About a year ago, I hijacked my own blog to share the adventures of my trip to Ethiopia with a friend who was adopting. As I am constantly reminded, I never finished blogging about the trip.

Looking at it now, I wonder how I managed to take over 10 days off work during budget season. I can see how once I was back home and back to work I didn’t manage to find time to write about our trip.

The anniversary of this trip is a great excuse to finally finish my online travel journal. A year ago today, I set off on the first leg of the trip. Here is the first part of our adventure.

I haven’t fully decided how to share the information about my trip. In the two posts I wrote last year, I combined the notes from my journal with other memories and my pictures. This time around I may just transcribe my journal since I’m not sure how much to trust my memory to fill in the gaps. Or I could just post pictures from each day and add captions. Another option suggested was to take pictures of all the random stuff I taped in my journal and add captions to tell the story.

My plan was to have all (or at least most) of my travel posts drafted and ready to post on the appropriate day this year. But again, it’s budget season and I am the world’s worst procrastinator. So how I post each day may depend on how close to bedtime it is.

The stunning fact remains: a year ago today I left for an amazing trip I’ll never forget.

A few weeks before traveling, I stocked up on vaccinations. (There were actually six - one was on the back of my arm.)

A week ago we headed to the coast to enjoy a rare sunny day. Romeo had chemo on Wednesday, felt a bit crummy on Thursday and was perking up by Friday. We hadn’t taken the dogs to the beach in ages and the news that Romeo still had no visible metastases in his lungs seemed like a good reason to celebrate with an outing.

Oregon’s beaches are rarely warm but if the sun is out it can at least be pretty and pleasant as long as you’re bundled up. So we packed up the hats and scarves and loaded up Romeo and Julio for the drive.

Once we got there, the dogs loitered around the picnic table while Trent and I ate lunch. Then we headed down the steep path the the beach. Romeo managed quite well. But after all the standing while we ate lunch and the walk down hill he was pretty tired.

We didn’t walk far before we found a spot to sit and soak up the sun. As expected, the wind was blowing a fair amount.

Julio's hair is especially fun in the breeze

Watching the beach happenings together

He looked like he was having fun

Really, I didn't leave my dog with a homeless guy. I happen to know this bum.

See, Trent actually does like Julio

It's exhausting being out and about

Yep. Exhausting.

I like how Julio barely looks like a dog here. You can also see how much Romeo's hair has grown back since his surgery.

Tomorrow is Romeo’s third round of chemo. Along with the usual treatment, he is scheduled to get a chest xray for a status check on his lungs. We’re hoping these xrays look like his last ones, with no visible metastases.

This evening Romeo seemed extra frisky so we had a frolic in the backyard.