Introducing Sunkissed Wishes Travel

Hello Lovely Readers,

Here I go again. Cross Professional Business Services, or Cross Pro Biz, was supposed to be my last company. The one I could retire from. Having a bookkeeping and accounting company seemed the way to go just a couple of months after I became a widow. We were deep into the pandemic, so I researched what I could comfortably do from home. I knew wedding planning was out of the question, but what else was I qualified to do? I went back to school for a year and earned a vocational accounting certificate at my old community college, relearning the basics and diving into new innovations since I last ran a business. However, I really never had a passion for it. I mean, I like the idea of helping women business owners and all that. I was even flirting with the idea of coaching a couple of years ago, but I could never figure out a niche that would work for me. That was then. 

Then, a couple of months ago, I was scrolling through socials, and I saw an ad about the travel business, and I was like, "Oh my God, yes!" I do love to travel, and I have been in the travel/hospitality business for most of my adult life. Being a travel agent/advisor never dawned on me while I was doing the research in the winter of 2021. I mean, we were deep, deep in COVID, and traveling was not on my radar. But the more I thought about it, the more I researched it, the more I realized that yes, this is something that I can get behind and be passionate about. 

I have always loved to travel, but I just haven't done as much recently. What kinda fired me up was taking my son on a cruise in June 2025. The passion was always there, but I just pushed it down. I lost my glimmer. I finally reawakened it, and I have discovered myself again.

After reminding myself how much I love to travel, how I love all things Disney, and how I really enjoy going to places by myself. I have decided to start a new business all over again from scratch, and follow a long-dormant passion of mine, and make a living doing it. I'm super excited about this new venture!

The name of my travel company is Sunkissed Wishes. The idea is based on pursuing sunny{sunkissed} locations with a bit of Disney whimsy. What are your Sunkissed Wishes? It's my first business that is not named after a family member or myself: Me & My Sis Pet Sit {with my sister, obviously}, A Joyeux Day Weddings & Events {used my mom's middle name of Joy}, C & E Catering & Events {last name initials of my husband and me}, Cross Professional Business Services {my last name}.

I am going to niche down since there are so many options in the travel industry. I decided to focus on: planning Disney Vacations along with trips to Florida & California, plus warm and tropical places in the US, Caribbean, Mexico & Europe, especially island locations.

My ideal clients are solo women and Disney adults. I might full circle it and add honeymoons/destination weddings, but that's a whole market in itself.

In the meantime, I'll be chasing those Sunkissed Wishes...

Stay sunny🌞

Caricture via Chat GPT!

I'm back

Hi lovely readers,

I would like to reintroduce myself. I'm Stephanie Cross, a solo parent, and empty-nester. I currently have a bookkeeping & accounting company, Cross Professional Business Services LLC that I officially started in October 2021. More on that later.

This is my first post since my 5th Anniversary post on April 24, 2010. A Joyeux Blog was about all things weddings in and around Southern California. I had a some regular features: Beverage Monday, Venues of the Southland and Traditions & Superstitions. I might continue with Beverage Monday because it was fun looking for themed drinks. Since I'm no longer a wedding planner I do not get to see many venues anymore so I'll retire that. You can find the ones I featured under the venue tag. Although I've been kicking around an idea for a regular feature on the museums around Southern California. I have been to almost all of them...

Anyways, I shut down my wedding planning business, A Joyeux Day Weddings & Events at the end of 2010. My son was getting to the point where I needed to be with him {drive} to various activities. My husband's career was taking off, and since we were in the same industry, someone needed to be home with our son. 

I also went back to school. I started and stopped going so many times I lost count. I really hated sitting in a classroom. Then by 2010, schools were offering online classes. Finally, technology caught up and I could go to school while sitting at home at my desk, and continue being a stay-at-home mom that has time to volunteer.

I went to a community college for a couple of years and then transferred to an university that offered a Bachelor of Arts degree completely online. Win-win for me! My major was Business Administration. I had already had opened one business, and almost started another one, so I thought that was the best track for me.

About that, my current business is the basically my fourth business. The first time I thought of being a business owner I was in my mid 30's. I was back living with my parents, and my older sister and her son lived there, too. She was, and is really into animals, so I though about starting a pet sitting business with her, Me & My Sis Pet Sit. Now, I had never really thought about being a business owner, none of my immediate family are business owners, so I am not really sure where the initial idea came for this, many years later. I thought that she could be the animal person, and I would take care of the business aspect. When it came to business know-how, I didn't have any at that time. I was a food server and had been doing that for many years. The internet was just taking off, and I was able to do quite a bit of research online. I also took advantage of business classes at the library. We never got it off the ground, and I ended up moving two hours away, taking the knowledge with me. 

My second go around was my wedding business, which this blog was formally named for, A Joyeux Blog. Actually, my wedding planning company was named after my mom. I went with the French spelling of Joyous, because the dot com was taken for A Joyous Day. I officially had it for almost three years, and did weddings on the side without the official name for some time afterwards.

My third attempt was with my husband. I had to write a business plan for an entrepreneur class I was taking, so we followed it and opened a catering & event business. He was the chef, and I did the event planning. We did great for sometime, but only as a side business, he was working as a chef in a sorority house at the time and had weekends off. The company went under and he went back to working weekends, so our little business had to wrap up.

Now, I am the proud of owner of Cross Professional Business Services LLC a bookkeeping & accounting company focused on midlife female entrepreneurs. I am also branching out into helping women start their business.

I started the idea of CrossProBiz in February 2021. In 2019, I was starting to research what would be a viable business to open with my skill set after my son graduated high school in 2022. Then the pandemic happened, and I lost my husband at the end of 2020. I had to figure out what to do while in deep mourning. Fun stuff!! There was a bit of a learning curve since traditional marketing had evolved to mostly social media, and learning what a tech stack is and that, yes I do have one. I gathered all my new found knowledge and a shoestring budget to start Cross Professional Business Services LLC, which I hope is my last business!

Thanks for reading...