Thairrific Times: Milestones!

The last several weeks and months have been a lot of paperwork and planning. Over the last 2 weeks, we've actually achieved some real milestones. As we do at my job, we try to take a timeout and recognize when a milestone is achieved - it motivates for continued hard work and gives a nice break to recognize what has been done.

First milestone: Our house is staged, show ready and has shown twice! I don't know if you appreciate what that means...I equate it to trying to sweep a beach clean of all of its sand. Four small kids and a household to run while trying to make a home look (and STAY) like a model home is almost impossible. Three cheers for us. Actually, three cheers for Candace. She's amazing.

Second milestone: We purchased our tickets to Bangkok. Moses parting the Red Sea is actually the second great miracle. Our tickets is the first. Why? Well, in order to purchase these tickets, the amount of pre-requisites and endorsements is breath taking. I was up late on Tuesday night talking with our exPat Advisor in Bangkok working the final pieces to make it all come together. At the end of the day, we have all of us flying through Portland to visit family one last time, will visit for 2 weeks, and then continue on to Bangkok...and to boot, I saved the company about $1000 vs flying straight to Bangkok.

Third milestone: We're staying sane and making progress. That may not sound like much, but this whole process is genuinely exhausting...much more so than you'd think for a large multi-national company moving us. Basically, they hand us a huge checklist of things to do, an encyclopedia of policies, and encourage us to hurry up and get started. Good thing we're so type A. Lists, tracking, pushing aggressively forward are things that come naturally.

Fourth milestone: We continue to focus on what's important. It is easy to get lost in the stress of what constitutes our daily life right now. Thankfully, both Candace and I actively look to take time out of our schedules to play with the kids, send a quick love note, or go on a family date. If there's anything I've learned thus far, it's that family is what really, really matters...and it's unfortunately way too easy to forget that during huge life changes. That has hit close to home recently.

So we've celebrated our milestones in a few ways. Candace and I went to Utah last weekend and had an amazing time. We saw family, dear friends, and got to say good-bye to my board membership at BYU. We went to a ballroom dance concert (amazing and beautiful in every aspect of the words), went jogging by the river, went out to dinner with a retiring professor, and just had a great time together. It was a welcome, refreshing breath.

Last night, we went out to the movies as a family. We never do that. The kids were so excited all day to be going to the movies (thanks to an uncle and aunt's Christmas present!). We stopped by one of our new favorite BBQ places on the way home and also enjoyed just taking a breath from our marathon.

There's so much more I want to capture about the craziness and learning that goes into this preparatory sprint, but suffice it to say, we're stretching, learning, and growing in ways we have always hoped. God blesses us daily and we feel closer to Him now than ever before.