One Year Later

Well, here we are...one year to the day after we left on our around the world adventure. It really does not seem like it was 365 days ago that we were sitting in the Los Angeles airport getting ready to head west across the international date line (completely skipping February 15 by the way) to our first destination, Auckland, New Zealand. So what's happened since last Valentine's Day? We've visited twenty-two different countries...spent time in fourteen capital cities...jet boated....rode elephants and camels...swam with sharks...hiked along the Great Wall of China...stood in wonder and awe of the Taj Mahal...been to a wedding in the South of France...seen more monkeys than I can count...rode waves in the Pacific Ocean, the South China Sea, and the Andamman Sea...made new friends in random places (Mike and Vinnie, Carolyn and Mike, Uta and Axel)...visited historic monuments to man's darkest side (TS-21, the Killing Fields, War Remnants Museum, the Terror House, Auschwitz)...taken in some of mankind's most amazing houses of worship (Wat Pha Kro in Bangkok, Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, the Forbidden City in Beijing, Marble Mountains in Da Nang, the Jama Masjid in Delhi, the Virupaksha Temple in Hampi, San Marco's in Venice, St. Domnius Cathedral in Split, St. Stephen's Cathedral in Budapest, St. Mary's in Krakow, St. Nicholas' in Prague, St. Vitus' Cathedral in Prague, Yorkminister Abbey in York, England and dozens of others...I could literally go on for pages and pages and that would just be the first six months of the last year. Since we got back to Atlanta we've moved twice, bought a house, gotten pregnant (just Cece...not me), fought off viral meningitis (again, just Cece), began teaching (okay that one's me), and much more. We've also had a lot of time to go over our pictures from the trip and try and recapture some of the memories and experiences. We'd like to go back periodically and post our memories and stories as we reflect back on the adventure. We hope you'll enjoy reading some of our tales again during your spare internet time. If not, you can always go to youtube and search for monkeys falling out of trees or kids breaking their arm doing stupid skateboard tricks. It's all good. Anyway, I'm starting to ramble so I better sign off. Thanks again to everyone who read the blog while we were away and posted comments or sent us emails. You'll never know how much it meant to get those messages; how good it felt to know we could still connect with the people we loved and missed. So without further ado I give you Matt and Cece: Valentine's Day 2006. [okay...there is supposed to be a picture of me and Cece at LAX last Valentine's Day here but blogger is acting up]