Wordless Wednesday #2

The kid in you contest!

The folks over at 5minutesformom.com are having another photo contest! This time they are giving away a Wii! The challenge is to show the kid in you. Well, this is my 21 year old sister and my 25 year old self pretending to lick the gigantic Ice cream sundae (made of ice) last Christmas at the Ice exhibition in Orlando. I don't think it gets much more childish than that, although if I was allowed to enter a 2nd photo I do have one of us pretending to be offended by Santa's BO. I guess I'll save that one for the next contest. I hope you get a giggle out of this one.

Why the big move?

There are lots of reasons to go abroad and I thought I would share mine at the request of a reader. In truth, I went kicking and screaming. My whole life I always thought I would end up in the little house with the white picket fence not too far from my parents :D Well, the backstory is that my husband and I graduated university in December were married in May and preggers by July! He had an awesome job in Atlanta and so we moved from Tampa to Atlanta, no big deal. Well, two months after our little princess arrived my husband was let go due to cutbacks. A big blow for newlyweds and new parents who were starting from scratch! My husband frantically began searching for a new job and we were blessed that through a contact at one of his internships in college he flew to Germany for an interview with his present company. He landed the job and I was less than thrilled, but the offer just couldn't be turned down. I kept trying to figure out God's will for us and to seek guidance for what we should do. We had no other offers and our only options were to go live with my parents until we found something, take a huge pay cut for a less prestigous job (an unacceptable consequence to the male ego), or to take this opportunity abroad. So we went much to the despair of my mother. We are very fortunate in that my husband works for an awesome company. The benefits are out of this world and he makes almost 3 times what he was making in the states! The main reason we made the leap was because the money would allow me to stay home with our daughter, and that was one of our top priorities. If you are a young couple just starting out and your hubby is not a doctor or a lawyer you can forget about staying home! My heart just breaks for the mom's that have to leave the children behind to work when they would choose to stay home if they could. When they put my daughter in my arms I just couldn't imagine being parted from her or trusting her care to anyone but me. The longer we are here the benefits just keep coming! They will pay for our children's schooling including the priciest private school on the island, they pay for us to go home once a year, the salary and bonuses are phenominal, and the company is extremely family oriented! They even throw a Christmas party every year just for the employee's children complete with dinner buffet , Santa Clause, and a present for each child suited to their age. On top of that we live in a very safe environment ... People don't lock their doors or their cars, I can go for a walk around my neighborhood at night, I can go shopping and the store clerks will watch my daughter while I shop !!!! I don't have to worry about pedophiles, thieves, rapists, etc... I think they had 1 murder in the entire country last year and it was nowhere near our town! Going abroad is not easy, and should be well thought out and researched. A lot depends on the country that you are going to and the reason for going there. I definitely wouldn't have made the leap if it hadn't been for all the benefits that the company threw at us! My husband and I talked to many people, we even went for "counseling" to help us discuss better his reasons for going and my reasons for staying! At the end of the day I knew that if I denied him this opportunity for the job of a lifetime our entire family would end up paying for it. I also knew that I wanted to stay home with our daughter and this was the only way. In a nutshell, the reasons for going abroad were the same reasons anyone moves anywhere: better education, more money, safe environment, and overall quality of better living, the tradeoff instead of living in the little house with the white picket fence not too far from my family and friends, I live in a little house with a pool 4 km from the mediterranean sea and a very long plane ride away from my family and friends.

Wordless Wednesday

mommy moments

The folks over at 5minutesformom.com are having many mother's day contests and this is my entry for the flash drive. I suggest you pop over there and check it out. I have so many great mommy moments especially since Audrey and I travel so much together.
Last Spring we spent four months in Singapore. Singapore is one of those cities where you either walk everywhere or take a taxi. One day, I walked out of our apartment building with Audrey in tow in her stroller threw up my hand like I had everyday for the last month and hollored TAXI! Then I heard this little voice say Taxi and looked down to see Audrey sitting up as far as she could with her hand way up over her head! To this day, a year later, anytime we are near a street and a car goes whizzing by she sticks her hand up and yells ... TAXI! As soon as she does that I'm transported back to that moment and I can't help but smile!