A cup of wild

Having arrived to the campsite at night, the rising sun brought our first sight of the magical landscape. A giant sandstone finger pointing to the heavens glowed red with first light, and we watched it shrink into the horizon as we scraped frost from our windshield and headed into the park ...

We were thinking about our van life during our European summer, so we tricked out our CR-V with a bed and headed East to find the sandstone in southern Utah and Northern Arizona. The first stop on our road tip was Arches National park. It's a place we've both wanted to go to for a long time, and we were excited to finally explore! We were up with the sun, and headed in ...

Coming back to the mainland US after being abroad for so long was definitely an adjustment! Fortunately, our friends David and Rachel softened the blow by letting us land at their home while we figured things out ...

We found an incredibly good deal on flights to Hawaii from Japan, so we decided we had to stop there on our way home. We basked in the warmth for a week, relaxing in Waikiki and exploring Maui ...

We returned to Japan in late December just in time for Christmas to spend the holidays with Alan's family. Although we had not expected to return so soon, and although the circumstances for doing so were not ideal, spending New Years as a family was wonderful ...