Hello! Welcome to Roam If We Want To! Here you will find musings on traveling and parenting and loads in between.
Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Kate, a 30-something-but-getting-closer-to-40-something who has 3 solid obsessions:
- KIDS (especially my three gems)
- my boyfriend of 24 years (who is also my HUSBAND of 16 years)
- TRAVEL.
I created this space to celebrate all that goes into parenting three little souls with as many opportunities as possible to drag them from one end of the world to the other.
Alongside me on every life adventure is my husband, Rob. There’s no doubt in my mind that a better co-parent/best friend/travel buddy does not exist. He’s the ying to my yang, folks, and I wouldn’t want to sweat over a map or try to read a foreign street sign with anyone else. Plus, he’s easy on the eyes and has more than a few contributions to our crazy adventures. He’s the inventor of parent-travel double-fisting (espresso in one hand, wine in the other) and covers all our tech needs. Oh, and the coffee! Can’t forget the coffee. Rob ALWAYS has us covered so that no matter where we are, be it at home in our daily grind or off exploring a new land, we are drinking delicious coffee every morning.
The stars of the show, of course, are our three darling littles. E is our eldest but no longer our only (!) daughter [update Jan 2020]. She is THE definition of sweet and easy. The girl loves to read *anything* and is up for any adventure but would especially love ones that involve animals or eating sugary sweets. B is our middle guy. Mr. Inquisitive, this guy is asking questions and learning from the second he wakes up to the second his head hits the pillow. His love for learning has made all of us smarter. Like his big sis he is open to any adventure but is drawn to history, nature and science. Last, but certainly not least is A. Though he be small, he be mighty. This rascal is the resident comedian and full time snuggle bunny. He is not picky about his adventures but loves speed and activity.
And announcing our newest addition aka reason for few blog posts in the latter half of 2019/early 2020: Baby F. She is the sweetest little love and we cannot wait to take her out in the world.
So, why travel? Rob and I are high school sweethearts (awwwww) and we grew up in a small town in the Midwest. We were fortunate that our education and young adult lives took us away from that small town and we had a chance to see and experience big city life and different regions of the country. But, after we had our first little babe we came to a fork in the road. We decided to head back home where we had grown up. While we love our community and all perks of raising our kiddos near family, we quickly realized that we need to give them (and ourselves) plenty of exposure to the world. Traveling enriches our lives & reminds us that the way “we” (our family, our country, our culture) do things isn’t necessarily “right.”
Why parenting? When I sat down to write here I imagined a travel blog. What I discovered is that traveling with our littles overlaps with how we raise them. It would be too hard to tease them apart so why not just combine them together? If you’re a parent, you get it, it’s a full time job regardless if you’re on the beach in Fuji, touring glaciers in Iceland or waiting in line at Target.
And why blog? To be honest, I am starting this blog because I want to do something I love. I have a day job (err, day/night/weekend job) which has some perks but many many negatives. Traveling brings me such joy and I want to share it with friends, family and beyond.
I hope you enjoy!