FIRST of all HAPPY NEW YEAR to all.  I hope this year brings you lots of laughter, great health and new adventures.

FIRST POST!!

I’ve been sitting here for the past week trying to figure out how to write my first post. I now have a new respect for writers. Writers block is real and I am, by all means no writer. I don’t even read books but I guess now is the time to start.  It’s not easy trying to think of how to start or what to open with and I think for me it is the uncertainty of not knowing if I’ll be able to actually continue to find things to talk about, but I have nothing to lose, so here I go.

I have little to no writing experience. As far as I go with writing it’s the odd appreciation post on Facebook or if I am updating friends and family on my daughters outstanding sporting achievements and even that was kept to a minimal.  She is a national multiclass athletics champion by the way, with being awarded Sportsperson of the Year, two years in a row..#proudmum

I have been asking my 13 year old daughter (the athlete) for help and she has been reading over what I have written to see if she thinks it sounds good. YES! Mums need help sometimes and what better person to ask than your tech savvy teenager.

Together, we have been thinking of topics to write about and we, including my husband decided that we will stick to family travel & lifestyle with a lot of local. When I say ‘a lot of local’ it simply means we are faced with the harsh reality of needing fulltime jobs and we will be blogging our litte road trips (see what I did there), while we save for our major trips.

THE START

Our journey started when my daughter was diagnosed with a severe rod-cone dystrophy – Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative eye condition.  My darling daughter is legally blind. Now don’t get me wrong, the diagnosis hasn’t changed much of her lifestyle at the moment. She is super resilient, has adjusted well and is an oustanding athlete which keeps us busy and I think I struggled with her diagnosis more than what she did, BUT..and the is always a but, being diagnosed with this rare condition means that there is little known about the condition.  Which means, from what I understand, she could go blind at anytime or she could be lucky enough to maitain the remaining vision for a long time.  Being faced with something like this and realising time is precious, it changes your perspective.

We gave her the idea of a visual bucket list, simply, a list of things to see and do before and if she were to go blind. This has since turned into a family bucket list.  And here we are, ticking one little thing off our list at a time.

Sharing our life so publicly is a huge step and sounds a little crazy but what better way to start the new year: with a new hobby.

We’d like to give other families encouragement, inspiration and tips while travelling with children and welcome all the help and tips that you can share with us because lets face it, travelling with kids can be challenging, escpecially with a toddler.

Most importantly we’d like you to start talking about your bucket lists and start ticking things off tour things to do list.  Your bucket list doesn’t have to be huge, it could be as simple as finding out about your local attractions and making the most of what is in your local area. Just because you’re not a ‘tourist’ doesn’t mean it can’t explore the area or book a tour.

And there you have it, our first post!

Bear with us as we stumble our way through learning the ropes of blogging.