We’re still alive!

Faithful and patient warriors, 

Hello! It’s been way too long since we last checked in. I apologize. Going into nomad life, I had plans to update you all at each leg of the journey. As most things go, the first time you do it there is a learning curve, which is true here. What have I learned? So so so much! Which means I need a bit of extra time to process it all before sharing it with you. This is proving to take longer than I had expected, which is totally okay. Eventually, I hope to share with you what I’ve learned. I’m just unsure when that will be.

In the meantime, I wanted to let you all know the nomad life is going extremely well. Mitch, Oliver and I are still alive. Life is full of adventure. We all seem to be quite healthy (knock on wood). Most importantly, we all still love each other. 

If you want more frequent updates, please check out Oliver’s Instagram. He’s about a month behind in our journey posting. It’s hard to post when you don’t have thumbs. Otherwise enjoy a few pictures below while you continue to wait for the oversharing that is this blog and as always….

Have a magical day.

The above photos are from our time in Chicago. The first two photos are of Julia at the American Society of Clinical Ontologies annual meeting. The third photo is at an all time favorite restaurant of Julia’s Nandos. The last two are of cancer friends we got to hang out with in real life!

After Chicago Julia attended Camp Breasties. A weekend for young adults affected by breast or gynecologic cancers. The first two photos are of Julia with her dear friends Alex and El. The third photo is Julia with all of the other IBC patients. The last photo is of Julia’s whole cabin before heading to the final night’s party called the Breastival.

Post camp Julia headed to Jersey City to spend the night at El’s place for her birthday! The next day El, Alex and Julia spent in Central Park exploring with El’s dog Ringo.

Mitch and Julia were then reunited in New York City! They got to see Cabaret, had a fancy dinner at Michelin Star restaurant the Modern, and saw the Empire State Building. The second to last photo is of Julia with her dear mentors from SHARE cancer support Christine and Marjorie. They showed her the SHARE offices and then took her to a real NYC lunch.

After NYC Julia headed to a AYA cancer adventure camp put on by First Descents. This camp was a week long Kayak/rafting camp located in Hood River Oregon. Julia connected with 9 other young adult cancer survivors. She went for 3 “swims” as she learned is the term for falling in the water on the river and had a blast with her new friends or the HAGS. (Which stands for Have A Great Summer).

After her first descents trip Mitch and Julia were re-united in Omaha. They then continued on to Colorado, taking the time to not do much besides resting and getting caught back up on adult tasks. In the second photo you can see the boss Penelope in the background writing out Mitch’s performance review. He was docked points for not enough play time in the hot tub.

Feeling rested the Laursen family headed on to three days of travel back to Hood River. This included a stop over in Boise Idaho where Julia and Mitch re-connected with another cancer friend, Tamika. Tamika took them down “freak alley” which is full of beautiful art!

After their three day voyage Mitch, Julia, and Oliver arrived in Hood River where they volunteered at the 19th annual Kiteboard for Cancer event. This is Project Koru’s biggest fundraiser of the year. While it was extremely hot, 100+ degrees, but that didn’t stop them from helping and having fun with her Project Koru family. Project Koru is extremely special to Julia and always accepting donations to send other young adult cancer patients on adventure trips to connect and heal post cancer.

After KB4C they headed on to Portland. Mitch got to spend alot of time with his best friend Glen while Julia mostly nursed a concussion received the weekend prior (a story for another day). Julia and Mitch toured a submarine which was a highlight for the NCIS loving Julia who wouldn’t stop humming the theme song or repeating back Gibbs rules 100 times.

And finally to close out this recap of only our first few stops, we have Oliver’s contributions. He’s absolutely thrived as a nomad, enjoying every spot we’ve gone to and being the best of boys.