Ireland is a place where everyone seems to have the gift of gab. Some of the most distinguished and influential writers graced the streets of Dublin, but not every story deserves to be told. An innocuous event such as a man getting up out of bed and putting on his shoes can be turned into the most long-winded story or worse yet a song. Everywhere and everyone was a story for someone in Ireland. And in my short time there… I heard a lot of stories. It is only fair I share my story.

Oh, Canada! I know you are mocked all the time with South Park. I know your Prime Minister is Justin Trudeau. I love Canadian Bacon. You are big on maple syrup. You seem cold. And…that’s about it. I am sure if I really put my head to it that I can think of more trivial facts about Canada, but that's about all I knew. That is saying something considering both Grant and I have traveled to Vancouver, British Colombia. From that trip, I remember a draw bridge in the forest that freaked Emily out, driving like crazy to get to the Butchart Gardens, and nearly running over a homeless drug addict on a road that seemed longer than Downtown LA’s Skid Row. Needless to say— we needed to explore more of our Northern Neighbor.

Halloween is our favorite holiday, and yet, again we have canceled our Halloween party. Covid seems to have killed it officially, yet, we may pick it back up one of these years. We have so many decorations just collecting dust in the “dungeon” yet I don’t care enough to put them out. Grant put out a few so he does care more than I do. I think when we move to our forever home, we are going to be looking closely at the neighborhood to see if it cares about Halloween and Christmas decorations or not. Half the battle is moving from apathy to caring and I just haven’t found the enthusiasm I once had.

As I reflect on our epic excursion for Wendy and Dylan’s wedding in Cuernavaca, Mexico — I thought wow… “love” is universal in both languages. Then it dawned on me. No, in Spanish the word for love is not love, but amor. What? The ability to speak a different language is something that has alluded me, but fascinates me as well. As I did not know a lot of Spanish; I knew even less about a traditional Mexican wedding. What I learned… I need a lot more practice to hang!

The cities in the Pacific Northwest region have names that I just cannot say unless I pay attention. Coir D’Alene, Missoula, and Kalispell do not just roll off the tongue. To make it even more complicated according to Erica, the locals say “Boi’C not Boise.” Truthfully, I just made up names for all these places and everyone just went along with it.

With Florida, you go and you never know what you are going to experience. Each time we visit something new and unexpected happens. Last year, we got bad news about our surrogacy. On this trip, we were too hot to care about anything else happening.

The heart is a very fickle thing. Sometimes it wants one thing and then sometimes it wants something completely different. Put differently-- I sometimes want milk chocolate, while other times I want white chocolate. Strange. No rhyme or reason as to why my heart has these feelings, yet the heart knows what it wants in the end. Life sometimes presents difficult choices that fracture the heart. The more you struggle to try and put your heart back together the stronger the friction becomes. If the friction is not controlled, it can turn into a fire. A heart on fire burns slowly, blackens, and ruins without intervention. So, with this trip, the goal was to douse a heart on fire with an epic amount of water. An epic amount that could only be found at a waterpark.

Can you go to Best of San Diego this year? Nope. What about you? Nope. What about us? Nope, we are busy too. For some reason, we kept running into the word “no” when it came to going to Best of San Diego this year. We originally had a trip planned that would have caused us to say no, but due to a fortuitist change in plans (our flight changing), we were able to make it after all!

June of 2022 was a tough month for Grant and me. The theme of the month was — “just get through June and July will be better.” I would often find myself just repeating this phrase over and over and over. July 1st hit and our lives didn’t miraculously get better, but it slowly over time.

COVID is Over! Is it? No, but the world is moving on. This is the first flight of ours in over 2 years where masks were not required. It was great! Not that we were the best at wearing them in 2020 or 2021, but it is extremely nice not having to worry about an extra item to carry.

Aloha! “You never come out and visit us,” said Uncle Robert at my cousin Victoria’s wedding. Little did he know! We sure showed him. When the opportunity came up to visit friends in Hawaii, those words found their way from the dark recess of my brain to the forefront. Fine, let’s do it. We booked a flight on Hawaiian Airlines to visit Honolulu and Maui. Thank God we booked our flight when we did because soon after gas prices skyrocketed and our affordable flight became ridiculous!

“Señor Luke Martin…Señor Luke Martin…will you please come to the terminal gate. Señor Luke Martin please come to Gate 4.” When you hear this— you are in trouble!

Both Grant and I took Friday off. Friday was going to be a travel day and Saturday, Sunday, and 1/2 Day of Monday were going to be fun in Antigua, Guatemala. We had hotel, transportation, tours, reservations— you name it we had it ready to go for this trip. Besides Mexico, this would have been our first trip out of the US in nearly two years. I was more pumped about this trip than any other we have had in a while. Something different!

For Christmas, I got Grant a trip to the one place he has been dying to go, but that I always said “no” to. Wilmington, North Carolina. Or as Grant likes to call it, “Tree Hill, NC.” With the entire world to be able to see you may be wondering— why in the world Grant would want to go there? It is home to Screen Gems, which has produced some of his favorite TV shows including One Tree Hill and Dawson’s Creek as well as the latest Scream movies and many others.

What happens when you put friends of Grant on a plane, ship them to Denver for a three-day weekend, and Grant helps plan the weekend? The answer a really great time, full of laughter, food, and a lot of single dollar bills. On January 7th, Grant turned 36. Just for record-keeping purposes—I (Luke) am only 34 so this makes Grant 2 years older than me. He is now in his late 30’s and I am still pathetically clutching on to the fact that I am still able to consider myself in my early 30s. Grant wanted me to clarify that it will only be for two more months then I am officially old like him.