The Travelling Sisterhood Group

Posted on by
Reply

As some of you may know (or not know), last year I started a travel company as a side gig. I decided to become a travel advisor because my love of all things travel! I thought I’d give a little up date on how things are going!

They are going…great!

Although, truth be told, often my mind feels like it is going to explode, as there is so much to learn! The learning curve is steeeeeeeeeep!!

I have been blessed to find a woman with 30 years experience to mentor me and that has been awesome as she is teaching me, guiding and sharing so much (and I benefit from her 30 year plus relationships and connections with so many in the travel industry!) She really has a mentality of abundance and generosity – which is what I hope to develop more of! In a world where it often seems everyone is out for themselves, too busy in their own lives to connect, help or support others, when I come across a gem like her,  I realize that is really is worth aiming to give, serve and share abundantly. I need to do more!

I have had a lot of fun creating, planning and booking some custom trips (Europe, Central America, Middle East and Asia!), and then also drooling at some of the all inclusives I’ve booked in HOT destinations (which I wish I was in one of those places right now with the weather Toronto is having!!)

I’ve also loved doing research and writing for my travel blog, as well as my weekly newsletter.  I love to write so even this has been a fun part! Check my blog out here.  (Comment below, email me at leah@leahdavidsontravel.com, go to my website, or check out the link below if you want to sign up for my newsletter).

I’m learning about social media (and how time consuming it is, lol) – but it is so fun too! You can find me here and now here (I’ll tell ya more about this below).

Overall it’s been fun! And did I mention a steeeeeeep learning curve??!!

But, I also have a dream of building a great community of travellers! I am passionate about travel – and about people. Being in the healthcare field for 20 years (and counting as I’m still in it:) I’ve loved the connections and relationships I have developed. I love helping them develop themselves and develop their relationships with others.

So becoming a travel advisor is in my mind, combining my love of travel and my love of people. It’s about developing relationships with people and helping them realize their dreams through travel. I think travel is one of the best investments in yourself and your family, and it’s about developing stronger bonds with those you love.

The Travelling Sisterhood Group

In effort to try to connect more people who love to travel, I decided I would start a little “Travel Talk” group for women. There are so many people who love to travel, who have travelled to amazing places, who have great ideas, connections, tips and who have a strong desire to learn more about travel – and a strong desire to travel more. I have started a Meet-Up group in efforts to build a community of likeminded travellers. The group is for women only and it’s called ” The Travelling Sisterhood Group”.

The goal of the group is to inspire each other to travel independently, together, or with our families and friends. It will be a fun group where we will meet monthly (4th Wednesday of each month). We will:

  • Share travel stories and swap adventures
  • Build knowledge about how to travel more and better. Learn from each other and from guest presenters
  • Discuss different travel topics: tips, tricks & hacks, hidden gems, travel destinations and creative and fun ways to travel.
  • Support and encourage each other to invest in ourselves and our relationships through travel.
  • Create opportunities for those who love to travel but prefer not to travel on their own.
  • Get started on some trip planning! It doesn’t matter if your interest is solo travel, couple travel, family travel or group travel. We will cover it all.
  • Enjoy each other’s company and build lasting relationships
  • Plan and go on some trips (for those who are interested!!) (There’s already talk of a trip to walk the last 100km of Camino de Santiago in the fall!)

And, even though I am a “travel advisor”, while I would love to help you plan a trip at any time, my goal is to just create a buzz about travel and a way to share and connect with each other – in person and online.

Now, if you are local, I’m planning our first get together on Wednesday, February 27th 2019 from 7:30-9:30 at FACTORY GIRL,193 Danforth Ave, Toronto, ON. It will be a social meet and greet where we can get to know each other and discuss what topics and destinations are interesting to us.

If you are NOT local, but still want to be part of The Travelling Sisterhood Group  (or are local but prefer connecting virtually only), then please join our facebook group! I would love to make this an international group!! You can still access all the great info, share info, ask questions and talk travel!! It will be an amazing travel resource! (Also, if we do plan some trips together, you will be the first to know and can plan on joining us from wherever you live in the world!).  You can join the facebook group here. 

If you are local and would like to attend the first meet up group, you can register here, OR you can just leave a comment or drop me a line!

I would love for you to join us! I would love for you to come out and bring a friend. I would love for you to pass this along to anyone you might think is interested in joining. I would love for you to join the Facebook group! The more the merrier!

And a little more shameless self promotion – here are all my links again. Thanks for the support!
Weekly travel newsletter: Sign up here! You can unsubscribe at any time:)
Thanks for all your love and support!
xox

Quote the Week

Posted on by
Reply

Always running behind on documenting!

Zach gave us the quote of the week last week:

“What you do rings so loudly in my ears that I can not hear what you say”

I think that quote is especially meaningful for everyone who thinks that kids don’t notice things.

Or that you can treat people one way, and talk a different way.

You really don’t need to talk.

Talking is overrated.

Everything that needs to be said is in the things you do – or not do (not doing things can be like screaming in your ears too!)

Quote of the Week & Ski Weekend

Posted on by
Reply

It seems I can only muster the time to try to capture our quote of the week.

Good thing that I can squeeze in some life stories into these posts too!

At the beginning of the year we headed up north to one of our favourite areas, Collingwood, to hang out with some friends, Chris and Sheila. They have a gorgeous new place up there (it’s our long term goal to get a big place up there too).

We got some skiing in, although I was a nervous Nellie as my neck and back were slowly healing from my car accident and I was worried about re-injuring them. I also hadn’t skied in 2 years, so….

Rob did a couple of runs with me but then went off to do some more serious skiing with the guys.

Of course the only pic I got:

Rob also did a little bit of competitive axe throwing….

I took one video and got him hitting bullseye! Chris got an “almost bullseye” right after so that was the talk all night! Lol.

But the other talk of the night was about all the usual stuff: life, kids, health, business and failure. Because failure goes with everything.

Chris is a guy who has built a very successful business and was talking about the need to “fail fast” in business. He then said, more importantly, you need to “Fail forward“.

I loved that.

Failure is inevitable, so you better get used to it.

But if you are going to fail – learn from it. Keep going. Pick yourself up and march forward. Don’t lament, or feel sorry, or go backwards. Just keep going. And fast.

Failure is not such a bad thing then, it’s just another something that propels you forward.

(Meanwhile back at the home front Zach had some buddies sleep over. Reggie insisted on sleeping with the boys. Good watchdog :

Quote of the Week and Yearly Theme

Posted on by
Reply

“Dream big. Start small – and just keep going”. A variation of a quote I read by Simon Sinek (although I think dream big has been around for a long time)

That’s my theme this year. It really isn’t hard to dream big, but it is intimidating. So I usually shy away from it.

But starting small? Totally doable. Keep on going. Yeah, I can do that too.

I’m in love with the book Atomic Habits by James Clear right now. I love how he talks about improving ourselves 1% daily. Small gains, but compounded over time yields incredible results. I also love how he encourages you to not focus on the goal per se, but the process. Another way to describe that is to not focus on the Results/outcome, but focus on committing to the specific behaviors.

So that’s my plan. I’ve got big dreams (well, I find myself trying to limit those too out of some fear so need to work on that!) but I’ve laid out the specific small behaviors that I think will help me if I do them consistently.

And I must leave room for faith and magic (as Lifecoach Jody Moore wisely says).

We’ve got a lot going on this year – let 2019 begin!

Scavenger Hunt, Skiing and NYE

Posted on by
Reply

The bummer about being a blended family is that your time is so divided.

Gabe is home for 2.5 weeks, but we only had him for 6 days. Luckily it was time that overlapped with everyone else too, so they were quality days.

On one day, I found a cool scavenger hunt online and we set off to explore the city. We explore so many cities when traveling, and have all done some exploring on our own in Toronto, but never all together. So, it was a fun activity (at least I enjoyed it and they endured it).

We had to follow clues around the city, take specific photos, and answer some riddles and trivia. Here are some pics:

We had a nice lunch at Queen Mother cafe (pretty much everyone had the amazing pad Thai) but I forgot to get a picture:(

Later that day, Rob packed the boys up and they went for a quick overnight ski trip.

He sent me these pics of their evening – wing night and hanging in room watching the basketball game:

And then skiing the next day:

Meanwhile, back at home, Zandra and I went to the movies and dinner with some friends. Aaaaaand I forgot the pics again, except this one I texted to Rob when he asked what we were up to:

We spent a couple of days just relaxing, watching some movies and shows, and doing a house clean up! (So fun!! Ha!)

On New Years Eve, we ordered some dinner before everyone headed out to their own activities (gone are the days where they want to spend NYE with us!) But before that, we had everyone sit down and write out 20 things they have accomplished this year. Zach then read out random ones and we guessed who wrote them. It was awesome to see everyone accomplish so much!

On to 2019! We have a ton coming up to look forward to! A wedding, graduations, a mission, a humanitarian trip, starting University and high school, and of course travel! Morocco in March- woohoo! Also exciting to continue to grow my business and see how Rob progresses in his new job!

A Year in Review

Posted on by
1

The big, the small, let’s count them all:

Road trip to the Maritimes

Fortnite

YLC

Macros counting

Good bye Deloitte, Hello Amazon

Gabe gets engaged to Shannon

Leah Davidson Travel starts

This is Us

Palmyra jamboree for Sam

HEFY Dominican for Zandra

Chasing Northern Lights

BYU soccer camp for Zach & Josh

Early morning seminary

Melanie and Garret’s wedding

Sushi date nights

Blue jays baseball game

YW camp for Zandra

Refereeing

Moss work for Zandra

Cherry Beach camp counselor for Zach

Soccer soccer soccer

Rochester tournament for Sam

Windsor tournament for Josh

Visiting Rexburg

Easter Mediterranean dinner

Birthday celebrations- beach picnics, Chinese on Spadina, homemade cakes

Family temple trip

Regional dances and McDonalds pitstops

Wisdom teeth out for Zandra & Zach

Braces off Josh

Happy 10th Rob & Leah

Farewell to the Pilot with 345K km

Whiplash

Running

Reggie walks

Heartbreaks

Netflix binges

BEFY in London

TICO registered

Job interviews

Honor roll/Principal’s honor roll!

Suits

ACT studying and test taking

Early morning school sports

Lobster daily on our vacay

Tuesday night activities

Valentines date and poke bowls

Bike rides – Mother’s Day

Tennis

Greys Anatomy

Christmas market

Father’s Day exotic car show

Studying at dining room table

Hanging out with friends – kids are social butterflies

Toronto Car show

Fireworks May 24 and Canada Day

Las Vegas travel show

Montreal trips

Editing essays

Quote of the Week

Missionary letters (calls and homecomings)

Physio, chiro, massage

New Honda Pilot

Sunday lunches

Church

Tutoring

Family photo shoot

Go karting

Semi formals & formals

Friends, the Office, Mr. D

Weights

Dance recitals & competitions

LSAT prep

BYU applications

Dairy Queen trips

Festival of Carols date with Zach

Salt flats

Seeing Pres Nelson in Hamilton

Beautiful songs playlist

“Aux” music in the car

Backyard fires

FHE

Podcasts

Book read on car trip!

Board games/card games

Shopping dates

Bubble baths

Basketball in back alley

Zach drivers license and borrowing the truck

ki for special occasions

boys ski overnight

Walks and runs

Poutine (including Schwarma poutine!)

Edgymormon

Zach photo contest finalist

Boys biking

Family Toronto scavenger hunt

Patriarchal blessings

Christmas market

Rob’s Christmas Eve Poem

Posted on by
Reply

Christmas 2018

With the break of the dawn and a crack of the whip, it was time again to say hello to old Saint Nick

2018 came and went, so full and busy the CDF accelerometer bent!

Grade twelve for two and ten for one, last grade eight for another and year 2 for the oldest brother

Early in the year a birthday always appears, and this time to our surprise the birthday boy lost his hair, truth be told it was on a dare

So Rob and Leah, began the year as normal you see, working and planning trips and kid’s lives all standard stuff really

But not to be too plain, or to wax and wane, they planned out some adventures it’s what keeps them sane

They went up north to see what they could find, northern lights, crisp snow and 10 years so fine

Found ourselves on the snowy lands of Norway, cod, fishing cabins and prices of kings, but soon enough we had our Nordic swing

Desperate for a chance to see the ghostly heavens aglow, we waited with patience on the ship from Dr. Moreau

With the beauty of the north, mountains spring out of the frozen ocean, once again such an incredible love potionJ

Sure enough the heavens obliged and from all sides, green yellow and reds made our eyes grow wide

Little did we know that at latitude not far below, Zach and Josh were roving for the same oh my gosh

We did dog sled and were well fed, in Greenland below the hounds were somewhat less apropos

Meanwhile Zandra and Sam far down south below, enjoyed Toronto living wisdom teeth not too much pain a givingJ

So on from the break, tanned, frost bitten and ready for more, the summer approached with changes galore!

Church dances, cool semi-formals, and a photo contest win, the coming months would be Utah and Idaho trips to begin

But before I continue I do have to say, when did everyone get so tall anyway…

But no matter there were wedding bells and mission calls, Utah trips and American malls

We heard the call to Peru it seems, TD out and AD too, and MD married that’s true, we even befriended winter that little biting schmoo

Teenagers driving and test taking in full flight, it seems our evenings increasingly became full of late nights

Another new teenager minted in the summer for sure and one left the teens for adulthood demure.

In Utah we saw the Temples and all, and in Idaho visited the beautiful falls, Gabe and his gal and Smith his good pal

But it wouldn’t be complete in the wild, wild west, unless out a shooting we Canucks would try our best.

Joseph Smith by our side, his accent aside, the Subaru we did chide, no bottle of imitation Dr. Pepper could hide!

Then back across the country to Toronto we flew, soccer and soccer and another big event filled with a teenage crew

Zandra B to the rescue for the Dominican, build a school, teach the golden rule this was no relaxing by the pool!

Transformed by the faith and love of the service they provided, committed to help they had all decided

BYU soccer and another trip across the country for Leah, Sam and the scouts, wait a second there’s more mumma mia!

So if it wasn’t quite enough, the two crazy parents decided it was time to throw a wrench and turn our lives upside down on our work bench

Leah always glittered with travel and what the world could be, decided to switch things up and become the latest in trips of luxury

A website she grew and Los Vegas conference froufrou, she plunged in to the world of Leah Davidson Travel woohoo!!

And to further knock the cart, Rob decided to try a new trick, and become something akin to an Amazonian St. Nick!

Deloitte it was gone, Amazon bring it on, and the family once more knew nothing of what he would do

So new careers afresh the summer was almost through YLC and fun, we had one more trip for the CDF’s to do

With all of them home, and certainly full grown, we packed up it were for the last long haul in the Honda poor sirL

We headed out east to the coast and its sun, a spectacle of glorious Canadian heritage so much fun

We had a plan, to eat as many crustaceans as we can, and make our way around the CDF caravan.

Halifax and New Brunswick and PEI too, we watched the Bay of Fundy say goodbye and leave us standing in muddy goo!

What a magical place, we even looked to buy, but headed back home with a collective sigh

Then back in Toronto, keeping us ever changing and new, Gabe sprung the question to his Colorado Miss You Know Who!

With a picnic and a wink Gabe was celebrating with a drink, his decision to make us Grand Parents much later we thinkJ

Our family continues to grow, the kids’ futures all aglow, we celebrate this Christmas without a lick of snow!

We are certainly on the go, and a big year coming we know,

A wedding, a mission and more leaving the nest, we surely do have the very best

So let’s sit back and grab a warm cup of cocoa to go, before we know it we’ll be in Morocco!

Christmas Eve and morning

Posted on by
Reply

Our biggest celebration is on Christmas Eve and this year we were excited to have everyone from lunchtime on.

Zach and I set out to do our food shopping early in the morning before the kids got home from their mom’s. From a young age this was the only grocery shopping he loved doing:)

We had a chill afternoon and watched “Love Actually” – one of my favorite Christmas movies. The kids watched a bunch more shows (As did my Mom and sis – but different ones!), and Rob and I went for a walk.

Christmas Eve always starts with a program: a Christmas carole, a couple of stories and the Christmas alphabet that Zach and Zandra made when they were 8:)

The kids always act out the nativity while I read a very detailed version of the story. They take on their specific roles every year. Some years go better than others; no fighting this year though. Yah!

Rob then reads his Christmas poem (which I’ll post separately).

The kids all head to their rooms to wait to hear the bell ring which signals all the presents are now under the tree and it’s safe to come down (a tradition passed down by my German grandparents – except with them it was the first time we saw the tree too!)

The kids usually race down. I think they think they are too cool for that now, so they trickled down:

Presents:

I forgot to take a pic of everyone eating:( But we had our crazy Christmas Eve buffet):

Christmas morning is pretty quick since all the gifts to each other were given the night before, so just stocking and a few Santa gifts.

We then have cinnamon buns, chocolate milk and wifesaver for breakfast before the kids scoot off to their other parents (usual routine for Zach and Josh, changes depending on year and agreements for other kids).

Have to admit, Christmas Day is my least favorite day of the year (I think I use the word “hate” to describe it. I’m sure other divorced moms can understand….it’s the one time of year that the divorce reveals its hold on you forever. It’s also not something other people understand).

This year Rob and I went out to visit his Mom too, but she wasn’t too crazy about a visit (we saw her the week before with the kids and that was better). We headed home and watched some movies – which is how I like spending Christmas Night!

A successful Christmas 2018 – last one for a long while with everyone together! We will have to start creating new traditions!!

Boxing Day is tomorrow and Rob and I look forward to our own little couple traditions. The kids are all back this year for the weekend and into New Years so we are certainly looking forward to that!!

Boy’s Best Friend

Posted on by
1

Found this in my drafts from a few years ago… too cute not to post still….

Josh lying beside Reggie.

“You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

(“Except for me being born.”)

Love this boy.

And this dog.

Love them together.

Christmas traditions

Posted on by
Reply

It was nice that Gabe came home just in time for our pajama hot chocolate drive to deliver cookies.

Unfortunately we all weren’t feeling so hot (and the big kids had homework to finish) so made our visits short and I had to do some deliveries the next day, but it was still a nice evening!

Love that we got to do one more year of all our traditions. Next year is a huge transition year, so these are the memories that will keep me going!