Taking Flight As The Globe Re-Opens

In our March 2021 blog article, we talked about pivoting, specifically, PIVOT, that is:

· P for Planted

· I for Intelligence

· V for Vision

· O for Opportunities

· T for Take flight

Although that article focused more on pivoting in life in general, it made mention of how we’ve even had to pivot in relation to traveling. As I write this, I am beaming with excitement because I feel like I’m tasting travel again! Our family has three trips already booked, and if you know me, then you know that planning for these trips is a lot of the fun for me! That said, it’s been a journey to get here, and the journey included a pivot. During the pandemic, we’ve stayed physically PLANTED at home, venturing out only to places relatively close to home like Coney Island, the Botanic Garden, the Nautical Mile, the Jurassic Quest Drive-Through, Long Island’s North Fork, and Santa’s Christmas Tree Farm, which are all drivable locations. Yes, this airplane-loving, cruise-loving family, decided to visit a few places by car over the course of the past year. We’ve also been spiritually PLANTED in our faith, believing that this pause/standstill in our global travels would be only temporary. In gathering INTELLIGENCE / INFORMATION about the reason for the global pause on travel, we have also gathered INTELLIGENCE / INFORMATION on options available to us at present and potential options for the future. We have a VISION to safely travel the world again. We have had the OPPORTUNITY to be vaccinated to help slow and potentially stop the spread of a deadly virus, and to be able to travel safely again, and we have made use of that OPPORTUNITY, so that the three adults in our house have now received two doses of the vaccine. We are now preparing to TAKE FLIGHT as I’ve researched and planned three future trips, with my eye on a fourth… two of those three / three of those four will be during the schools’ summer vacation months!

Have you been getting excited about the travel possibilities opening up?

Jamaican Christmas Cake Recipe

I’ve been in the kitchen, watching my Grandma and Mommy make Christmas cakes for decades, and I have yet to bake a traditional Jamaican Christmas cake myself. Well, this Christmas, I am sharing the general recipe with you so that you can plan to bake it next year, as I am planning to do so also. Here’s the general recipe recorded from Mommy making our Christmas cakes this year. As with all recipes, folks may choose to add their own flair, so please don’t take this as the only way to make Jamaican Christmas cake, but it is the recipe that has produced delicious Christmas cakes in our family for years! Culturally, we tend to not use super strict recipes and we tend to use our judgment while learning by doing.

New York Lobster Roll & Wine Picks

A year ago, we were at Walt Disney World during the Food & Wine Festival, and one of our favorites there was the lobster roll from the Barley and Hops booth in Epcot’s American Pavilion. This year, pandemic and all, we’ve pretty much been at home in New York, so my husband and I decided to do our own mini-version of a Food & Wine Festival. Ha! Actually, it’s more of a Lobster Roll & Wine Favorites List. While cruising has paused and other travel has slowed due to the pandemic, we do hope that our fellow cruisers and/or travel-lovers have found ways to safely explore locally. From our local outings, here are My Cruising Family’s New York Lobster Roll & Wine Picks!

How To Unplug During The Pandemic

Before the shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the daily commute was hectic for our family. I would commute with both my sons via the Long Island Rail Road and New York City Transit, taking three to four trains just to get to school and work. With the shuffle, hustle, and bustle of getting my children to school, I often walked into my office well before 9 AM, yet feeling as though I had already completed a full day of work. With that sort of daily morning commute, I often looked forward to vacations to unplug, as you may recall I wrote about in a blog years ago, Why I Unplug During Family Vacations. I don’t miss that hectic commute one bit. However, working from home while the children school from home is its own type of hectic. So, again, I look forward to unplugging. My desire to unplug from hectic daily responsibilities is one reason I love to travel. So, if we don’t travel, how do we unplug in the midst of a pandemic?

When Life Events Happen And Cruising Doesn’t

The purpose of this post is to acknowledge that, sometimes, we may encounter circumstances in life that make cruising less feasible than at other times. In those moments, breathe, give thanks for life, and realize that, as long as there is life and family, there are opportunities for family memories to be made.

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