About Us

Anna

My family and I lived in a small town in Idaho.  I graduated from High School in 1996. After graduation a big necessity and accomplishment was moving out on my own.  In 1997 my older brother Jurgen helped me move to Seattle, Washington. I drove my turquoise 72’ super beetle full of various items, and Jurgen followed with his VW Passat, full of other necessities. While living in Seattle my professional experience lengthened with school and various employment positions. Some of the things my friends and I would do included venturing up to Canada every once in a while. We would also take small road trips, go camping, and see concerts. My older brother loved international travel and I wanted to experience some of the traveling as he did. The first trip overseas was to Europe. It included visiting a couple of the major cities: Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid. This trip enlightened, and opened my mind to different cultures. Later I went to Europe again, but this time with a friend.  We traveled around Italy, with Paris as an end point. 
After Seattle in 2003 I moved to San Diego. While I drove my then 66’ beetle full of various things, my younger brother Michael drove a U-Haul full of more things. San Diego is a very interesting city. Here I completed marathons, became in love with bike riding and enjoyed living near to the ocean.  I also obtained a position working for a golf company, and enjoyed the wonderful atmosphere  of a sport company.
In the Fall of 2005, little did I know I would meet the love of my life This guy would come and go for long periods of time, but would always come back. We began taking little adventures to different places. Many of the long weekends included: The Baja California, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Big Bear, Mammoth, Maui, and Whistler. In January of 2006, the military took him away for a year. We still kept in touch as much as possible with instant messaging, and weekly phone calls. In June of 2007 Doug and I were engaged. He, and I decided to keep the engagement short, we were married the following October in Santa Barbara.

Doug

I’m a Northern California boy.  I Graduated from Fortuna High School back in 95’ and then from Sonoma State University in 99’.  I decided to go see the world and joined the United States Marine Corps.  I qualified for an aviation contract and learned to fly helicopters.  Shortly after joining my fleet squadron, Iraq started, and I began my first international adventure.  It started with sailing by Hawaii, then sailing by the Philippines, then sailing by Singapore, then sailing through the Straits of Hormuz.  It was frustrating just watching these places go by and not being able to see them.  Finally we got our first stop, Kuwait.  It wouldn’t be the last.  During my time in, the Marine Corps paid for visits to Kuwait, Iraq, Australia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Djibouti, Guam, Qatar, Singapore, and Indonesia.

Thankfully during this time, I was able to save enough money to visit a few places on my own dime: Mexico, Canada, Chile, France, Switzerland, Italy, England and New Zealand.  Almost all of these places had one big thing in common, Snowboarding.  International snowboarding trips became my reward each time I returned from a deployment, and I had a few (four actually).  I loved going on these trips because of the freedom.  In the military you may visit these countries, but you lack a certain amount of freedom.  Going to these other countries on my own gave me a chance to see the other side of travel.

Leaving on this trip is a dream come true.  I’m sure there will be good times and hard times, I fully expect to have problems along the way, (doesn’t everybody speak English?) but truth is I’ve always found the problems I’ve had to be the best stories afterwards.