How it began

So let me reiterate, I am not a travel blogger. I'm not even a regular old blogger. I am however someone who forgets things. Not day to day things. I can rock that. I am talking about years ago things. I am not saying I will forget that I went on an trip of a lifetime, but I will likely forget the details. I didn't sit on plane for 21 hours (one way!) to not want to remember it all. I might never read this again, and maybe no one will. But maybe, just maybe someday when I'm old(er) and my kids are grown, we (Brett and I) will read this and remember. Remember the most magical 2 weeks.

So before I get in to the trip, it started 10 months prior to lift off. It was our 9 year wedding anniversary and I was sort of stressing about what to get Brett for a gift. We don't always do gifts so I was even questioning whether or not to get him anything. I decided to not go with a typical anniversary-type gift and instead headed to the Haberdasher and felt pretty good about the $400 I dropped there. Honestly I was thinking, I was going a little overboard and hoped my gift didn't outshine his. We had dinner plans that night, so it came as a bit to my surprise when Brett said he wanted me to open my gift mid afternoon, before picking up the kids from school. He handed me a small burlap bag, telling me that it was a 3 part gift that needed to be opened in a particular order. The first two items were clues. The first item was a faux tropical floral stem. Hmm. We got married at the Botanical Gardens, perhaps he is taking me back there tonight? The second item really made me start to question how well he knew me. It was a wooden elephant. Is he taking me to the zoo?! I had no clue. The third item was in an envelop. I am not going to lie when I opened it, I thought it was a joke. No one has ever had such a confused look while opening an anniversary gift. Airline tickets to Bangkok! What in the actual F. My actual response was something along the lines of, "We can't go to Thailand!" You see Thailand has always been on our travel bucket list. Something that we would talk about when daydreaming about all the things we want to do "some day" We would say we wanted to visit Thailand almost in the same way one would say they want to win the lottery. Sure it would be amazing, but most likely it will never happen. Nothing ever seemed so foreign to me before as the thought of traveling to the other side of the world, to a culture so completely different than anything I've ever been exposed to. I was beyond excited and nervous. With 11 months to wait, we had plenty of time to put together the most amazing itinerary.

Why Thailand? Why not Thailand?

Have you ever stepped back, almost stepped out of your life for a moment and realized how quickly it is going by? One minute you are standing at the alter and the next you have been married 10 years. We have been so blessed. Three amazing kids, a beautiful home, careers that support it all, our health and each other. Isn't it terrifying to think any one of those things or even scary yet, all of them could be gone tomorrow? Why wait. Why wait till we are retired, why wait for a "better" time. The excuses will always be there, but time won't. I will talk about this all later on, but this trip has changed us. Perhaps this trip was just what we needed. Not like we needed change, but it found us and we are already better because we went. Isn't it crazy how you can learn so much by taking a leap. Growth is truly found when you push yourself into uncomfortableness.

ORD -> BKK

After months of planning. Prepping the kids. And familiarizing ourselves with Thailand, we said a tearful goodbye to our children on Wednesday April 10th and headed to Chicago. When I say tearful, I am referring to me. The kids did great. I on the other hand could barely get out of the driveway. We had lists upon lists, and literally everything in order for Mimi and Papa. I might forget past things, but I am so organized and OCD when it comes to the kids stuff. We knew they were in good hands and the reassuring words from the in-laws set our minds at ease. We were going to Thailand!

So off we went with our 2 carry on suitcases. Have you ever packed for 14 days in a suitcase the size of a bed pillow? Yeah, me either, but we were not willing to risk loosing our luggage somewhere along the way. And get this, after rolling and stuffing our things into those tiny suitcases, we ended up having to check our bags anyways. Oh well, right?

We boarded our Korean Air flight around 11:30am CST. The next time we would step off that 737 would be in roughly 15 hours! We were headed to Seoul, South Korea for our layover. The flight was great. I mean, as great as it can be. We ended up having an entire row to ourselves which really help with sleeping. We took turns using the extra seat to stretch out and sleep. We were fed countless times, mostly Korean inspired food, but it was tolerable and the wine was free flowing. After crossing the international date line, we touched down at Incheon in the evening, (local time) We had lost a day in the air. Our bodies were telling us it was early morning. We hadn't slept much, so the fatigue was real. We only had an hour in South Korea, which we mostly spent sponge bathing ourselves in the bathroom, brushing our teeth and praying that our baggage was making its way to our next flight. After getting off that first flight, it felt as though we were almost there! That feeling quickly faded as we settled into our seats for our next flight, remembering we still had another 6 hour flight. But 6 hours felt so short in comparison to the night we just had.

Touching down in Bangkok and stepping out into the heat of the night ( it was still approximately 100 degrees) felt like what I imagine it would feel like stepping out on to the moon. Our heads were in a fog from the 24 hours of air travel. Our bags made it! We made it! It was the middle of the night in Bangkok but the airport and the city were wide awake. We got into a car and made our way to downtown Bangkok, barely able to keep our eyes open, but not wanting to close them for fear of missing something. Cars flying down the freeway, music up, AC cranked, huge billboards, mopeds everywhere. This was Bangkok. We arrived at our hotel, Tastoria Collection Hotel in the Sukhumvit district and crashed!