It's not often I preempt my annual commentary of my annual email to myself, but there's a particular thing related to a particular elephant in the room that would be better addressed on its own: that is, the absolute insane amount of travel that we did this year. Much of that was either in service of or related to our move from California to Oregon, but there was plenty unrelated. Let's get down to it. (Keep in mind that most all of this was done with a 6-17 month old baby toddler.)

January

Yes, we're going by month (at least until I realize that this doesn't make sense). The year started out with our return from Portland. What had originally been a trip to see what the area was like and tour some houses, ended with a contract signed and a lot of work ahead in getting ready to move. But that wasn't before we made a trip to Disneyland, joining up with the devbuses for devbus and I to run the half marathon just two weeks after our return. Rounding out the month, Kayla flew back to Portland to select and finalize all the trim stuffs for our house. I Facetime'd into that one from home with the wee baby.

February

Chill month, just a trip to Disneyland for our "last" trip before our annual pass lapsed... which we subsequently renewed, so y'know.

March

No travel this month, mostly because we're in the throes of trying to sell off our old house at this point. Packing, cleaning, and open housing took precedence over flying and doing fun things...

April

Except in April, where we went to the other American Disney park to do a different run with the devbuses and also drink the world. In that, I succeeded pretty hard. Upon our return to the Bay Area, we basically turned right back around to Portland for the framing walkthrough of our house in progress.

May

May is where things start to get interesting. Now free from the shackles of home ownership, we started our life as wandering nomads by spending two whole weeks in a hotel across from Disneyland. This entire time, I'm still working full time, and I did spend a couple days working from the park. Finding a quiet area with good wifi is kinda tricky, but for the SEO purposes here are the good spots: next to the capitol model in the Lincoln building, the Hyperion loading area, and between the bakery and chocolate shop in San Fransokyo. I did much running around Disney and we managed to go into the park every day, though being senior nights season was a real bummer. I don't like teenagers in the base case, so this was a little bit of hell.

But living at Disneyland was only the beginning of our May escapades. We took the opporuntity of being unattached and my ability to work remotely to gallavant across the country to visit some friends and family. In May, that included a stop in Grand Rapids and my hometown in Bartlesville, which crossed over into...

June

Rounding out the cross-country mooching, we finished our run in Oklahoma and made a weekend of Houston, where I melted into my 38th year by way of a 10k in high heat and humidity. Thus ended the fun vacation travel and began the practical travel, for it was in June we transitioned our lives up to Oregon, though our house wasn't quite ready yet. This involved me embarking on two twelve hour drives to relocate our vehicles, a bunch of flights to relocate people, and a lengthy stay at a hotel in our new town of residence.

July/August

After six months of various madness, we were moved into our place and took it chill for a couple months. The only travel that snuck in was at the very end of August, back to the Bay for the baby shower of some friends who were having their first kiddo. Luckily, travel from PDX to the Bay is barely a deal at all, so a pretty chill time.

September

A mere two days after returning from the aforementioned baby shower, we set our tails back around to Disneyland for another series of races. Upon returning from that outing, we to opened up the doors of our new house to welcome guests travelling in from all over the country.

November

We played host to folks from September all the way through October, entering a chill travel period... before starting another crazy bender at the end of the month. Starting Thanksgiving week, I began my long put off month of sabbatical from work, and with it came a bunch more travel. Kicking off the wave was a trip to Hawaii to spend Thanksgiving (the second time we've done this), an eight night affair split between Maui and Oahu. Our island hopping adventure continued into...

December

Upon returning from Hawaii, we basically turned right around again for the annual Disneyland Christmas trip (probably one of the only trips that will survive once we actually stop having an AP). Unfortunately, it was during this trip where my first wave of sickness started kicking in, something I presume that was picked up on the return trip from the islands. However, I was in good enough shape to take the wee lad on a day car trip up to Seattle to visit my brother. Luckily, small child took all seven combined hours in the car excellently (sleeping or watching his iPad pretty much the whole time). Wrapping up the travel madness of the year and for the relatively near future was a trip to the Bay to see some friends and family for the holidays, from which we returned right before Christmas. Somewhere in that last trip, myself and the kid got stomach sick. Kayla managed to get absolutely nothing the entire time, so go figure that...

And, that brings us to now. In writing that out, all that travel amidst the other high ticket items we were up to this year seems even crazier than it did while we were in it, but a lot of good times were had. Through it all, the wee one did remarkably well for all the hours we were in airplanes and cars, though he had some patience testing moments. Before too long, he'll have to get his own seat paid for, which I suspect will dial back our air travel a bit. Also, the potential of a new baby on the horizon. Which isn't to say we don't already have travel plans on the books for 2025.

You'd be an absolute fool to think that we don't already have travel plans on the books for 2025.