Today we’d like to introduce you to Louise Ponla
Hi Louise, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Well, Gabriel and I met back in February 2022 at our day jobs working in Special Education at a local high school. We became official in March 2022. In our time dating, we’ve done plenty of eating at restaurants, bar hopping, and traveling. We started out small with stay-cations around SoCal and eventually made our travels out of SoCal. 2023 was a big year for us as we traveled out of SoCal. In March 2o23, we celebrated a year of dating by taking our first trip outside of SoCal to Maui! Then in July 2023, we embarked on our first international trip to Japan. Gabe was there primarily for a friend’s wedding and I tagged along a week later as it was a belated birthday gift. However, it didn’t go as planned as my late father unexpectedly passed away.
I owe it to my late father for showing me the beauty in the world. Every summer for the past 24 years, I was truly grateful to have helped my late father in planning our family vacations yearly. This taught me how to plan trips efficiently, whether it’s finding decent flight prices, best places to sightsee, etc. I owe it all to my late father and his love for the world. Some of my favorite vacations included my family’s trip to Europe in 2017 and Maui in 2021.
Together.on.the.go was started as a way for Gabe and I to showcase our love for traveling, while paying homage to my late father and my family’s love for traveling. It’s our way to celebrate his vibrant life, while creating memories to share!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It always hasn’t been a smooth road to say the least. I think our big struggle was just being consistent in posting our content. Mainly due to the fact we work day jobs and currently focusing on furthering ourselves in our chosen career paths. Once we started posting, it didn’t matter to us how many likes we got. Rather, we just wanted to share our adventures with our online community.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Well as previously stated in our story, we both work in Special Education. 🙂
Gabe is a paraeducator for the emotionally disturbed program at our site. At the moment, he is working on becoming an educational specialist for students with mild/moderate disabilities. He just finished his student teaching last semester and now is studying to obtain his credentials. I work as a Speech-Language Pathology Assistant for our site and I oversee our local high school students who have Speech impediments. These students can range from general education,mild-moderate,moderate-severe, and adults. Right now, I’m currently in the process of applying to grad school to become an SLP. 🙂
How does Special Ed relate to what we do on our platform? Well, they bring us joy and fulfill what we do. Though it is two different roles, we still get to fulfill others and be fulfilled ourselves. I believe it’s important to celebrate the little things in life because it helps us see that life has so much to offer.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I think my favorite childhood memory has definitely got to be all the trips I’ve taken with my immediate family. Even though, I didn’t always enjoy it as a child, I look back and have come to appreciate it. This taught me at a young age that experiences are the best memories.
For Gabe, he has two favorite childhood memories. The first memory being that he and his Dad biked over 70 miles. The other being spending time with his two younger brothers playing video games or trading cards.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Personal photo: Cassey and AJ Ver, Instagram: @verthemakers
Instagram: @takomasa_graphy
