Friday, December 7, 2012

Long Absence

Sorry for the several weeks of silence, but things have gotten so busy since I started my new job. I basically went from having 100% free time to having very little free time. The long and short of it is that I really like what I'm doing, the people I'm working with, and everything else associated with my job. Most days I have at least one moment where I can't believe things worked out the way they did.

We've been really busy at home too. First, we had to finish getting the baby's room ready. Leigh is 38 weeks pregnant now, so the baby could arrive at any time. It's amazing how hard it was to motivate ourselves to do all those last things like pre-washing all the clothes, tethering the furniture to the walls, etc. We still aren't 100% ready, but we are close enough that if the baby were born today we'd be OK for the first several weeks. We even took child birthing and lactation classes. We're still far from being experts, but at least we have an idea of what to expect.


In other news, now that I have a job (YAY!) and the baby is almost here (double yay!), Leigh and I can finally start planning ahead for trips and adventures both in Alaska and outside of Alaska. We have already made firm plans to go to Hawaii in March and Seattle in May. Plus we are brainstorming a Christmas trip to the Washington, DC/Virginia area, maybe a trip to New York to visit her brother and maybe even drop in on my cousins. Looking toward the next 3 years or so we're also talking about checking out a little surfing town near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, going to Europe or the UK, and taking an extended vacation in Southeast Asia.

Our overall goal is to incorporate our 9-5 jobs and family lives into the things we always talk about doing and have loved doing so far. Luckily we already live in an awesome place, so we can spend our weekends snowshoeing and hiking with our little ones. On long weekends and vacations we can check destinations and experiences off our bucket lists and share those moments with our kids. This may sound crazy with a baby, but we always said we would fit our family into the lives we've always dreamed of, rather than setting those dreams aside to live an ordinary family life. The bottom line is that we're not an ordinary family. We love to have unique experiences, travel interesting itineraries, and experience our lives rather than just living them.

OK, Baby Ruby, come on out. We are ready to start the next leg of our adventure!