we're going on an adventure!

last june, brian and i took our vows and became the plums.  during year one of our marriage, we've discovered a lot about each other (i'll spare you the details) and about life (there isn't enough room to go into detail), but the two most important lessons we've learned are:

• the more we experience together, the fuller our lives are
• the life experience we gain by experiencing life together makes us better people

so, it should come as no surprise when i say we want to experience the world together.  literally.  we're selling our house and embarking on a journey around the world.  on september 7, we fly to hawaii for my dad's retirement from the marines after 30 years.  ten days later we leave for china and then we're just going to keep heading in that direction.  we're hoping to travel throughout southeast asia, africa, south america, and central america.

we've started this blog as a way to keep in touch and share our adventure with you, but we do want to let you know up front what you can expect from us:

1. unique grammar and spelling.  we're on the road and we're not bring laptops which means we'll be using internet cafes in all their glory.  for those of you who've never had this experience, all you need to know is that the letters and symbols we're used to aren't on the same places on the keyboards...if they are there are at all.
2. drama.  when we went to peru a few years ago, brian got altitude sickness and nearly died.  he also lost his wallet.  twice.  although we've gotten tons of vaccinations and prescriptions in preparation for our adventure and i've got a roll of duct tape packed so that i can keep brian and his wallet attached, we feel pretty confident in expecting the unexpected.   
3. failed attempts at posting pictures.  brian and i will try to get pictures posted, but don't be surprised if we have to make up for our lack of tech savviness with a thousand words.
4. the history channel, animal planet, the discovery channel, and the food network...combined.  don't think this one needs any explanation.

for those of you unfamiliar with blogging, we want to point out a few things: you can comment on our posts and you can also subscribe to our blog.  i'm pretty sure we've set this up so that when you comment, we also get an email (we won't know until someone comments...).  also, there's a big white space underneath the quote at the top.  if you type your email there and then click submit, that subscribes you to our blog so that you'll get an email when we post something.  much easier than coming here every day to see if there's news.

if you want to get in touch with us while we're out and about, we set up one email for both of us - plumfamily6912 at gmail dot com (we spelled it out to avoid spammers).  very original, we know.  as for calls and mail - we aren't bringing phones and we probably won't be in places long enough to get mail.

i think that covers the big stuff, but if you have questions, etc. feel free to comment or email us.

welcome to our blog and let the adventure begin (...after we've finished packing)!
-stephanie