A Long-Overdue Honeymoon Seeking Our Heritage

Jim Schmiedecke Start Date: Apr 2, 2025 - End Date: Oct 1, 2025
  • Ireland
  • Scotland, United Kingdom

My Travel Story

by: Jim Schmiedecke Start Date: Apr 2, 2025 - End Date: Oct 1, 2025
Honoring 33 Years of Love, Sacrifice, and Heritage

Hello friends, family, and kind-hearted strangers—

My name is Jim, and my wife Della and I just celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary. I’m a retired Marine Corps veteran, 100% disabled from chronic spine pain from injuries sustained during my service. Over the years, our life has been one of movement, sacrifice, and deep commitment—not just to our country, but to each other.

We’ve raised eight incredible children together. Yet throughout all my deployments and relocations—from base to base across the U.S. and Okinawa, Japan—Della carried the weight of our family on her own. She has been the steady rock, the silent hero behind every milestone. While I was serving, she was serving our children. She never once wavered.

And yet, through all of this, we’ve never had a honeymoon. Not even a real trip together—just the two of us.

For decades, we promised each other that we’d go to Ireland and Scotland—first on our 10th anniversary, then our 20th… now here we are, 33 years later, still holding onto that dream.

  • Ireland
  • Scotland, United Kingdom