It’s been over a year since my last post. A less-than-stellar experience getting to, and being in, Antigua (not due to anything related to the country itself!) spooked us on doing anymore serious travel since last year. Our next attempt was a trip to Cape May that also involved a lot screaming at bedtime… and was cut short due to a bout of food poisoning. So… not great!

But a couple of road trips to Pennsylvania went pretty smoothly, and Ethan seemed to finally be ok with sleeping in strange beds, so we decided to cross off another high-priority island for me (Ariel had already been here once) and roll the dice on a five-hour flight to Aruba. Thankfully there were no disasters this time, but this trip is proving to be a challenge as well — due to me.

The morning of the flight, I woke up with a scratchy throat. I was hoping it was just allergies since it’s ragweed season and some years it can bother me. It wasn’t. About 20 minutes into the flight I was shivering and feeling feverish with no medicine to take and no sweatshirt (it’s summer!) to wear. I generally always travel with Advil, but on our last major adventure trip (to Iceland) Ariel was pregnant so I brought Tylenol instead because she couldn’t take ibuprofen and apparently I had negleted to replenish my Advil. Tylenol is generally worthless for me, and so it was on this flight.

Ethan actually did ok on the plane this time. Well… he barely napped and he was pretty ornery, but for the times he was eating his puffs, snacks, and lunch he was perfectly content. Ariel handled him for about 80% of the flight mostly because I was in my own personal hell, but all in all, I think we are probably ready for longer trips again.

I wish I could comment much about Aruba, but so far I haven’t left our room very much. Once I was able to get to some medicine I started feeling better, but sitting in the sun while coughing and sneezing all day is probably not the best route to take to recovery. I actually napped today. On a TRIP! Totally unheard of in the TimeWeAreGiven annals of history.

On the plus side we have so far gotten two rather spectacular sunsets that I was able to see from the balcony. And Ethan and Jacob seem to be having a great time. Ethan’s also been sleeping really well here and ultimately that’s the more reassuring thing of all, because it means at long last (once I’m done with this miserable illness) we are probably ready to try some adventure travel again.

And that’s really all I can ask for.