Adventure is out There!

Day 2 in a month of reflecting on a year of marriage… Not saying it'll be every day, just as much as I feel like :)

If you read almost any post on my blog, you'll know that one of my favorite things is going on adventures with Curtis. It's a huge part of our life - we've gone on some sort of new adventure every single week since getting married! The funny thing is that just one year ago, I didn't think I liked traveling at all. I used to say that I could be perfectly content living in my hometown for my whole life. I disliked the harsh Iowa winters, but preferred to sit and wait it out rather than escaping to a warmer place. So what changed in just a year?

That's easy - I married Curtis, who always has a longing for adventure and dislikes being in one place all the time! But I never think of this as me changing who I am for him. Instead, I think I'm discovering new things about myself and things I enjoy doing because of him. This is just one reason why marriage is so great. I don't feel like I'm missing out on "discovering myself" because I married young - I'm still learning new things all the time, and more than I would be than if I were alone. I love getting to learn and grow alongside someone else.

Now, we both share this longing to travel to many different places. Thanks to the Navy, we'll get to do just that! Next year alone will have us in the Southwest, Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast parts of the US, Lord willing. And who knows after that! I can't believe how much I've missed out on by not "liking" or "enjoying" travel before this year. I'm so thankful that Curtis planned such an adventurous honeymoon and continued to get us outside and going to different places. I think I was more indifferent to start off with, but the more places we visited, the more interested I became, until I looked forward to them as much as he did, and started planning things out myself! Today, I think I overwhelm him sometimes with all the places that I think we "need to go to NOW". :)

I bought this atlas just so that I could highlight the roads that we've taken on all our different trips. This represents our travels in Arizona from August through June.

Along with coming to love to travel, I've also developed interests in letterboxing, longer peak hikes, reading, maps, history, and more. Marriage is just fun like that, I have someone that I love, and we both have different hobbies and interests, and the longer we're together, the more we come to share those hobbies & interests. Today I'm thanking God for the time, ability, and working vehicle to be able to go so many places together. 

If there's anything I've learned about travel, it's that the more places we visit, the more interested we become, and the more places we want to travel to. I'm excited about having so many more adventures together in the years to come. :)

Psalm 95:3-7 comes to mind when I see God's handiwork in this picture. "For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His hands are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care."