The Bryant family lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Matt works for a regional airline, which allows them flight benefits on multiple air carriers.  Laura works in the pharmaceutical industry.  The three girls are about two years apart each.   They try to get in trips during spring, fall, and summer break, with any weekend trips beyond that being icing on the cake.  They also enjoy exploring state parks, their own city and state, and trying new restaurants and breweries (well, mostly Matt) wherever they go.

Inspiration for this blog came from a discovery made while clearing out the storage unit of Matt’s maternal grandparents.  His grandmother kept a day–by-day of every single day of her life dating back to the 1960s, and there were multiple photo albums dating back to the 1980s, along with slides dating back well beyond that.  The photo albums and journals document their travels throughout the United States, including many trips to National Parks, where they worked as campground hosts in their retirement.

While they have kept digital photos of all of their expeditions, the day-by-day recollections were only in their heads, and as we know, memories fade fast.  So this will be a platform for documenting their journeys, discoveries, and tribulations.  After all, we do fly standby!

Bryant Backyard Border Bouncing – A Series

While thinking about food from around the world and all the places the family would like to visit, an idea was born…

Make a list of all the countries around the world that are represented by restaurants in our city and surrounding area.  Put the list on a piece of paper, and cut out each individually, and put them in a hat.  A couple times a month, have one of the girls pull a country name out of the hat.  Then, do things like find the country on a map, learn about its flag, check out books from the library about the country, learn facts about it’s people, history, climate, landscape, watch YouTube videos about it, and most importantly, eat food from a restaurant and try our own hand at cooking some at home.  It’s an easy, fairly cheap to explore our world, right from our own “Backyard,” “Bouncing” from one “Border” to the next!