Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

OK, just to get it all out in the open:  I'm a spoiled brat.  I grew up in a family where my dad's job in the military made it so we moved every couple of years and my dad received a decent amount of annual vacation.  So basically, we always took a family vacation during the summers, a couple weeks after school let out.  I think I can remember maybe one year that we didn't go on any sort of trip, even a brief one.  My "vacation upbringing" plays a big role in why I am the way I am.  

a tiny plane

Since I started working at my job, when I received my first 10-day allotment of annual leave, I set my sights on using that leave for vacations and trips as often as possible.  So it's not a surprise that I saved up a good chunk of annual leave and a medium chunk of money for our planned honeymoon to Greece, originally scheduled for June 2013. 

Honeymoon starts now

The TV commercials tell us that a couple has a wedding, they say the vows, exchange the rings, dance the dance, and shake the hands, go back to their hotel room and wake up the next morning ready to jet off to the tropical destination that is their honeymoon.  What's funny is that during the course of planning our wedding, I learned that that's not a reality for most couples that get married, young and old.  People told us they had to postpone their honeymoon for money reasons, lack of time, they were closing on their house, they had a kid, or that they just plain wanted to go later.  When the hospital scheduled my kidney transplant for May 3, I knew I was going to be in that club of people who didn't leave for their honeymoon right after the champagne toast, being that our honeymoon was scheduled to take place about a month and a half after my surgery.

I was a little sad about it.  OK...I cried while I was at work....in the hallway.  Someone had to hug me.  I knew people would ask how was the honeymoon or when I was leaving for the honeymoon.  The only answers they would get were "we haven't gone yet" and "next year."  In fact, one time after the wedding, someone said that "I needed to go on my honeymoon."  I responded that I needed to get a kidney transplant instead.   That shut 'em up real fast. 

Greek Beach Days

To be fair though, Ben and I had two mini-moons (or the micro-moon and the mini-moon).  One was at our favorite inn in Virginia and the other was in Sedona and the Grand Canyon.  So, it's not like we were trip-deprived or anything.  But having those two scaled back trips helped us quickly get over the pain of not spending the summer in Greece. And ultimately, postponing our honeymoon gave us something really exciting to look forward to.  

Because we'd essentially been planning our honeymoon for almost two years, this trip had built up a TON of hype in our minds.  We had no choice but to have fun because we'd been waiting for this moment for quite a long while.  Thankfully, Greece exceeded our incredibly high expectations for our honeymoon.  

Now, that I'm back to blogging regularly stay tuned for a bunch of in-depth posts about our trip, more transplant-related stuff (including what it means to work out without any blood cells!) and just the general shenanigans of my life.  

Let me know how your May has been dear readers.