A visit with my sister!
When we first started planning for our big RTW (round-the-world) trip, we knew that we would want to have a little bit of time off between quitting our jobs and hitting the road. The logical step would be to spend some time in Bay City (our hometown), giving us time to organize our things, make plans for the trip, and spend time with families. My parents still live in Bay City, and Jon’s brother and sister both live in Saginaw (only about 15 minutes away). So for the month of July, we decided to stay with my parents in order to prepare ourselves for this big adventure.Months ago, when I was thinking of our time in Bay City, I was imagining laying by the pool every day, spending hours reading books that had been neglected (I’m looking at you, One Hundred Years of Solitude!), cooking meals each day, and bonding with our families. I was imagining a restful, relaxing time where we didn’t have commitments or responsibilities.
The Sotherland Family
Boy, was I wrong! While I did my share of laying by the pool, most of that was after 4 or 5pm in the evening, once our “work” for the day was finished. We had a little home office set up where I spent time organizing our bank accounts, compiling lists of phone numbers and addresses, canceling car insurance, researching visas and airline tickets, and more. Jon worked hard as well, doing chores around the house for my parents, cleaning out and preparing our car for the trip, running errands, and organizing our vaccinations and medications. We had a number of appointments as well – transferring his car to our niece, two different sets of vaccinations, appointments for car repairs, and a CPR class. Our “To Do” list grew from my original 2 pages to 3 pages while we were here, but has gradually shrunk to just a handful of things left to finish today. It’s been a whirlwind of activity, seeing us in bed between 10-11pm most evenings and up by 8am each day. It’s been work, but it’s work that allows us to travel nearly worry-free for the next year, knowing that our things are sorted and planned out as they should be.
Stein Haus beers with Eric and Danielle
Now, before you start thinking that all we did was work, there were many moments of fun scattered throughout the month as well! We had many outings with my parents, spent time with Jon’s family, and even had a couple of visitors! Eric and Danielle drove up from Detroit to spend a weekend with us, and we had a good time showing them around our hometown. Jayne came over for an afternoon in the pool, dinner, and drinks out one evening. Rhonda fit us into her busy itinerary of travel to spend Jon’s birthday weekend together. Matt, Rizza, Louie, Cara, Bango, and Dano all went with Jon on their annual canoe trip, while I was lucky enough to spend an entire day with my niece and nephew (Teagan and Hudson). We had an enjoyable dinner, yogurt outing, and evening with Jon’s family (Matt, Rizza, Teagan, Hudson, Deb, Amber, and Rose).
Jon and his original girlfriend, Jayne (she crashed our first date!)
In addition to our visitors and outings, we also took a little bit of time to enjoy our hometown. We spent our anniversary revisiting the places that brought us together (from where we met to our first dates), watched the famous fireworks for the 4th of July, tried a couple new restaurants, took a historical boat ride down the river, and went to a few local festivals.
Our time in Bay City was a mix of working hard and playing hard. I am so happy that we had this time to spend with our families and friends, and wouldn’t trade this past month and our experiences for anything. With these memories, we have the boost, confidence, and support we need to heat out into the world!