Practical Wanderlust

28/06/2023

Sorry for the weird posts this week y'all - my personal fb got hacked and they were able to get into our business pages and accounts too 😭 I've gotten it back now, so please let me know if you see anything else weird!!

Pics from a lovely day we spent in Central Park, NYC this week with family ❤️

08/03/2023

Oh it's a jolly holiday with Bugsy ✨️🏰🍭 When Jeremy picked Disney World for his 35th birthday trip, I was nervous. I mean, we’ve done Disney World plenty of times – and I was there pretty much every single day when I was a Cast Member. But we’d never, EVER done Disney World with a baby. And this trip, we’d be bringing along Baby A for baby’s first Disney trip!

Would she hate it? Would we hate it?! I had no idea, but I feared the worst. We both braced ourselves for a cranky, overstimulated baby that we’d be spending 5 days straight entertaining in the parks while switching off riding our favorite Disney rides.
But to my absolute surprise, Baby A LOVED Disney World. She loved rides. She loved shows. She loved characters. She was really into birds all of a sudden, and for some reason, lamps? She loved Cast Members, she loved dancing to music as we walked through the parks. She LOVED Disney World! And we loved getting to see it through her eyes. Disney with a baby is so worth it, y’all!
I just hit publish on a massive guide to visiting Disney with babies, full of tips and tricks including the best (and worst) parks and attractions for babies, where to stay, and a few essentials to pack. Plus the story of something terrifying that happened to us on a ride. It's linked in our bio and stories!

02/12/2022

Has Baby A. changed the way we travel? ✈ Before getting pregnant one of my biggest fears was that I would have to say goodbye to traveling, my passion turned career. I knew it was possible to travel with kids, but I thought it would be really hard and that we'd have to make a lot of sacrifices (something I also needed to come to terms with about the whole kid thing, generally, before having one).
But color me shocked when I tell y'all that at this point, we are actually able to travel almost exactly the same as before. It may just be because at 7 months, Baby A is not yet mobile, and I'm sure the future holds lots of challenges for us, but at this point? Y'all. It's no big! Babies are great travelers, who knew?? Not me!
✈ Flight? She slept the whole time in the carrier and was entirely unfazed by the time change.
🥨 Food? She happily eats whatever we're eating, chills in her high chair at restaurants and charms all the servers.
🏰 Exploring? Bundled up in her down and wool travel outfits, she's good to go in the carrier/stroller from about 9am to 4pm, which is our "out exploring" window too. She naps on the go, which is great for travel though it's not always ideal at home 🤣
The main difference is activities. We avoided taking guided tours this trip because we want the flexibility to stop and nurse or nap or simply readjust as needed without inconveniencing others. (Honestly though she's been on our 3 hour food tour several times, so she'd probably be fine.) And certain activities will require us to split up, like anything after 6pm or anything adventure-y (horseback riding, snorkelling etc) so that sorta sucks because Jeremy and I are codependent and like to do everything together 🤣 But thats... kinda it!
This trip has us feeling back in our element 💪4 cities in 2 weeks, taking trains and transit from place to place, exploring on foot, hitting every Christmas Market and popping into museums all day long - we are having a blast and Baby A is the best little adventure partner we could have asked for!
Questions about traveling with a baby? Reality checks about traveling with a toddler? 😬 Drop us a comment!

31/10/2022

Happy Halloween! 🎃 we dressed up as marine animals because we got a baby turtle costume from Buy Nothing and I had shark and lobster costumes lying around from previous years 🦞 I managed to keep the lobster claws on for about 5 minutes before Baby A. decided they were terrifying 🤣 luckily she found my eye stalks and Jeremy's shark head HILARIOUS. We're handing out candy on our front porch tonight! What about you? Did you dress up today?

25/10/2022

Happy fall from our little family to yours! 🍂🍁 Our little bug is 6 months old and we've been having the coziest fall, y'all. Orchards and pumpkin patches and distilleries and nature hikes - there's so much explore in our new home state! (Also, were we the people on a distillery tour who brought a baby? Yes. She had a great time.)
These days Baby A. is all settled into a groove. She's sleeping well, she's eating real actual human food (which makes her even more fun at restaurants), and she's able to spend all day out adventuring with us and nap on the go. She's also finally gotten all of her vaccines, which means we're starting to gear up to take our first big trips with her! She's a big fan of fall because of all the things that make fun crunching and crinkling noises. Nature is neat.
Our daily lives look very different than they used to. We're parenting in shifts, so one of us takes her for a full day while the other one works/does chores/runs errands, and then we swap the next day. We also pick a day or two a week to do a fun activity together as a family (including , of course) like going out on a hike, day trip, eating at a new restaurant, etc. Techincally, most of those all count as work too, since we're researching and discovering new places for or and shooting lots of pictures and videos which I'm sure we will (eventually) use. If I have one piece of sage parenting advice to offer new parents, it's to never give up on on-the-go naps in a stroller, car or carrier! It makes getting out and going on adventures much easier. (That said, do I wish she would also nap on her own at home sometimes? Absolutely. Working on it. Balance!)
Long story short, parenting is the most amazing thing I've ever done and I absolutely love it, y'all. Like I really can't believe how much fun and awesome our little tiny human is already. She's actually like, hilarious. Like, the silliest little prankster. She has a huge personality, and has since like, 2 months? I was genuinely shocked, I never knew babies were so cool! So yeah. Everything is pretty great. How are y'all doing??

29/07/2022

Snow-covered Alps. 🏔 Pristine, glimmering lakes. 💧Lots of cheese and chocolate. 🧀🍫 Switzerland is at once modern and historic, where you can cross a wooden bridge adorned with 15th-century paintings, as well as take a train up a mountain to see the Matterhorn up close and personal.

Nature here is imminent, beauty is everywhere, and Switzerland is truly as stunning as they say (“they” being me!). And you can all this and more on an incredible 5-day Switzerland itinerary!

Snow-covered Alps, glimmering lakes, and lots of cheese and chocolate... this 5-day Switzerland itinerary includes the best of Switzerland!

28/07/2022

Bubbling thermal springs. 🫧 Volcanic peaks and craters. 🏔⛰ Pristine turquoise lakes. 🛶 Lassen Volcanic National Park, located in the northeast corner of California, is an under-the-radar National Park home to a prehistoric landscape dotted with thermal hot spots and volcanoes.

Besides the burbling acidic pools that smell like cooking sulfur, you’ll find densely wooded forests and wildflowers sweeping over hills and valleys. Following the 30-mile road that winds throughout the park, watch for one of the 200 lakes and try to identify one of the four types of volcanoes that are all concentrated in this unique and magical place.

Bubbling thermal springs. Volcanic peaks and craters. Pristine turquoise lakes. Here are 28 epic things to do in Lassen National Park!

26/07/2022

Two Utopian Societies with two different labyrinths. 🌀 A roofless church with gilded gates. ✨ One strange place.

Situated along the Wabash River about 35 minutes outside of Evansville, Indiana, the town of New Harmony, Indiana seems like any other well-manicured midwestern town. But its s**c and span look is not just community pride – but hearkens back to when it was a real-life utopian society. Well, actually, two of them.

Check out the best things to do in New Harmony, Indiana - like walking around two labyrinths and exploring the relics of TWO utopian societies!

25/07/2022

Sandy, sweeping beaches. Old, haunted cities. Lots & lots of seafood. Florida is nicknamed the Sunshine State, with an average of 237 sunny days a year. It’s truly the land of a million sandy beaches, theme parks, and a whole lot of things to do. And it’s one of the best places for a mini-vacation with so many truly unique weekend getaways in Florida!

I’ve collected the 10 best weekend getaways in Florida, whether you are looking to sit on the beach, go on adventures, explore its history and hear ghost stories, or see some drag shows and go to the gay beach (yeah, Florida, I said gay). 🌈⛵️🏝

Here are the 10 best weekend getaways in Florida, from beach getaways, to nature adventures, to ghostly bar crawls! 60+ activities included!

22/06/2022

In 7 days we're moving across the country 😱😱😱 this move has been on the horizon for so long (nearly 2 years!) that it had somehow stopped feeling like an actual thing that was happening and had become sort of a vague theoretical idea... right up until a couple of weeks ago when it smacked us in the face again 😅
We have been scrambling to get ready, but there's been so much to emotionally process lately that we're both reeling. New baby, leaving our home of 10 years, Jeremy's last class of kids graduating, packing up his classroom of 7 years and saying goodbye to teaching. It's quite the emotional roller coaster 🎢
There's so much change all at once, and so many things we didn't get a chance to say goodbye to yet. Loved ones we wish we could spend more time with. Road trips we never took. Tiny towns we wanted to see again. Restaurants we've been craving. Spending 9.5 months pregnant is a terrible way to say goodbye to a place, y'all 🤣
We'll be back to visit of course, but it's hard to say goodbye to spontaneous weekend trips down Highway One, redwoods and the beach just 15 minutes away, renting cabins with friends in Lake Tahoe and Yosemite, fresh oysters by the side of the road in Point Reyes, and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline across the Bay around every corner. Living here is nothing short of magical. 🌉
It's been an hell of a decade, Oakland. We're going to miss you like crazy. 💙💛

07/05/2022

Meet Aurora! Aurora's birth went nothing like we expected it to - but then births rarely do. My body never went into labor. While we were checking into the hospital for my induction, Aurora showed signs of distress. 20 minutes later, I was getting a c-section. Our care team was phenomenal - kind, supportive, validating, comforting, & everything I needed in that moment. With their help and Jeremy's (who managed to keep me laughing through the scariest moment of my life), I made it through.
The 3 days we all spent recovering in the hospital may have been the happiest of my life. We were in our own little love bubble, with nothing to do but bond and navigate our new life together.
I will forget the uncomfortable bed, the sleep deprivation, nurses coming in every few hours, screaming in pain from a bad latch, and crying in agony trying to walk the 10 steps from the hospital bed to the bathroom, because none of that matters.
What I won't forget is looking down at my daughter sleeping on my chest while sunlight streams in through the windows and birds chirp outside and my incredible husband naps on the world's least comfortable sleeper chair. The way my stomach kept doing flips, that feeling you get going downhill on roller coaster, just from the magic of it all. I've never been more at peace.
But even though I felt emotionally at peace with my birth and my beautiful new baby, having a c section means that I was completely non functional for about a week. I couldn't sit up, lift, move, use the bathroom, twist, adjust, feed or clean myself, or even sleep without assistance.
Unfortunately, neither could the adorable pair of cheeks that I just birthed. But luckily for both of us, Jeremy is a superhuman who somehow managed to juggle a helpless newborn and a non-functional partner while deeply sleep deprived, all while showing us both that we are a gift, not a burden. I've never felt more loved and cared for and lucky than I did that first week, at my most vulnerable.
Since that first week, things have gotten much, much harder. But I'll save that for another caption. Today, I just want to cultivate joy and gratitude. She's here. And she's everything ❤