Time continues to march onward, ever pushing us forward as we have once again passed from one year and entered into a new year. 2011 has officially entered the history books as we move into 2012. This will be a year of some big milestones in my household, as well as numerous new opportunities, new challenges, and yes, even new dreams. I'm looking forward to them all, as I was very much looking forward to shutting the book in 2011. It was a difficult year for us in many different ways. While I won't say it was a banner year, nor will I say it was my favorite, I don't believe it was a terrible year either. There were many good things that happened for both my family and for me personally in 2011, those great things just got a little overshadowed by the not-so-great things. So I am true, looking forward to this new year. So far the new year is still very much like the American Girl doll my daughter received for Christmas...all soft and pretty, but bound to change as she continues to cuddle it, love on it, and play with it.
Personally, I'm excited about several opportunities for the new year. My eldest son is getting closer to completing his quest for the rank of Eagle Scout, and this will be the year he achieves it. His project was approved in December, so now he begins the fund-raising process as well as securing workers to help him complete it. The project itself will be done in the springtime. All of the other requirements for Eagle are complete (except for the all-important Board of Review which is the last step anyway), so once the project is completed, he's nearly there. We're hoping to celebrate his achievement with an Eagle Court of Honor in the summertime this year. Additionally, my middle son will be moving from Star Scout to Life Scout next week, and he will then begin his own Eagle quest. He has merit badges and other stuff to do, but once he becomes Life, he too can begin planning his own project. Unlike his older brother, he says he wants to get the project done first and then worry about the required Merit Badges... so who knows, we could have two different projects going this year!
Both boys are going on mission trips with church this year, and I am hoping to be able to go on one myself. I really want to make the trip to Kenya this fall. I wasn't able to the last two times, but I'm praying that this is my year.
Like her brothers, my daughter is growing so fast - and it's a treat to watch. She's becoming a beautiful little lady. She'll be starting gymnastics next week and is so very pumped about it. She was such a timid little thing for so long, but she is making some good strides forward to be a bit more boldly, less trepidatiously. She too will be experiencing something new this summer as she'll have her first experience with church camp. She's nervous, yet excited as well since several of her friends will be there with her.
Professionally I'm excited about all of the different things that I've been doing with this whole Cruise Plannersthing. There have been lots of mundane, legal aspects to work through; but there have been lots of fun aspects as well. Meeting with various vendors. Networking and getting to know people within my community. On-site training and ship inspections. Lots of learning and exploring has happened and is yet to happen. I'm looking forward to a FAM, or "familiarization" trip to Hawaii later this month, as well as determining when the next cruise will be. This whole venture began as a dream, evolved into an opportunity, becoming a challenge, but remains a big dream of mine. I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out, grows, and transforms throughout the new year.
Dreams for the new year continue to grow, and as they work their way from dreams to reality, I'll share. Until then, know that I'm not sitting on my laurels, but rather am working to turn those dreams into some sort of reality, whether here in 2012, or a little beyond. I hope you are doing so with your own dreams as well.
I wish you all well throughout this great new year ahead of us.
As a youth you go to high school and do what's expected of you there. Then traditionally comes college or some other form of post-high school educational or training experience such as the military, a trade school or something similar, and then you're on to whatever you have determined you want to do for the "rest of your life". Often times you've dreamt for years of doing one such special thing. For me, as a small boy it was both architecture and medicine. But I've never been a superstar when it comes to many forms of math - love geometry, can't stand algebra (go figure I would end up spending nearly 11 years analyzing numbers for a living.) Into my teen years dreams of traveling the world and opening a restaurant of my own started to formulate. But alas, neither of those things would take place as I moved on into the whole process of marriage and starting a family.
This whole thing called life can be so interesting - fun, frustrating and funny at times. You go through so many motions each and every day, whether they are family or social mores or not. Things like getting up, getting dressed, going to work for x number of hours, coming home, doing dinner, etc, etc. Do it over and over again for x number of years and it's just such a routine - that you can pretty much do it in your sleep... until something happens to disrupt the sameness of that routine. Sometimes you expect the disruption - other times it comes right out of left field. Sometimes those youthful passions and dreams come true, while other times they either don't, or they simply get suppressed for a long period of time before they finally resurface.
This year has marked a big change for me, as many regular readers already know. September brought about my second job elimination during the past 20 years. I do consider myself fortunate, in that several people I know have experienced job eliminations many, many more times than I have - only twice in 20 years is pretty good, and filling those nearly 20 years with only two employers. I can't really complain. But as I have spent the last few months working to replace the income stream with a new employment situation, some of those long ago dreams have resurfaced. No, I'm not going back to school to try med school, but going back to school hasn't been ruled out either. But for now the first big change is stepping out on my own to be my own boss. It's a dream that I've had in the back of my mind for many years, but never really had the guts or gumption to attempt it. Until now. With each passing week of working through the monstrously long job applications time and time and time and time and time and time (ad nasuem) again, I kept feeling God telling me it was time to do something else. I prayed about it a lot, and just felt that the time was right to make a really big change. Time to get into something that could be flexible where I wouldn't have to be "chained" to a desk day in and day out. Time to do something that would challenge and stretch me in new ways. Time to do something that could involve my wife, while still allowing her to do her homeschooling thing with the kids.
In the spring of course I decided to take my extreme knowledge of the Disney universe of theme parks, destinations and the like and began the training process with Fairytale Journeys and the College of Disney Knowledge in order to be able to sell Disney vacations "on the side" - something that could just augment the existing job with some fun and a little bit of extra cash coming in. But as people kept coming to me asking about destinations beyond just Disney, I knew that I needed to expand further. So I started down a route of discovery looking for ways to be able to expand my side business' offerings, and possibly parlay it into something that could become that replacement income. Thus was born the decision to purchase a franchise with CRUISE PLANNERS AMERICAN EXPRESS. Cruise Planners has been in the industry for nearly 20 years, and is recognized as one of the largest sellers of cruises in the world, but is so much more than simply cruises. The Cruise Planners portal literally opens up thousands of new destinations, and hundreds of ports around the globe, plus there is functionality for reserving airfare, cars, hotels & vacation homes as well. It truly is a well-rounded travel agency, and I am enjoying being a part of it.
I spent a week of training in Ft. Lauderdale, FL recently, and am very excited about the possibilities that this new venture holds. During that training we learned all kinds of information regarding the industry, received top notch presentations from all of the major cruise lines including an awesome presentation from Disney; and got to conduct two different ship inspections (on board the Oasis of the Seas and the Ruby Princess). All of us who were in the training class (other franchisees like myself, their spouses or associates working for franchisees) spent a lot of time together and as a result many bonded, and friendships were formed. We have an awesome support team at the company's home office, with a LOT of resources at our fingertips. The I.T. support is terrific, as well as the marketing machine working behind the scenes. In addition to my original website (www.neverlandadventurestravel.com), I do have a second site now ---> www.neverlandadventurescruises.com. The first remains my primary site for Disney vacations, and is still maintained by me, while the new one is primarily for cruising and is maintained by Cruise Planners. In 2012 the cruising site will be receiving a huge new facelift... I am so very excited about those changes coming in the next few weeks (we saw what it will look like while in Ft. Lauderdale - and it looks GREAT!). It will look and feel so much better, and I honestly can't wait for it to be rolled out. But over time I will be making the two even more interconnected than they already are.
I'm hopeful that this new venture will go well, but like many entrepreneurs, I'm no longer just satisfied with doing one thing at a time, as I did for nearly 20 years. I have a couple of other avenues that I am currently pursuing as well, and hope to talk about at least one of those in the next month or two. Until then - thanks for continuing to follow along and read these posts, and I wish you all a blessed holiday season.
