Eye on the Prize

The prize is a loving, healthy, challenging marriage and life together right?

Wrong! It's the honeymoon! (ok, no. I don't really think that a vacation is more of a prize than our loving, healthy, and challenging - as in challenge each other to be better people - marriage and baby family BUT I do really like vacation too)

And even though we're only 5 weeks away from the big day and there are still plenty of wedding-related chores and decisions to be made....we've been overly focused on the whole 'let's take a trip' part of it.

As I've mentioned before, immediately following the wedding we are jetting off for a week of sunshine in Florida with my in-laws (yay!), my sister (another yay!) and my aunt (the final yay!). This was always the original Christmas 2010 plan and then we decided to throw the wedding onto the beginning of all that - and we're pumped for this (I keep working on my facial and full fist pump/knee on the ground reaction so that I'm totally prepared when I get my wand from the Wizarding World of HP!). However, it is NOT the "honeymoon".

To make it just a tad more complicated (of course it's always more complicated...), we need to make a trip to Scotland next year to have a festive celebration with the rest of Marrv's family who can't be with us this December in Philly. I know, woe is us. It's pretty rad and we're pumped for that too. When we originally thought about this, we said - ok, why not just fly to Scotland and party, then get on a flight for somewhere else in Europe to be all romantical together, then return to Scotland for a night and fly home. And we came up with Portugal.

Well now that we are actually trying to sit down and discuss timing and of course, money (I hate you money. Or rather I hate you money that I don't have), it's even more complicated. Basically because of our work schedules the best (maybe only?) time we can travel is the June/July time frame - Hellllloooo high season. Now I'm a pretty crafty traveler, and I've been spending the past few days working all sorts of mojo but I just don't see us getting to Europe those dates for less than $1200 PER ticket. ouch.

Which has made us do a little reconsidering...perhaps after the party we can hire a car and travel in Scotland?

(I mean...really? Yes please.)

I would love this, and even had suggested it to Marrv back in the day. And though he actually doesn't know Scotland backwards and forwards, it's still "home" to him. And not to mention, not the hot weather that he really wanted. All that said, he is a bit excited about the idea.

There's still always the possibility of just jumping on the plane to Portugal as originally planned.

(I could stay here for months)

Then of course, while considering other flight routes to help with pricing, I mentioned flying in and out of Rome and you should have seen the look in Marrv's eyes. I've been to Italy a couple of times, but he's never been. And when we were originally planning it out we thought Portugal was nice because it was new for both of us. But then this past week I realized how much he really wants to go to Italy, and like any good little partner...now I really want us to go there so he can see how fabulous it is.

(Not going to lie - it's pretty romantic here)

But none of that really changes the fact that our jobs suck in terms of finding good vacation time that doesn't cost an arm and a leg (and an ear...). Yet, I feel so fortunate that THIS is the biggest problem we have currently ...choosing between three (and who knows how many else we'll end up throwing into the mix) amazing trips to spend our first big vacation as husband and wife - I guess that really is a prize in itself.