Home sweet home!
I stayed up on Saturday night to catch up on the Feedly feeds. Only 5,841 items to go through! Well, I got to sleep about 45 minutes before the alarm sounded at 3.15 am! That 6 am flight from Calgary did not sound as bad as when I booked it! After spending several hours in an AMEX lounge in Toronto, we finally made it to Detroit. Dear readers, I have TONS of items to go through and catch up. I learned several things from this trip:
- I love traveling and exploring new places and creating family memories to last a lifetime. Like there was any doubt!
- Being able to keep up with the TBB Buzz blog is just not doable while traveling. Equally hard is trying to catch up now after 12 days of not being in TBB mode! I need to find a middle ground…
- I plan to catch up at some point, please give me some breathing room now. You know how it is when you get back after a long trip, the emails, the mail, the bills, this and that.
- I plan to keep this baby going as long as I can manage. I like being the independent voice and plan to stay independent. At least for 3 more months to make it to my one year anniversary.
- I need to find some time to look into monetizing to at least recover my costs and somewhat compensate me for the countless hours this Buzz mode takes. Many readers and friends have been asking me to just put up a separate tab page on my site so they can go apply through my links. I do NOT plan to mess with the current content! And no I do not plan to pull a Milevalue move on you all:-) If not enough to keep them up, so be it. You won’t see me doing ridiculous aggressive
pimpingpitching, just not my style. And at some point I will do my TBB endorsements to promote good blogging practices (and not pseudo expert full of selfish greedy drivel).Of course this may take a while as you all know I move slow. I reevaluate at one year anniversary.
I need to get some sleep now, I am hearing voices…
One thing I should add. Regarding Global Entry. If you travel with your family you are not supposed to use the Global Entry kiosk (assuming the family members are not GE members of course). But if you ask nicely there is a great chance they will let them join you. I am 2 for 2 on this!
I have gazillions of pics from the trip and if I do the trip report (eventually) it may be longer than my Mega Trip report, oh no:-)
The highlight of the trip was canoeing in Lake Louise at 5.30 am in the morning with my kids and watching the sunrise. The colors, the silence, the water, the smiles in our faces…Unforgettable!
There was a letter waiting for me announcing that our dentist passed away due to a sudden heart attack. He has been handling our teeth for many years, my kids have not had another dentist. He was excited to start slowing down and spend more time with grandkids and doing some traveling. Moral of the story: Do it NOW before we all do not stick around that long! This is for you Doc, RIP!
and again
Good for you, Jeff!
haha, it’s become a goal for me to become first everyday. LOL
I like people who aim high;-)
Alberta is one of the great family vacation destinations. A pity that more Yankees don’t know about it—-but a real pleasure for those of us that have done it.
Seems like you did almost everything I loved doing there. Hope you had a nice Alberta steak dinner! (that grass-fed taste is incredible!)
Yeah, this is indeed an awesome family vacation destination. I wish I had more time to do more!
At the Fairmont Lake Louise, as part of breakfast, we had some of the great steaks! And at the Saloon restaurant I knocked out some awesome ribs too! Paid for by dining certs…naturally;-)
If TBB never produces anything else, that picture and the dedication to your dentist has made it all worthwhile.
Sleep well amigo.
Thanks. I slept like a baby last night, I was so deprived of sleep I was hearing voices;-)
Absolutely glorious photo of you and your kids! Your son is so much taller than the pics you posted from your South America trip. If you do a holiday letter, use the photo with your wife and the one above….plus a bear or two!
Glad to hear you’ll be continuing to blog. Since I’ve been following TBB you’ve re-evaluated the blog biz twice, the last time, I think, during the eyebrow crisis. How are they doing?
My kids are 6.5 years apart so we lost the ability to get everyone together on the same vacation earlier than many other families where the kids are closer in age. You are so right to treasure these times.
@Jeff, I know it is still summer but the parent in me really hopes you take your other goals as seriously. I also hope you have some automated way to see if there is a new TBB post. If not, just wing it like the rest of us!
I think my son had a growth spurt since the South America trip. I will treasure that picture for ever. That sunrise over the mountains in Lake Louise was totally…surreal!
This blog is a work in progress. I am winging it, I see it as a journey. Glad you are along for the ride!
My kids are 4.5 years apart by design. I wanted to avoid two tuition bills at the time (my financial planner in me you know lol).
Lets hope Jeff does not stay up just to be the first one to post my blog:-)
I have actually heard financial advice that if you think you may qualify for financial aid, better to have kids close together, since with two in college at the same time, your income gets divided by two for purposes of the FAFSA and other finaid tools/decisions. I doubt most folks think a lot about this when they are making babies, but I do know people with kids who had one take a gap year, so as to have two in college at the same time, for just that reason.
Not sure what I think about doing something like this; the finaid stuff like anything else can be played. I have a really hard time with people who, a year or so before their kid starts applying, burn down their savings on, say, a huge home renovation, so as to show less in assets when the time comes for filling out the FAFSA. I have always thought that the FAFSA favors non-savers over savers which also seems somehow unfair. Oh well. Probably best to try to ensure your kids can go to college without worrying about finaid and to just ignore the shenanigans some people do.
Mission is to get as much merit based aid we can! No loans/going into debt! We shall see.
I am not up on the financial aid FAFSA stuff. And I don’t do shenanigans taking funds away from people who probably need it more than me!