In February 2016, Sandy and I found out that we were going to be parents.  We were excited, nervous, happy, and anxious.  Many times all at once!  Prior to this, we had been planning on traveling to Mexico in the summer for a week.  Now we needed to change those plans due to the harmful effects associated with Zika the further south towards the equator you go.

After doing some searching, an Alaskan cruise presented the best options.  We could still get away for a relaxing trip, but we wouldn't have to worry about Zika.

Below you'll see a review of the trip that we took, along with some highlights about taking a Babymoon.

According to the U.S. Department of State, there were over 18 million passports issued in 2016.  While both my wife and I have a few years to go until we need to get our passports renewed, this spring we applied for a passport for our daughter.  To be honest, we were both teenagers when we first applied for our passports and our parents did all the paperwork.  When it was time for the renewal in our late twenties, it was rather easy.  We were nervous that actually applying for our (young!) child would be confusing and filled with tedious paperwork.

When push came down to shove, it was much easier than we thought.  Here are the steps to take to make applying for your child's passport as pain-free as possible!

1) Figure out when you are going on your trip.  It can take 6-8 weeks to get your passports processed by the government.  Make sure you have enough time.  There are ways to expedite the process incase of emergencies or last minute circumstances, but this can be both expensive and time consuming.