My Secret Unbelievable Summer Vacation

Friends...it's been awhile, hasn't it?  I originally intended to make 2013 a year to jump back into this blog and my writing...which I have always found kinda therapeutic.  But then life got crazy...as it will...as I tried to figure out WHAT is next in my life...and that vision of restarting all of this was just a memory in the rear view mirror of my life.   (SUCH imagery....eh?)

So this summer I took a trip.  It was an epic adventure that I applied for back in January 2013 (audition video at the end of this post), I was offered back in March 2013 and I left for in May 2013.   For awhile I had to be tight-lipped about what it actually was...and then once the I was IN the actual experience and after I got home, I had to be tight-lipped about most of the details of the adventure.    That turns out to be a LOT of tight-lippedness.

Well I am relaunching my writing because finally, after all of this time, I am able to start talking about the experience I had.    This Summer, I was part of a reality TV show filmed in Sweden to be shown on Swedish TV called "Allt för Sverige"  (Everything for Sweden).  The premise of the show is 10 Americans (with Swedish ancestry) are brought to Sweden to travel the country and learn about their family history and their heritage.   There was a competition element, so each week, someone was eliminated from the show, and the ultimate winner got the chance to meet a group of their living Swedish relatives.   The travels and the competitions and the outcomes are all things that I have had to keep silent.   Starting tomorrow in Sweden (and hopefully soon after here in the States on YouTube), the show will begin to air and I can start to talk about the experiences as they happened, episode by episode.

My plan for my blog is to have posts that I will put up after each episode that will talk about them from MY perspective and from the contestants side.   It will include behind-the-scenes antics and information, as well as many of the thousands of pictures I took and haven't really been able to show!   I am excited for you to see Sweden up close and personal from my experiences - both on the show and here as well!

I also wanted to start up the writing again before the show started to air because in the show, you will probably learn things about me that some of us have never talked about before.  Things like:  I stopped drinking Diet Coke over a year ago...and I am just fine.   I sometimes have a slight potty mouth...and Swedish TV doesn't edit that stuff.  (Don't worry - it wasn't anything too bad.)   I do not like seafood...at all...but I was willing to try everything that was given to me in Sweden...because my mama raised me well.   

But beyond those things are 2 bigger ones:  First, I identify myself as a gay guy...and after wrestling with it for 25 years, I started coming out to friends (about 15 years ago) and finally to family (more recently)...and it is something that is a part of my life today.  I am comfortable and open about it, and I don't feel like it is something I have to hide anymore.  That being said, it also isn't something that I identify myself as only...but it is one thing on a long, long list of things that make me me.   Secondly, most of you know I grew up in a good Mormon (Latter-Day Saint) home in Idaho and I served a 2-year Mormon mission for the church.  Well, about 8 years ago, I took a step away from the Church as a whole as I tried to figure out who I was and how I fit into it all.    These are things that are a part of ME - and they are things that I am happy to have a discussion with any and all of you about at anytime.   I'm not sharing them to start arguments with anyone - but I am sharing them because as the show progresses, these 2 things are part of the journey that I take...and I wanted you all to start out on equal footing as far as your understanding about me as you watch.

My life has been full of rich blessings:  incredibly loving and supportive parents, siblings with their families and friends; work and life experiences that have allowed me to see the world, share my talents and make a living; and a loving Heavenly Father who has seen me through even when I didn't know how or why.    This summer vacation was an addition to that long line of blessings I have received in my life - because of what it taught me about myself, my family, my history and my faith.

It is my honor and my privilege to share my journey - through Sweden and through my life - with each of you.   I look forward to the conversations this experience will generate - and I hope that in taking this journey with me, that you find your faith and your life and your journey enhanced and enriched and lifted up in some small way.