The trip has begun, and our thirteen hour flight to Taipei is nearly over! But before I fast-forward to what's next, I'd like to rewind a little on the summer so far. It's been a busy last three months of road trips, moving, happy hours, traveling and a little unwinding, too. Summer really kicked off for me in June when Coyla and I took off for a road trip to NorCal to visit colleges, friends, and ensure she had her first experience on a roller coaster. We went to UC Berkeley and Stanford, the latter of which immediately became her top choice for school next year, and made stops to visit friends and family in Medford, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Reno and Lake Tahoe. We caught an epic Beyonce concert in California, got lots of beach time in, and met up with Brenton half way through the trip to bring him along for the ride. We spent fourth of July on the beach, my birthday camping outside of Ashland on the way home, and made so many fun memories along the way.


The end of July saw me moving into Brenton's house in Camas, (along with the sweet record player he bought us for my birthday. We had just a couple of weeks to unpack, set things up and begin our vinyl collection.

My last day of work at Evanta was just a week and a half later, and then B and I set off on a stateside adventure. We first flew to Denver and stayed with my niece, Brittany, before heading up to Aspen for my BFF, Jo-Lee's, wedding. Maroon Bells, just outside of Aspen, was the perfect place to see Jo-Lee and Glenn get married, and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. The ceremony was followed by a sweet picnic that B and I both enjoyed very much, (especially the live 3-piece string band). We had a great time spending the evening in Aspen and staying in Snow Mass before heading back down to Denver to fly to Los Angeles the next morning.

We arrived at LAX and were picked up by my Uncle Dave and whisked away to their home in Pacific Palisades for an awesome dinner and a couple days of relaxation in the SoCal sunshine. My travel buddy and bestie Melissa flew in the next afternoon, and we had a great dinner catching up with Miss Carrie Lujan in downtown Santa Monica. The next day we relaxed, ran some last-minute errands, and then dropped B off at the airport (for a tearful goodbye) before grabbing a final dinner with my family at Marina del Rey. Now Melissa and I are wrapping up our 13 hour flight to Taipei (one more hour to go). Thankfully, Iwas able to sleep (almost soundly, but not quite), for the first 8 hours... Melissa didn't get quite as much sleep but hopefully we're both well rested enough to endure a 4-hour layover in Taipei before our 4-hour flight to Bangkok. We should arrive in Thailand around noon local time Friday. Then we'll be off to find our guest house Melissa booked for our first couple of nights... And the Asian adventure begins! More to come... Love, Katery