2 years

We're sitting in the Phoenix airport lounge so I thought I'd update my blog. We are coming from Utah and headed toward Kona! This morning as we were flying out of Salt Lake, we flew into the most beautiful sunrise. Even after hundreds of flights, I'm still in awe of flying. Both of the opportunity and the reality that I'm actually on the air. I love flying!

Keith and I flew into Utah to see Kent play the 5a football state championship. We (Bingham) won! Kent and everyone played great and it was fun to bundle up and watch them play. They've officially accepted the invite to play in the first high school bowl game in Florida! So after Christmas we'll head to Florida! It'll be a blast. Even though we were only in Utah for 20 hours, it was so fun to see the family and get together with Keith's friends.

 As fun as Utah always is, we hated leaving Hawaii because the Jolleys came! Max, Alexis and Jackson came out Sunday night and we have had so much fun everyday. I have loved spending time with Jackson. He just cracks me up and is so social to everyone. When you are with Jackson you make friends everywhere you go. He loves making sand balls on the beach and giving the fist pump to anyone and everyone. It's very cute. I wish they would just move to Hawaii.

 My sweet mom came to Hawaii for a couple days! We cooked a lot and she hooked us up with so much food! Keith unfortunately had school but mom and I took daily long walks on the beach and talked all day long. We had picnics at sunset and watched the fireworks in town. We are sooo grateful for her coming out!

 Last week I also went home to Colorado for work. It was bitter cold. (Literally one degree) But it was all worth it because I got to spend time with my fam. I was able to celebrate Veterans Day with Michael and Bobby

Such handsome military men in my life.

See Kylees handbell concert

Hang out with Troy, who is getting SO big. He makes me very baby huuuungry.

 We celebrated Abs first birthday and Alexas birthday! We had a little weekend getaway in Waikiki. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory, spent the night at the Hilton Double Tree and had Malasadas for breakfast. I love celebrating.

 We went to the Kahuku state football game. They lost :( but it was still so fun to go down to the aloha stadium and watch a great game.

 We're still busy figuring out plans for dental school next year. Keith is really busy with that and work and school.  I'm so impressed with how he still figures out how to do everything. It's so fun to be his wife. Two years ago exactly- November 22,2012 in the movie theater- we decided to start dating "officially" ..like exclusively. Like, change our Facebook status from "single" to "in a relationship" haha, and that's when you know it's serious. As I think back on how I felt two years ago, that excitement and thrill of falling in love, I seriously still feel like that. And Ill tell ya, I'd fall for him over and over and over again...

"How we made money traveling the world"



I often don't know how to respond to peoples comments about all the trips we have been able to go on. I usually just say something like, "Oh, we fly standby so we can fly for free." But its really a much longer answer than that. Atleast for me. So I wanted to do a few things 1- paint a little more accurate picture of what its been like for us to travel 2- how it was all possible 3- explain why we chose to spend our money traveling and 4- document my gratitude.   I want to explain these things, mostly to my future self but for anyone else that is curious.

 First, we've slept in the airport literally more time then I can count. Both when I work and when we travel. Since I work part time and commute from Hawaii to Denver, I don't work often, but when I do, I work a lot. Often my schedule is something like 5 am to 11 pm, then sleep in my car or on the airport floor for a couple hours, then do it again for 2 or 3 or 4 days. Ideally, I try to work 4 days straight, then have 24 days off.  The 4 days literally max me out (but the three and a half weeks off are awesome). I don't just sleep in the airport when I work. Keith and I sleep in the airport all the time when we travel. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes because we have no other option. And we pretty much always try and take red eye flights so we don't have to spend extra money on a hotel. So we also sleep on airplanes a lot. I didn't think it was possible, but I now can sleep in almost any positions lol.

Its important to note that we spent less money this summer traveling than we would have staying in Hawaii. Luckily enough we found the nicest couple to sublease our apartment to during the summer. So we had no monthly housing fee. We were SO blessed to be able to stay with both of our families in between trips. We could have never, ever, ever done it without them.

We set a summer budget, and kept track of EVERY dime we spent. We actually stayed well below our budget. Crazy enough, between April and September, we spent less than $3,000! Hawaii housing alone is significantly more expensive than that. I have come to realize you really don't need that much money to travel.

Regardless, I know from the outside looking in it may seem careless and stupid to travel the world when we really have no money to spare. But people don't understand that it is literally cheaper for us to fly to the Philippines than go out to dinner. Not to mention we get to watch like 6 new release movies and get at least two free meals on the plane.

Some may not buy my argument that we made money traveling because 'we spent less money than we would have spent living at home'. We didnt make money traveling this summer per say...but we did make a ton of memories. And we did gain a ton of perspective . We made and strengthened friendships. We generated ideas and plans. And we accumulated so many experiences.  The most important 'thing' to make is not money. That is without a doubt.

So beside from me truly believing that it was a good financial decision for us to travel every week for 20 weeks straight last summer, I think about the huge opportunity cost that we would have missed out on had we chose to do otherwise. They say nothing is as expensive as a missed opportunity. Soon, (hopefully real soon(!)) we'll start having kids, have expensive -expensives, Keith will be in dental school...life will get crazy really fast. And I can't wait for that season of our lives. But I'm so glad we took advantage of this season too.

I have learned so much by seeing even just a tiny part of the world. I once heard a quote that says, "I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world." I agree. I'm not exactly sure what I have learned (one of these days I should sit down and make a list) but my vision has definitely broadened, my perspective deepened, my understanding enhanced and my love and gratitude has tremendously grown after 'seeing the moon shine on the other side of the world'.

But what I want to document more than anything is that we owe an eternal THANK YOU to our parents and siblings who picked us up, fed us and dropped us off at the airport oh-soo-many-times, and also extended framily (friends and family) in all different parts of the world. I cant even begin to adequately articulate it but I hope they know how truly, deeply grateful we were and are to them for literally opening so many doors and opportunities for us.  We never in a million years could have done it on our own. I could have never kept the job had my parents not let me take their car every single time I went to work. We would have never survived, mentally or financially had we not been able to come home to our families houses and caught up on sleep, laundry and food. Trips would have been infinitely more expensive had friends across the globe not let us stay at in their home. Keith and I have talked hundreds of times how blessed we are for everyones incredible generosity.  I hope we can pay it forward throughout our life. I truly have a passion for traveling, and seeing like 25 countries in the first 15 months of marriage has been better than a dream. I feel so grateful for the circumstances that have allowed me to travel and most especially to my Father in Heaven, who is the source of every single good thing in my life.
 
And Im so grateful for my travel buddy husband who puts up with me and my endless planning.

South Korea

We.  Loved.  South Korea. I am so happy that we decided to go. We were literally in Korea for only 26 hours, but it was so worth it. Friday we flew from Honolulu to Tokyo. (The flight was especially fun because we got to watch tons of new movies weve been wanting to see). In Tokyo we went to the airport lounge (Were kinda obsessed with these  but internationally they are so sick. And Tokyo was no exception. My brother in law Bobby seriously hooked us up with Priority Pass and we have used it so much. To say we love it would be a huge understand) We stuffed ourselves with as much delicious food as we could in 2 hours before our flight to Seoul, Korea. I had done some research and Seouls airport is arguably the very best in the world. I kid you not, they have ice skating, concerts, Korean cultural experiences, Museums, free showers, tons of rest and relax areas (quite, darkish, places with couches) tons of computers with free internet, play-places, gardens, extensive free transit tours and I hear they even have a golf course. Guys, this airport is unreal. I convinced Keith that we didn't need to get a hotel and we should just stay the night there. Unfortunately, we had to pass through customs and security so we didn't have great sleeping accommodations, but we slept fine. We got up at 6 and started our day in Korea!

The 4 main things we did included:
1. The Korea War Museum. I like museums but this one, was on a whole other level. We probably spent two or three hours there. It was so informative, the design of the building was beautiful, they had tons of 4D short movies, great exhibits and it was all free. It was Keiths favorite part about South Korea.

2. We were able to go to church and it was so fun. I love going to church in different countries. It was fast and testimony meeting and we had headphone where someone would translate so it was neat to listen to them. Keith got to talk to an Investigator at church who struggles with Korean but was fluent in Chinese. There were 5 missionary companionship in the ward! The church was right by the temple. We went to the Temple afterwards and it was lovely. Sidenote- we got a little lost trying to find the church and temple and after backtracking our steps and frantically looking to find the church before it started, it was so cool to spot Moroni in the distance in between buildings!

3. Palaces
We saw several Korean Palaces but our favorite was the changing of the guards at the Deoksugung Palace. They make such a big deal out of it when they switch up the guards, it is quite the show.

4. The river walk and night market.
The river walk was fun because they would light it up  at night and they had music. I love street musicians. We sat on the edge of the water and enjoyed the music and scenery and talked about life for a while. It was perfect. It also felt good to stop walked because we had walked a lot that day, but then it got chilly so we decided to keep moving. We had some really good street food. The night market was totally jam packed and everyone was pretty much selling the same things like pig head and feet, but we found this (picture below) and really liked it! I don't really know how to describe it but its like a pancake (but its made from like ground up vegetables) and they put this vinegary-onion mixture on top. Yeah, it may not sound too appetizing but we both really liked it.

 



We loved Seoul for many reasons but for one, it was so tourist friendly. From the nicest airport in the world, to the cheap/easy/clean subway system to the awesome maps and tourist information, they really do a good job catering to tourists. I was also impressed how advanced they seemed with their buildings and technology. Things were clean and beautiful and there was a lot to do.

We made it back to the airport in time to enjoy 2 more lounges (I know, obsessed). The first lounge had the best food, and the second had the best ambiance. From Seoul we flew to Guam (enjoyed another lounge) and then landed in Hawaii by 6pm Sunday night!