This year our family’s over thirty years of vacationing at the grandparents’ condo in Miramar Beach comes to an end. When I got engaged to my husband Alan in 2002, I took my very first trip to Miramar Beach. Alan’s mom, who we call Nonna now, took me to her parents’ condo. We walked on the beach, ate out, went shopping, and had a great time. Nonna’s dad was a contractor. He built these condos in the 1970s. How cool […]
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Did you know 2024 year is an important year for the D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival? It is the last year before major sea wall renovations force the park service to take down over one hundred and fifty trees. Don’t worry. Trees will be re-planted. This legitimately needs to be done due to flooding on one side of the Tidal Basin. It isn’t the entire Tidal Basin that is flooding. It’s just the area on one side of the Thomas Jefferson […]
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Last year my cousin Amber sent me a VHS video clip of an interview she did with our Maw-Maw back in the 1990s. In this video, Maw-Maw told us there is a cabin in Tannehill State Park that once belonged to our great-great grandparents. Once I learned we have an ancestral home on display in Birmingham, Alabama, I knew we had to go check this out! My kids love it so much when I drag them out on these sorts […]
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Today we are talking about my favorite place in the world: the beach! We have a guest travel writer here to tell us all about different beach recommendations in the U.S. If the COVID-19 pandemic proved anything, it was the adventurous traveling spirit of the average American. As soon as draconian stay-at-home measures were lifted, people packed their suitcases, bought plane tickets for the entire family, and traveled. We not only go to the many stunning oceanfront properties in the […]
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If you are planning your trip to see the amazing city of Pompeii and the people frozen in time, I have a few helpful tips to share with you. Here is a city, buried by a volcano almost two thousand years ago. Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. The entire city was covered in pumice and ash from the volcanic eruption, and it laid buried, largely undisturbed until the 17o0s. When people finally dug up the city, they found the […]
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Our second day in Rome dawned on us a little later than we meant for it to. We knew we needed to get downtown early to stand in line for Vatican Museum tickets. You see, we did not plan far enough ahead to obtain tickets in advance. In order to see the famous Sistine Chapel ceiling, you must have Vatican Museum tickets. We were not about to leave Rome without seeing the Sistine Chapel. But did we see Vatican City? […]
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Okay, I would like to go all “professional blogger” here and write you an article full of tips on touring Italy. I cannot in good conscience do that. What do I know? I have toured all of one week, and I would rather tell you the stories, just the funny parts and the best photos, of course. We landed in Naples, Italy, at the Naval Support Activity Naples in the early afternoon, I think. It is a teeny-tiny airport. Only […]
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Today I am going to tell you exactly how to fly military space available, with the most updated information. We have been a military family for over twenty years, but we had always shied away from this method of transportation. For starters, we thought it was only for overseas travel. It turns out that is not true. If you are like us, you may be nervous to try flying space available. “Being flexible” can be scary. As it turns out, […]
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Why the nutshell? I don’t know. Basically, this is a little overview of my trip, and then you can bet I will type out a whole series about each individual place. It was a sweltering week in Italy. Most places were not air conditioned. And I am going to tell you all about it. Days one and seven were traveling days, so this is very quickly going to look more like five days in Italy, I think. As I mentioned […]
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Have you ever thought of looking for an empty leg flight on a private jet? Before reading this article, I had never thought of it. I had actually never heard of “empty leg flights.” Today, I have a guest post to tell us all about this alternative way of travel. I hope you learn as much as I did! *********** Flying is not as romantic and comfortable as it was back in the fifties and sixties when adventurous men and […]
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