November 2008 Archives

Well it's that time again... Spur of the moment vacation time!!!!

My last final is on Nov 14th, but we don't fly to Hawaii until Dec. 4th, so... that gives us about two weeks to go see something new!

We gave notice to our landlord that we're moving out on the 16th, and two days ago we started planning a 'see as much of Australia as we can in two weeks' adventure.

Planning has gone well, and I have to admit that I'm a bit surprised at how quick we whipped up these plans. Two days ago we had nothing, today we have 4 one-way plane tickets (involving 6 cities) booked, rental cars reserved in two different cities, and five of our nine hotels booked!

So... Our plan? I made up a map that pretty much sums it up. Green lines represent flights, blue lines represent driving, the plan is described on the left. If you click on the light blue regions (on the map, or on the left hand side) the pop up bubble will give a link to a more detailed map of our driving plans for that region.

We leave on the 17th, so that gives us a short eleven days to study for my finals, sell our stuff, and pack up and move out. I guess I missed the hectic days of a few weeks ago, so I decided to recreate them!

Tonight is our last night in our Maroubra flat. We have to pack up and be out by tomorrow night, and then the following morning we fly out of Sydney for our two week tour of Australia. We have only barely started packing, so tomorrow should be an insanely busy day.

My last final was yesterday, so now I'm officially done with school. I should get my results in the next few weeks, and then (assuming I did ok on my finals) I'll have a Masters degree!

Jessica is 8.5 weeks old now and is doing very well. She's been a bit grumpy the last few days, but it's easy to overlook because she is so dang cute! I absolutely love the whole daddy experience, far more than I expected to.

This month marks Less Than Me's 5th birthday. These last 5 years have been a fun/crazy ride that wildly outstripped my expectations. Hawaii, Europe, Australia, a Masters degree, and a wonderful little baby girl. Wow!

I suspect the next 5 years won't be as wild and exciting, but I'm fine with that. The goals/dreams I have now don't really fall into the adventuresome category: find a job that I love, be a great dad for Jessica (and her sibling, if one arrives), continue my programming studies (this time on my own), get involved in volunteer work, try my hand at home brewing beer. (Ok, that last one sounds adventuresome!)

In the short term, these next few months should be interesting. It feels a bit like we just hit the reset button on our lives. No jobs, no money, no home, no car, no solid plans... We get to build it all back up from scratch in whichever way we'd like. I suppose that should sound like a lot of work to me, but it doesn't... it just sounds fun.

So, here's to the next five years, may they be as fulfilling as the last five...