We finally reached another milestone, the complete end of travel and the normalizing of life making it a great way to cap off 2015 and start 2016. The past few years have been amazing for us, in a good way, but I’m glad it’s over: for the first time in 37 months, I do not have a flight/trip scheduled or planned, for the first time in 29 months, I know where I will be living and working the following year, and after spending every day with each other for 18 months, Jac and I finally spent a couple days apart when she went to visit her family. I once thought it would be nice to be a traveling sales engineer type guy but I now think the idea is pretty awful. I think too much travel is completely possible.
In a stroke of very good luck, we moved into the neighborhood we lived in previously. In some ways it’s like we never left and in others it’s amazing how much has changed in the last two years. I’m starting to get back into a daily routine of going to work and I have to admit that I am very excited to have coworkers, a desk, and projects to work on. I never would have thought I would have been excited to go to work but I find myself thinking about how great it is to be back in a normal day to day routine.
Unlike conventional wisdom said or what our expectations were, we never really experienced culture shock on our return to the US. I think it was because we were excited to return to the US – we had completed what we set out to do and we had thoroughly enjoyed every moment. Staying outside the US would have simply been filling time.
Since we’ve been back we’ve had a chance to run around the US, enjoy some of our old favorites like hockey, and try some new things like an unseasonably warm winter in Minnesota. We are actively looking for the good food we had overseas and making some of our favorites. Much like books being made into movies, our cooking is similar but just not the same. Good reason to go back and visit our favorite spots again in the future :).
All in all, it’s great to be back. The honeymoon sure hasn’t worn off yet. I put up some photos of the random things and stuff we’ve seen since we’ve been back. We’re happy to be back in the US and we’re happy to be back in Minnesota :).
Enjoy the photos!
Chris W.
