Most of you reading this blog know me personally, some of you know my husband and/or kids too.
With the advent of facebook it may be more accurate to say that some of you knew me many years ago or some of you know my husband but by the graces of the internet you have come to know me (at least virtually anyway) over the past few years.
I figure no matter how well you know us, a little background info might be helpful to catch you up to speed on our lives. Who are we? Where have we been? Where we are going and why... I will do my best to be concise. I would hate to think anybody is thinking "who cares" as they read what I've written. I just want the reader to feel in the fold of our family. After all, we've given you an open invite to peek in on us whenever you want with access to this blog, right?
As soon as I graduated from college (literally I think it was like the same day) I scored a flight attendant interview with a major airline. I didn't even really want to be a flight attendant. Well, that's not entirely true. Let me rephrase: it had never crossed my mind to even consider becoming a flight attendant for a single second before this interview was offered to me from out of nowhere. Talk about fate, right? It sounded just crazy enough that I had to do it. I took a huge leap of faith and started my flight attending career in the summer of 1999. I was 21 years old.
I was able to see almost every state of these United States as well as much of Europe and South America, Canada, and the Caribbean. And I also had the chance to pick up and move many times too. I moved to New York City with as little as what my roll aboard suitcase could hold. I did have to ship myself a few cardboard boxes via airline freight when I moved to Boston... and then I met my husband and we were able to move with both sets of our entire worldly possessions (not even crammed) in the back of his SUV from Northern Kentucky to Knoxville and back to Cincinnati. Then we got married and bought a house and things got more complicated. Since we've been married we have lived in Tampa, Indianapolis and now in the suburbs of beautiful Portland, Oregon. Cross country moving with kids is hard! (A real pain in the ass.) Now it basically takes an act of congress to accomplish something as trivial as getting the mail so I am really interested to see how this move to Hong Kong will go.
My husband and I have been together over 9 years, married over 6. We were brought together by the hands of fate too but that's kind of a long story. He's a wonderful husband, a super dad and he flies airplanes. He's kind of a big dreaming gypsy type like me. If there is an old folks home located on a space station by the time we're in our golden years we'll go check it out. For sure. We'd at least consider a time share.
We have 2 kids. My daughter was born early in 2006 so she is nearly 4. And my son was born late in 2007 so he's 2. I took a leave from flight attending and have been a stay at home mom since my daughter was born. My 4 year old will be enrolled in school for the fall in Hong Kong and there's a chance we'll find a program at the same school for my son. All of this will be determined later. Figuring school out is like #364 on the list of things to do.
So yeah, Hong Kong. Why not? Originally we were given a spot to move to Paris, France a few years ago and that fell through and we were so bummed! We totally got the taste for what it would be like to live abroad. We considered Hong Kong (as that was the other option) and figured we'd regret it forever if we didn't do it. So we're doing it. And honestly I know there are plenty of reasons why it may not be the wisest decision ever. Uprooting our kids (again), we just got moved to Oregon and bought a house over the summer. The new paint color is barely dry on the living room walls. Since I've been a grown up, I (and then we) have always kind of done things unconventionally. And I like it. Keeps things interesting. I don't like routine. So when given a chance to go and do, you better believe I'm going to go and do whatever it is.
Neither my husband nor I have ever been to any part of Asia. I don't speak or understand a word of Mandarin or Cantonese and can't read a single Chinese character. My untrained ear can't hear the slightest difference between phonetic sounds in any of the Asian languages. The food will probably often frighten me. It's going to be hot, smoggy and crowded. And yet I am so excited! Excited to feel the energy of the city, excited to expose my kids (and myself) to a whole new world of culture, language and food. I am excited for my husband that he gets to do this flying and see all he will see. I am feeling so blessed that we have been given such a great opportunity to learn and grow as a family and as individual human beings. And I am excited to record this diary of our experiences and share them with all of you.
My husband will be our resident photographer. Any photographs you will see on this blog will be his unless noted otherwise. I doubt he's going to write much beyond a caption but he may occasionally have something to share. I'm sure I will contribute pictures with my iPhone too. I will probably write about all of the obvious things like the actual move and getting settled. I'll write about our visits to touristy hot spots of Hong Kong (Disney anyone? Or how about the hugest seated bronze outdoor Buddha statue is the world?). But in the mix of all that stuff you'd expect to see, I'd like to chronicle the things we encounter in our daily routine. I have a feeling that the most mundane things (like grocery shopping or getting my kids signed up for swim lessons) won't be mundane at all. I'm betting they are just stories waiting to be told.
So you, as the reader, will see a mash up. My time with the kids doing daily stuff while my husband has to work, my husband will contribute pictures from wherever he may be, and then we'll report on our adventures as a family too. So here goes nothing. Or should I say here goes everything? Either way, wish us luck!
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