Big Changes, Big News, and Big Mileage Accounts Needed

I've written this blog for the last four years largely as an extension of our own real lives. Sure I write about random travel deals and mileage opportunities that pop up that have little to nothing to do with our family, but at the heart, everything I write about relates back to my own perspective as a busy parent on a budget who loves to travel. I wouldn't know how to de-personalize and write a daily blog any other way. When I started, my perspective was that of a full-time working mom of a one-year-old, and it has evolved to a full-time blogging mom of a five-year-old (which believe it or not takes way more time than clocking in for someone else!).

As I'm sure you know, family life and dynamics only change over time, and travel plans and logistics have to change with it. I know some have you have noticed over time we didn't just collect miles to visit Grandma's house any more, and that was a result of a change in where we were in life. We had an older kid, stable jobs, and the ability to flap our wings a bit further.

I truly view you all as friends or neighbors who are nice enough to sometimes stop by on a break or with your morning cup of coffee and chat about travel deals and destinations, so I am so excited to finally let you in on how our perspective and lives are changing again in a pretty big way.

Starting this summer we will have more smiles, more adventures, more baggage, and more family members.

Yes, Little C will finally be a big sister, and we will become a traveling family of four!

We are beyond excited about our upcoming addition, and everything else, including travel, is obviously secondary to that development. However, since this is a travel focused blog, I have to say that having a baby on the way sure has changed some of our travel plans and patterns. Planning trips while trying to plan a pregnancy is interesting, and now that we know the arrival date (which landed in the middle of our big planned summer trip to Europe), we have been scrambling to adjust further. It's all good stuff, but it's been an interesting experience that I am so ready to start sharing since I know many of you experience similar challenges when continuing life and travel while trying to expand your families.

Assuming everyone is happy and healthy, growing to a family of four won't ground us at home for long, but it will contribute to a few changes in how we travel for a while. We will have an emphasis on longer trips rather than frantic weekend dashes, a return to more domestic and nearby destinations for a bit, and obviously we will ultimately need more miles and more award seats for four than we did for three.

The good news on that front, is several of those changes we were more than ready for anyway. We, or at least I, went on a bit of a "travel binge" last year culminating with a girls only ski trip to Norway, a luxury mom-daughter trip to Paris, and an around-the-world fancy pants blow out birthday trip with my husband, knowing of our hopes in expanding our family this year. We enjoyed all of those trips, but we were tired and ready for the next phase in our family's journey.

It may look a little bit more like Disney, beach vacations, domestic destinations, Grandma's house, strollers, and kid travel gear around here for a while, rather than first class seats and Maldives over-water villas. I know I am excited for that change both in my real life, and here on the blog, so I hope you are also excited to come along for the ride.

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We are very much looking forward to meeting our next traveling little one, and sharing this next chapter in our family's traveling journey with you!