Life and Times of the Fireflies: April 2017

Blurry family selfie cos nobody has time for retakes in this clan!

If you were an Indian girl living through the 90's; then the idea of backpacking alone with your siblings or friends through Europe was quickly squashed by your parents famous last words "Wait until your are married, then you can travel the world with your husband!". Now, though I won't be sending my kids backpacking through Europe or any other continent on their own any time soon (or ever); I am getting to travel the world with my husband!!

I guess it also puts into perspective the mental plot I had procured for my life (ie. get married, travel the world, then settle down and have kids). I suppose travelling the world was always on my bucket list! Did it happen in the order that I had planned ? No it didn't. Having kids young kind of ruined that plan...But does life ever reveal itself in the way that we plan!

Travel was always something we dreamed about! We've made lists of dream destinations and debated about where we would journey to first. And when the children came along a little sooner than expected, we made the decision to wait it out until they were old enough to enjoy the adventure and appreciate the experience with us. We knew we didn't want to wait until we were much older in life...but we knew we had to sacrifice a little time. Ultimately, we made the decision to travel WITH our kids.

For the longest time, mostly as young parents, it was our favourite local destination that provided us with the escape we needed (read more here ). But bucket lists are meant to be ticked; and as Life does...always at exactly the right moment...it hands us opportunities!

We've done our fair share of international travel over the years, when the kids were younger and before I started this blog. We've had enough of a break between then and now for them not to always expect a vacation, and also for them to understand what goes into planning these kinds of trips! In fact, we made them a very big part of the process of this specific trip. From the inception of the idea, to contributing towards saving monthly towards it, to cutting out extravagance to reach our goal quicker, to heated debates about the destination...we have made them a part of the journey before the journey, and we hope it gives them an understanding and appreciation of the gift of travelling the world...

I guess this in apt enough introduction for our travel diary series, as I leave you with a few pics of the start of our journey as we head to our first stop - Dubai!