there were many important people that we had not gotten to introduce each other to. With this in mind we began by dividing our time evenly between immediate family & then used the remainder of the 3 months to see our extended family & friends while also seeing as much of the country that we could, always keeping those loved friends & family at the top of our priority list.
We learned over this trip that plans don’t always go as planned and the purpose for a trip often evolves as the trip is happening. My advice to all of you headed out on your first, 50th, or 500th journey is to let that evolution happen. Don’t get so ridged in your plans that you aren’t flexible to those around you or to yourself as the case may be. As always with those we love wrenches will be thrown your way & at times you may feel like your picking up the pieces left in the aftermath of arguments or you may find yourself right in the heart of those arguments. If you’ve been away for a while or now there are 2 or more of you instead of you alone there will be some changes to work through. Work through them, give yourself a chance to breath, & remember if you live far away from loved one’s that you only get limited amounts of time with them, so make the best of any time you have with them.
We were fortunate on this trip to have gotten to enjoy special times with loved ones. Thank you Tina for allowing us to be part of your Huntington’s Walk it was great to see you in action! It was wonderful to get to meet Robert’s old friends & get to introduce him to many of mine. We were blessed to get to welcome Tabitha & her family into ours at my brother’s wedding & to get to spend time with aunts, uncles, & old family friends on both sides of the family. I absolutely loved getting to see people I hadn’t seen in many years & getting to really catch up more than we probably have ever done. One of the highlights of our trip was getting to spend a couple of days taking my nephew out with us! These were really the best times we could have asked for. We couldn’t have dreamed the memories we’ve made with loved ones on this trip. It’s easy when living far away for relationships to dwindle at times but this trip has made it very clear how important it is to take extra time to maintain those relationships as strong as possible wherever you’re living or traveling.
We were surprised and thankful to hear those of you who have been following us on our travels and reading along with our adventures typically through this blog. I know many of you read silently in the background but don’t hesitate to comment or send us private messages if you’d prefer that, we love hearing what you think or even just hearing what you’re all up to.
We want to thank everyone that welcomed us into their homes for having us & all of you that we got to spend time with whether for dinner, coffee, catch-ups, or others for a few days of sight-seeing for taking time to spend with us! We cherished each encounter & can’t wait to see all of you again & hope that you’ll visit us in Hawaii or elsewhere around the world.
As always continue to follow us along as we update you on other aspects of our trip & keep checking back at http://www.oehlerphotography.com as we update our albumns & products with our travel photos.
Wanderful Lives 
Great read, awesome write up babe!
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