For our first anniversary, October 26, 2003, Jennifer gifted us with the traditional first anniversary gift; paper. It came in the form of a spiral bound travel journal. We got off to a slow start with only a couple of entries until the spring of 2005 when the posting took off with our trip to Russia. Since then we’ve faithfully recorded our travels, large and small. Our most recent trip to Ohio gave us enough material to fill the last remaining pages.

The book is a hybrid journal and scrapbook of sorts. It includes narratives of our journeys (often with mileage notes and time markers) as well as having brochures, napkins, photos and ticket stubs pasted in. While I am the primary note taker, Peter has chimed in with his perspective from time to time. Even Catherine has made her mark in the book. Our entries are full of misspellings and grammatical mistakes (due to hastiness while trying to record everything) and poor penmanship (due to writing in moving vehicles).

I love looking back through the pages and reliving the memories that we’ve made over the past four years. We’ve been to Ohio, Russia, Canada, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, and a ton of places in between. We’re looking forward to finding a new journal and filling it with even more memories in the coming years. I wonder if my grand children and great grandchildren will have as much fun reading about our adventures as we have had living them.

More pictures are here: Travel Journal Album