01339: I Love Traveling With My Family

Two more work shifts left - this week has really been dragging along. I suppose that perception is only natural given the many different things that I'm busy with at work. At least I made a lot of good progress yesterday - so much so that I ended up breaking my rules on work-life balance and ended up staying at the office more than 30 minutes longer than I needed to. Bad me. But I'd like to think the extra time will pay off in the long run, especially with another weekend just around the corner.

Priorities, right?

It looks like we'll now be heading to Baguio at the end of the month. Prince got dragged into some business-related trip and so we're tagging along to make things a little less stressful for him. Plus it'll be the weekend after Tobie's birthday, so that means a unique chance to celebrate his natal day with a big out of town trip. Prince and I actually had other plans for that particular weekend, but we're flexible enough to work with the current dynamic. Besides, it has been quite a while since I had last gone to Baguio and I've been meaning to map out a trip. This just accelerates our timetable a wee bit.

It's interesting how travel has become such an integral part of my life now. Before travel just seemed like an overly stressful activity - one that just resulted in expenses outside of the budget, delays in my blogging schedules and a lot of annoying encounters with strangers along the way. But now it doesn't feel that way - and naturally a large part of that has to do with how Prince is such a seasoned traveler.

But beyond that, I guess it just really feels that all these trips are indeed family trips - journeys where I feel fully involved in the entire process. And that's very important - the need to feel that you're part of the trip. I don't feel like I just need to worry about financing it or making sure we don't lose anything along the way. Instead I know, heck I truly feel that I'm a key part of the journey and that every new sight to be explored is one that is being shared and experienced together with me fully.

And that's an amazing feeling indeed - one that has redefined the whole experience of traveling for me. It's such an amazing thing to explore even just our country with my husbands at my side. We enjoy every new sight together. We share what we know. And all the while we celebrate the strength of our love in some pretty amazing places. And that is priceless indeed.

I know a lot of folks enjoy traveling alone - I totally respect that. At the same time, I hope they respect why I love traveling with my family - especially since I can't imagine traveling any other way.