Here We Go!

Today is Brent's last day at work until mid December. It's the last full sabbatical he'll ever take. That's one of the things they got rid of this last round of cuts. People, benefits, bonuses, blah, blah blah... and the 8 week sabbatical was a casualty. 

This will be his fourth sabbatical. They are (were) the absolute best perks that Intel offered. A long stretch of time off. Enough to actually disconnect and relax. 

So what are we doing? We keep telling people not much. It's a low key sabbatical. And that's really only because for a lot of people sabbaticals tend to be their long European or Asian adventures. They are gone for 4-6 weeks on big multi country tours. We aren't doing that. We talked about doing that this time the last time we took sabbatical. For our last one we took a lot of couple week trips. We also did our Alaskan cruise, but that ended up being not a sabbatical trip since we had to reschedule the start. But anyway...we had talked about doing to Grand Tour for this one. 

Then we got the cats. And you can't just leave your pets for a month. Even with Katie being able to come stay at the house while we travel we can't really ask her to stay for a month. Or a month all at once. She's going to stay for close to that this time just all pieced together. 

No big Grand Tour, we are doing Christmas Sabbatical instead.

Everything except our first trip is going to have something to do with Christmas. The first trip is to Hawaii (I KNOW you are all shocked) but instead of Maui we are going to the Big Island to do a night time manta ray snorkel. We tried to do this like ten years ago but it was too stormy and our trip was cancelled. So this is the raincheck trip. 

It's interesting in a way...it's been a bucket list item for me for a long time. And when we couldn't do it on that one trip (last night we were in town so we couldn't take them up on a reschedule) we kept saying we would come back and do it. But we really like Maui. And really like going during whale watching season. So it kept getting pushed off to "someday." Finally Brent was like "Okay! Sabbatical, this is now someday" and he booked the time on the Big Island. 

We are scheduled right now to do it the first night we are there. That way if it gets cancelled, or we don't see any rays we can reschedule for one of the other nights. Maximize our chances. But...if we don't see any that's okay too. After getting it all scheduled I realized that Brent and I have already swum with rays. Just in Maui. And during the day. And actually swimming with one. It was amazing. We were out snorkeling off the beach by the hotel and one just swam right under us. We swam along with him for a while until we realized how far out we were getting and turning around to head back to shore. So graceful. The ray, not me. 

But the nighttime snorkel is supposed to be amazing and I'm looking forward to it as well. But also a little not. See, the licensing is awfully lax. And the tourist dollars are awfully fat. So those things have combined over the past ten years to make it an overdone area. We are going out with a reputable company that has done it for a very long time, but even so... If it wasn't something I've wanted to do for ages I probably wouldn't do it. Sort of like the swimming with dolphins. That was a thing I had wanted to do for ages but by the time we could afford to do it I wasn't interested anymore. Captive dolphins for tourists to swim with are sad dolphins. I'd rather see them out in the ocean swimming along side the boat. 

So I'm swimming with the manta rays. And I hope to see a few. And I think it will be wonderful. But if not I won't try to do it again. 

It's not quite guilt about doing it but it's close. If it tipped over to guilt it would be a no go. 

So anyway... the other trips are not nearly as fraught. 

We are going to Michigan. We'll catch a football game and visit with family. Brent's cousin has been battling cancer so it will be good to see her and we might even get to meet the newest first cousin twice removed. Totally understand if Mom and Dad say no to travellers exposed to lots of germs, but we will see. And the Christmas section is a trip to Frankenmuth to the giant Christmas store. 

Then we will go to Disneyland during their Christmastime. We've done it before and it was really lovely. And after that a trip to Leavenworth, Washington to their Christmas village.  And in-between we will see The Hip Hop Nutcracker, and Storm Large's Holiday Ordeal, and Holiday Brass with the Portland Symphony. And this year will for sure be the year we make it to The Grotto.

(it's become a family tradition, saying we will make it to The Grotto and then not actually making it to The Grotto, but this year, for sure this year!)

We will also do some house things like patching nail pops, winterizing the garden, doing some deep cleaning and rearranging, you know the fun stuff...

But sabbatical starts in just a few hours. 

We will squeeze out as much as possible from this one. The last one. 

Enjoy it before we have to miss it. 

Good life lesson, that.