even though we just finished an 8-hour to ohio and back, gosh am i excited for the holidays this year! seeing family and friends (even in the saddest of times) never gets old, even if it means driving 11 hours to get there.

last week we had the unfortunate news that one of our good friends lost a parent.  unexpectedly, we dropped our weekend plans to drive to ohio for the funeral.  the road ahead for their family will be emotionally rough, but we were fortunate enough to bring some love and smiles to them in such a rough time.  that's what friends are for, right? 

on our drive, we started listening to this podcast that i actually wasn't very excited about.  our friends came over for dinner last week and told us about this podcast called 'cereal' .  they were so into it they couldn't help but talk over top of each other in excitement and couldn't get their words out fast enough (i later realized it was 'serial ,' not 'cereal' haha).  murder mysteries are just not my thing (and i certainly didn't think that 'binge listening' would be either), but after listening for, oh, about 5 minutes i was already hooked.  so much that we are 100% caught up already.  yep, we listened to all 9 episodes.  if it wasn't for starting it late into the drive TO ohio, we would have listened to it all in 1 sitting.  fortunately for us, we got to listen to the last 6 episodes in 1 shot on the way home.  the most enticing thing about the podcasts is that they are nearly live.  the investigation is happening NOW. 

serial is brought to us from the producers of  This American Life , for FREE.  there's really no reason to NOT try it right? i mean, there's only so much music i can listen to before i just tune it out.  this was the perfect roadtrip time-passer! now, if only we could find something similar for our next upcoming roadtrip!! (this american life, maybe? has anyone listened to it before?)

any suggestions for podcasts (or any other roadtrip time-passers) are definitely welcomed ;)

cheers!
jenn

p.s. for kicks, a photo of where we were LAST year at thanksgiving.  no turkey in sight, but it was worth the trade for 1 year to have crystal clear blue waters and white sand in our toes!