Moving forward...

We are moving back to Oregon later this month. Yes, Austin is quitting (he put his two weeks in today). We are going back to school (BYU Idaho) aiming for a start date of January if we can get our application in on time, but if not, we will for sure start in April. Yes, we are crazy nervous/excited/disappointed/relieved but we know without a shadow of a doubt that we are doing the right thing.

Late one night after Maisie was asleep and the house was quiet, Austin and I were sitting across from each other at the dining room table. I was drinking some tea as Austin started to talk about work. Things he was excited about, things that needed to change, just talking candidly about how work was going. I tried to stay quiet to just listen, but when he paused I felt compeled to ask "Even if you had your dream position within the company and money wasn't something we had to worry about anymore, is this something you would want to do for the long haul?" Austin thought about it for a few seconds before he answered "No." We looked at each other and asked
"so, what do we do now?"

So we talked about what our dreams are. Where we saw ourselves, where we wanted to be and instead of saying that it was unrealistic, difficult or even crazy, we, for the first time ever said, 

let's make it happen.

We always seemed to have some sort of an excuse to not follow our original plan because of that little surprise of getting pregnant two months after getting married. I am ashamed that we even used that as an excuse because really, now that we have a kid, its only more of a reason to follow our dreams. We are her examples and greatest influence, so how are we to ever hope that Maisie follow her dreams if we never followed ours?  Regardless of age, economical status, amount of children we can always start over and try again. Not that it won't be without struggle or difficulties because we obviously know the path we have chosen will be an uphill hike and if after reevaluating, we decide to step off that path and take another one, then so be it. We just know we will always be moving forward. No more getting "stuck" and wishing for a different outcome.

We don't regret moving to California whatsoever. This has been such a fun, challenging yet rewarding year for us and there's a big part of me thats terribly sad to leave (mainly because of friendships, sunshine and all the fun things to do here). But now that we have had our wake up call and are getting our priorities in line, we are ready to take a huge leap of faith and seek the achievements that will bring us long term happiness.

Heres to making life altering decisions and making them sooner than later. Cheers to a few more weeks in sunny California that we plan on filling with fun activities with our friends. Oh.. and a few more French cooking classes from our neighbor/friend/chef/personal trainer
(yes, he really does it all).