Okay, wow, time has flown! I may have to change the title of my blog, because life has been actually pretty exciting lately. Here's a quick rundown of our non-boring lives lately:
1. We are moving! Only one mile, mind you, but we are moving! Our landlords decided to raise the rent for this fall, and while we don't hate our current place, it just seemed like we could get a much better value elsewhere. So we started apartment hunting. It wasn't easy, because we were looking for a place with *more* space and most of the1 bedroom apartments around here are tiny (college town). In fact, a lot of the 2 bedrooom apartments around here are tiny too! We started feeling like maybe our apartment wasn't so overpriced after all and maybe we would just stay...
Then we found an apartment that was *really* nice--newly remodeled, had a dishwasher, nice tile floors, granite counter in the bathroom, etc. It was smaller than our current place, but it had a carport and the lady was going to let us store some of our stuff in the basement. And it was cheaper than our current place (so definitely cheaper than our current place would be in the fall). The only problem: she was trying to lease it *now*, not in August. We started considering subletting our apartment and moving right away. I put our apartment up on craigslist to see if we'd get any response. We got one guy who was pretty interested, so we told the lady we wanted to sign the lease. "Oh," she said. "Someone else just signed it today." Doh. (So, Amers, I can empathasize with a small part of your recent house-hunting frustrations!)
We were back to square one. We thought we'd probably just stay here after all. Then, Kevin got really interested in a duplex up on craigslist. This one was also trying to lease in April and not August, but since we previously had opened our minds to the possibility of subletting, we decided to look into it. We went and saw it, and we LOVED it. It has 2 bedrooms, a FULL (unfinished) basement with a washer/dryer (heaven!!) and a nice little yard with a garden. The price is very reasonable--higher than we would be paying in the fall, but we felt like it was a much better value. So we did it! We signed the lease. And, we found a subletter too! She's signed her sublease. So now, all we have to do is move, which we're doing in less than 2 weeks. Craziness!
2. My little brother is going to take my family (parents, siblings, and spouses) on a trip to Mexico (Cozumel, which is close to Cancun.) He works for Epic games and just got a giant, humongous bonus for this game he worked on (Gears of War 2), and he insisted he wanted to spend some of it in this way. It turns out direct flight tickets from Chicago to Cancun cost less than $300!! That's cheaper than flying home to New Mexico usually. We're all going to stay in this big beachhouse that Matthew's renting. We leave at the end of May--awesome!!
3. And...I'm going to Ireland in June! I know, I know--it's right after Mexico. I'm going to be a world-class traveler! Kevin got a paper accepted into this prestigious conference in Ireland, and I decided to come with him. My reasons were the same as when I went with him to Germany--the hotel and Kevin's plane ticket are already paid for by Purdue, so it will cost a lot less for me to tag along than it would if we just both up and went for fun. We don't have any kids yet and that probably won't be the case for much longer (I said that 2 years ago too...hmm....hopefully it's much truer this time), so it was the chance of a lifetime. Well, twice in a lifetime apparently. I'm way excited about it, but I actually feel kind of guilty about it too. I mean, I have been so blessed to go on so many amazing trips lately--Germany, Hawaii, now Mexico and Ireland. It's really not fair that I get to do this many and lots of people haven't been on any. And even though it's a great deal to go to Ireland without having to foot the whole bill, it still will cost a good chunk of money for the part I do have to pay for. It's not that we can't afford it, but it somehow feels...frivilous maybe? But then again, we really won't have these opportunities forever. And I really have treasured the memories of our previous trips. I never ever would have ever imagined myself going to these places--when I was younger I just never saw myself as the traveling type. But when opportunity knocks, how can I not answer?
4 comments:
It's SOOO worth it to travel before you have kids. I'm not saying you should PUT OFF kids so you can travel, (I'm sure you aren't doing that) but it's so much easier without kids. Or a dog.
Enjoy every green minute!! We'll need another travel log like before.
WOOHOO!! for the duplex! Doing laundry in my own domicile changed my life. ;-) I know you will love it! I'm so excited for you.
And how AWESOME to go on these trips! Yes, you should go and NOT feel guilty that you get to while other people don't. Alicia's right; it is almost impossible to travel much with kids (that said, she just went to L.A. and Vegas with a baby, according to her blog). (Then again, that didn't sound terribly relaxing or fun.) Here's the condition of your trips, though: that you write them up on your blog so those of us who are homebound can read them! ("Homebound" is not true, either, though; I'm going to NM this weekend and have tentative plans to go to California and maybe even Chicago this spring/summer).
And don't think of them as "frivolous." You need good experiences to make memories to have for later. Besides, Matthew's paying for a bunch of the Mexico trip (that's SO nice of him!) and you ought to spend time with your family, and Kevin has to go to Ireland anyway! GO and HAVE FUN and WRITE US NICE TRAVEL LOGS! ;-)
UUUmmmmmm. TOTALLY AWESOME!!! Your new place sounds GREAT. Sorry you've been through your own version of my story lately but I'm so glad that it has all worked out quicker for you. It really sounds amazing.
WOAH. That is one SAH-WEEEET bonus. I thought it was great when a parent bought me $25 worth of books at our book fair tonight. MEXICO??? I'm going to have to talk to my brother about getting a better job. *grin*
Anyway, I'm so excited for you and please, please, please take logs of pictures and post lots. I LOVE living vicariously through you.
Amen to the traveling with kids part. Katelyn is a pretty good traveler but even then just having her DOUBLES the amount of STUFF we have to take! So don't feel at all guilty. You just seize these moments and revel in them. And then when you are home bound and rocking your babies you can dream about them. Speaking of trips, my in-laws were called to serve as record-preservationists in the Washington D.C. mission so we'll be going next year. Do you have tips for me on what would be MOST AMAZING to do or see there?
YEY! I'm so happy that you have such fun, exciting things going on! I can't wait to hear all about them!
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