A Very Lucky Girl

WOW! Hi, friends! It's been nearly 4 years, one pandemic, and almost 2 whole babies since I last wrote a blog post. I'm not quite sure where I got the audacity to spend precious time on this when I have a newborn to prep for and a 2 year old to entertain, plus a husband and a full-time job, but here we are.  A re-introduction may be in order? The Powell family is now a family of 3, officially, with number 4 on the way. Avonlea arrived in December 2021, and her brother, Truett, should make his appearance in early 2024. I wanted to blog this trip specifically for a few reasons. We were invited to a destination family wedding in Scotland this fall, which gave me all the best feels obviously! It's been almost 10 years since I went on my study abroad journey in Dundee so this was the perfect excuse to go back and visit one of the many homes of my heart. I'm really, really proud of my kid and how well she did on this adventure - she's always been our tiny traveler and thi...

source This week we are thaid up in a love triangle in Chang Mai, Thailand. Becca is over the moon to be among the culture AKA street food and temples. She's determined that she is in love with 2 men and falling in love with a 3rd.  Blake is lucky number 1 for overnight. I've always thought that receiving the first shot at the fantasy suite is a badge of honor--less chance of sexually communicable diseases and such.  Becca is wearing her very best LuLuLemon leggings and crop top and informs Blake that they are going to hike to a sacred temple. They cannot kiss or touch after crossing the threshold into the forest, yet Becca's midriff isn't considered offensive. Cut off from their one source of entertainment (lip-locking), Becca and Blake exchange comments of how beautiful the hike is during their ascent. A monk shows them into the temple where the couple receives a lesson on honestly, patience, etc.  The monks invite them to ring a bell to spread their love to...

To refresh your memory, our flight from Prague to Amsterdam was cancelled so we were en route back to London to make sure we would make our flight on May 1st. We landed at London Stansted Airport shortly after midnight, which really shouldn't even be considered a London airport seeing as it's 40 miles outside of London proper. At this point all public transport into London had stopped running and the first train was scheduled to depart at 5:30 AM. We were exhausted, starving, and freezing. We addressed the middle problem first. Burger King was the only open restaurant in the facility so we begrudgingly got in line. Jordan's nuggets appeared as though they had been sitting in a warmer since 8 AM and my burger was doused in mayonnaise to the point of in-edibility. We managed a few bites before focusing on our next problem: exhaustion.  Since Stansted was so far outside of London we weren't able to get a hostel and resigned ourselves to an airport slumber party for 2....

Our journey to Budapest started out relatively rocky. Keep in mind that we speak zero Italian. We arrived at the train station early (per usual) and scanned the board for our departure platform. Our first train was heading to Bologna, Italy where we would then board our night train. Underneath the platform listings we saw a running header that listed Firenze, Venezia and Bologna as places with cancelled trains (at least, that's what I thought it said...). We went straight to the customer service desk and took a number, wanting to confirm before properly panicking. I have never in my life been so happy to be wrong.  We located the platform and boarded our non-cancelled train at 8:20 PM with no issue. We were scheduled to arrive in Bologna at 10:35 PM with 22 minutes to catch our connecting train. However, our train from Rome ended up slowing down and we pulled into Bologna at 10:45 PM. We had 12 minutes to find our next platform. We bounded off the train and the race was o...

We arrived in Nice on Monday evening around 8 PM and quickly located our hostel just two blocks down from the train station. We checked into Hostel Baccarat  and a very kind man that we think was the owner upgraded us from our 10 bed dorm to a private room at no extra charge. After the day we spent dealing with the train delay in Paris our voyage was looking up! We rode up in the world's smallest elevator, tossed our backpacks in the room, and marveled at the attached private bathroom before heading downstairs in search of food.We stopped at the front desk again to ask for a map and restaurant suggestions. The nice man drew a line down the main street and told us to walk all the way down it until we reached the restaurants. We thanked him and headed out into the nice Nice night.  After taking a couple of wrong turns we found ourselves on the main avenue, but couldn't see a hotbed of lights and activity at the southern end. Instead, we stumbled into the nearest Mcdonald'...

We woke up in London early Sunday morning and took ourselves and our packs to Kings Cross St. Pancras train station. Our Eurostar train was scheduled to depart at 8 AM. We settled into our reserved seats and arrived in Paris at 11:47 AM after entering another time zone. We were now 7 hours ahead of our family in Oklahoma. Zee, my friend from the study abroad program in Dundee, met us at the Gare du Nord train station. He was our tour guide for the afternoon and he absolutely crushed it. First order of business was ditching the packs at our hostel, Smart Place Paris , which was just a few blocks away from the Gare du Nord train station. We grabbed sandwiches and cheese at a nearby Monop before taking the metro to the Eiffel Tower for a picnic lunch. Along the way we stopped at the Champs-Elysees for the Arc De Triomphe and my one request: an authentic french baguette that I promptly chomped into.  We found a shady spot at the Eiffel Tower and devoured our lunches while catc...

Our journey began bright and early on Thursday, April 19th. Per usual, airport security at Will Rogers took approximately 7 minutes and we quickly found our gate by 5:30 AM. Our initial flight was delayed by a couple of minutes, an omen of what was to come. Keep in mind that this was Jordan's first flight EVER and we were flying Southwest Airlines to Denver. Just the day before social media was inundated with the story about the woman who died on a Southwest flight when the window popped open. I nervously hoped Jordan hadn't watched the news. She had. However, our flight was uneventful and Jordan took 8 billion pictures of the wing outside of her window seat.  We landed in Denver at 7:30 AM and made breakfast at Chick-fil-A our first priority. Starbucks was my next stop as we struggled to stay awake. Our flight to London didn't leave until 2 PM so we had loads of time to kill. Around the lunch hour, we grabbed a sandwich at Subway and filled up our water bottles in pre...

My sister-in-law and I recently returned from a 13 day adventure around Europe and I couldn't think of a better avenue to share our experience. We both received a multitude of questions of how we planned, executed the plan, and saved $$ for the plan. Do you sense a "plan" theme? Stay tuned, not very much actually went according to plan once we were in motion.  Jordan and I talked on and off about making this trip a reality, but it honestly came together fairly spontaneously. Jordan ordered her passport in January and we booked our trans-Atlantic flights in February, with only about 2 months to go. We decided on April 19th through May 1st, strategically celebrating Jordan's 23rd birthday in the middle! Once dates were selected, destination decisions were made. With this being Jordan's first out of country trip (and her very first flight!), I wanted her to pick most of the places. I had 2 places on my wish list: Nice, France and Budapest, Hungary. After stud...

To be frank, this is weird. I haven't taken this long of a hiatus from A Very Lucky Girl since..well, ever. And I don't really remember how to write like A Very Lucky Girl. I turned in my final paper to dropbox less than an hour ago and here I am, still with phrases of Paradise Lost  swirling in my head. The last time I wrote here it was almost three or four full months ago. A lot can change in three months. They've been good changes and hard changes and just plain changes. Where do I start? How do I begin? Well, there's this boy...whom I love and adore and admire with all of my being. I did not plan for this and Tanner's presence was most unexpected, but strangely welcome. I smile to think of how far we have come in only three months and what a precious blessing he is in my life. It all started with our two friends, Megan and Marshall. I know I've mentioned Megan plenty of times in A Very Lucky Girl, but Marshall is her boyfriend, who also happens to be o...