“We are Living our Adventure”- I look at this “sign” every day while I’m in my kids bathroom and every time I do I chuckle. Are we living an adventure?? Absolutely. Is it the one we imagined and dreamed of? NO. Like most couples before getting married my husband and I used to stay up late and talk about what our life was going to be like.
We were going to stay in the same house forever. Pay it off early and travel with the extra money we would have. We were going to start a family right away and have 2 kids. I would continue to work and they would go to daycare. We would take lots of vacations and we would golf A LOT-ha!
This is what actually happened:
We have managed to move every 2 years. No joke. Even now we still think about moving again. I have no idea why, we always just like to look at houses on the market. It’s a small obsession we both have and it doesn’t help that we can usually convince each other that it’s a GREAT IDEA!
It took over a year for us (I know this is not that long compared to some) to get pregnant with our oldest. I was put on bed rest at 25 weeks and he came 5 weeks early. When he was about 9 months old we made the decision that I would stay home for a little bit but eventually go back to work. I think I made it back to work for about 2 months before finding out I was pregnant with our second. Since I went on bed rest with my first and was having the same issues with her we decided I would stop work at 28 weeks and take at least a year off. If you’re wondering how I was able to do this it’s because I worked for an AMAZING company and had a GREAT boss.
Before I was ready to go back to work after our second we had a couple surprises in our life. First, we found out that our daughter has a very rare genetic condition (so far only around 60 people are known to have it). She has some medical issues because of this that require weekly therapy, orthotics and lots of doctors appointments. Secondly, and probably the biggest “throw us for a loop” thing that happened was I found out I was expecting our third child. To say I was in denial would be an understatement. We needed medical “help” to conceive our first 2 children so the thought of us just randomly getting pregnant did not cross our minds. But it happened. We were both scared, angry and happy all at the same time. We said over and over “this was not supposed to happen”. “This was not in our plans”.
Owen made his debut in July and we officially had 3 kids 3 and under. To say our life was pure chaos would be an understatement. Even now some days I laugh (and cry) at how crazy it really is and wish there was someone video taping it. I shuttle everyone around like a taxi driver to all our various appointments and activities and usually ask myself 1000x times after loading them into the car if story time is really worth the stress to get everyone out the door.
Then a few months ago my sister and I started talking about this crazy idea of starting a blog. At the time we thought we’d focus more on kids clothing but soon realized we like shopping for ourselves WAY more. HAHA! It was definitely something I needed in my life. It has given me so much purpose that for a while I didn’t know I was missing. The best part is the amazing bond that I now have with my sister. I never dreamed of being as close to her as I am now and I am so thankful for it.
I tell you all of this to let you know that it is awesome to dream about the “adventure” you would like to have in life but that it’s okay if it’s not quite the one you had imagined. Every day is a new adventure for our family and we have learned that anything can happen. Our current adventure may not be what we dreamed of but it is definitely ours and we wouldn’t trade it for anything else.
~Julie
