Christmas 2011 Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

What an eventful year 2011 was for our family. With the arrival of our first child last year, we thought that life would only become more predictable, but the Wang family adventures continued into 2011. After working for Twitter for a year as legal council, Tony took a promotion to become General Manager of the UK office. And in May 2011, our family left the comforts of sunny Mountain View, CA for the excitement of vibrant yet gloomy London.
We made house in a small mews house in the heart of Notting Hill. We got around by tube and double decker red buses. We got over our initial sticker shock and learned not to convert pounds to dollars. We picked up British lingo, "That's Brill-i-ant!" We learned to carry an umbrella everywhere, even when there's not a hint of clouds. We made London our home.
Tony
Been focused on setting up the Twitter office in London including hiring and managing. Since arriving, he's had his work cut out for him with all the scandals and events that emerged shortly after and breaking on Twitter. He's been traveling all around Europe speaking at conferences in France, Germany, and Dublin. Most recent highlight, Tony was invited to Buckingham palace in November where he had a chance to meet the Queen, Prince William, and Duchess of Cambridge (Kate).  Melissa was so jealous.
Melissa
Still taking a break from dentistry and enjoying her time at home with Lucas. Although she misses all the motherly conveniences of having a car, Costco, and "super"markets, she's adjusted to the changes here.
Lucas
Lucas has had a blast in London. He loves to go to Hyde Park and chase after the geese and birds. He loves riding the buses and tube and going to museums. He goes to a music class called Monkey Music and an art class once a week. He also loves going to playgroups where he gets to socialize with kids his age. His favorite friends to play with are Connor and Romulus. 
Lucy
Holding down the fort. Melissa's aunt and cousin Diana have lovingly taken Lucy into their home until they return. They're gonna come home to a really spoiled dog!

As for community in London, God has been very faithful to us. We've been going to a church called ChristChurch Mayfair. It's a solid church with committed believers and good fellowship. We've met many of our expat friends through the church with 90 percent of those in our small group from America. Melissa and Lucas have been getting together with other moms and kids at the church on a weekly basis. Also,  Melissa's met other mom's through other kids activities and classes.

We are staying in London this Christmas. It is a beautiful time of year, although cold! We miss everyone back at home and want to wish you a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year. We hope to see you soon!

Love,
Tony, Melissa, Lucas and Lucy

Tony Meets the Queen

Since working at Twitter, Tony has had some of the most amazing experiences including riding helicopters and driving an Audi R8 on a race track. He's also met all kinds of "important" people like CEO's of other companies, Bono, Prime Minister and Governor of London, Peter Michael, and Kanye West. Of course, nothing will top that, living in London, except for the opportunity to meet the Queen. Before we moved here, I even joked that I would only move to London if I got a chance to meet Kate Middleton. Some British advisors asked, "Not sure about that, but how about the Queen?".

A few weeks back Tony received the official invitation from the "Master of the Household" to the Queen inviting him to the Buckingham Palace for a media reception. Tony kindly asked if his wife could also come along, but they said 'no'.

This Monday, Tony went to the reception held for the media at Buckingham Palace. He waited in small groups to meet the Queen. She had people that controlled every part of the meeting including how he would stand and which direction he would face when she came around. Tony was ill-prepared for this meeting. My advice for him was that he should not touch the Queen, unless she extends her hand first. I learned this from watching enough movies. Also, I told him he should address the Queen as "your majesty the Queen" which I learned from watching the Tudors. Luckily, he didn't follow my latter piece of advice. While waiting in line to meet her, he asked the person behind him what he should call her and he said "ma'am". Tony thought he was joking and didn't have time to confirm this as it was his turn next. So without addressing her, he said "nice to meet you". When he came home, I chastised him for not addressing her properly. And after some research, we learned something new. The Queen is addressed as "ma'am" as in "ham".

However, what make me so jealous when he came home was that the entire royal family was there, besides Prince Harry. Tony also got to meet Kate Middleton and Prince William and chatted with them a bit about Prince Williams recent helicopter tour. We didn't know anyone else was going to be at the reception except for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh (her husband). Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were also in attendance but Tony didn't meet them.

Even after meeting all kinds of celebrities and "important" people, Tony is never too impressed. He left the reception early so he could spend time with one of the most important persons in his life, Lucas, before he went to bed.

Since cameras were not allowed, Tony had only an official picture taken with her Majesty. If we get that, I will post it.

Paris, Day 1: Taking the train

Today we took the Eurostar to Paris for the weekend. I've been telling Lucas that we were going to ride a train to Paris for days so he was so excited to finally get to go on the "choo choo".
After a nap at home, we got to the train station. Lucas had a nice lunch on the train followed by a wobbly walk up and down the eurostar with daddy. It was one of the smoothest trips ever and it's great that in just 2.5 hours, we can be in Paris.
Here he is standing so cooperatively in front of the train at St. Pancras station while mommy takes a picture.

A Walk Through Hyde Park

Lucas has been feeling under the weather the last two days and is still sick. He most likely caught the bug that Tony and I both had which included flu like symptoms, a bad sore throat, finishing with a horrible cough that just won't go away. We managed to claim some of the remaining weekend and get some fresh air, while enjoying the last days of fall.

Here are our pictures from today as we walked through Hyde Park:

It's Fall!

The changing of the seasons is something we Californian's don't really get to experience. The trees pretty much look the same year round, green and full, with the exception of a few that will turn brown and drop it's leaves. And when you find that one, you can't help but admire it's beauty. The orange, yellow, red, and brown hues of the beautiful maple tree may be the only signal that it is indeed fall.

This fall, however, is a new experience for me. Everywhere I look, is an indication that winter is soon approaching. Dried leaves line the streets and fill the parks leaving all the trees bare. I love watching the sunshine hit the colored leaves and emit a beautiful radiance. Lets just say, I LOVE fall and it's my favorite season. This year, I finally get my fall experience!

Since we've been back, Lucas and I have enjoyed walking through the parks and playing in the crunchy leaves. Lucas only stops to pull out leaves caught in the wheels of the stroller.  We're having fun!

First Visit Back and Turning 30

We just came back from our first visit back to the States.

It was a little surreal to be leaving London after living there for five months and return to life stateside. It's like being thrust from a Charles Dickens' novel to the set of "The Hill's". However, I found that things were just the way I left it and after the initial reintroduction to LA traffic, freeways, super chain grocery stores, and hot weather, I was home again.

I was tempted to compare life in London to the states, since it is so different. Life, overall, is easier in the States, with convenience written all over it. However, I did appreciate having a local market right outside my house and being able to walk 10 minutes to a park without driving as some of the things I missed about London while home.

Visiting Home
It was wonderful to be home with family and friends and surrounded by so many people. While in Los Angeles, Lucas had fun with Mochi (mel's dad's dog) and spending time with Poh Poh (mel's mother) and Gung Gung (mel's father) and his cousins. He also got to finally play with "Mei Mei" (Cousin Kaitlyn) after seeing only her picture on Gung Gung's iphone. I'm not entirely sure why, but Lucas has an affinity to younger babies, especially girls. He has a very nurturing quality about him.

While in LA, we prepared for Raymond's wedding and spent a lot of time with family as well as for wedding events. We had a wonderful time at the wedding and meeting Diana's (Raymond's wife) family as well as being a part of the wedding. Tony was a groomsman, I was a bridesmaid, and Lucas was a ring bearer. Lucas did really well, he made it to the end of the isle and back again!

After our trip to Los Angeles, we went up North to our home in Mountain View. Lucas spent time with Na Na (Tony's mother) and Yeh Yeh (Tony's father). He loved spending time with them, singing songs and going to the beach.  Lucas also got to spend time at the local pumpkin patch with his friends Jo jo and Livi while he was there.

Turning 30 
.....was exactly how I wanted to spend it. After an eventful week in LA, I spent the week before my birthday back in Mountain View. I got to see many dear friends and family. Since we ended up booking our flight on my actual birthday, I made sure I had a chance to ring in 30 properly. The weekend before I left, I met one of my best friends Esther in Vegas while Tony and his parents lovingly helped care for Lucas and also while mommy got to live up her last days as a twenty something. We had a blast! (i'll leave it at that ;) )
After returning home, we had dinner with the family for my birthday before we left. Kathryn (my sister in law) made my favorite, prime rib. Then, thinking the celebrations were over, my husband did the unthinkable. Tony planned a surprise party on the day we arrived back in London soon after getting off a transatlantic international flight with a toddler. I was thrashed....but so happy to see my small group. It was such a wonderful welcome back to London, especially after being back in the states and already missing my family and friends.

So here we are, back in London. Back in gloomy, coOold London to be exact. But it's good to be 'home'. =)

#LondonRiots

Living in London for two months was enough to call it my home. So when the riots hit, I had a mix of emotions. Anger directed towards the ignorant youth attacking, looting and burning down "my" city, sadness for the shop keepers who's stores and livelihoods were destroyed, grief for those who lost their lives, frustration with the met police and government who didn't seem to be responding quickly enough, and fear that the riots would come to our neighborhood.

It seemed to be so surreal that it was even happening. But, on day three, when some rioters came to our neighborhood, it really hit home. That evening near midnight I got a text from a friend telling me to check Twitter, she said "bad things are happening around your home". Immediately I searched for our streets and Twitter told me that just two blocks away there was a car on fire, a Michelin star restaurant got robbed, and further down our street, a posh store was being broken into.

Lucas was fast asleep while Tony and I were in our rooms glued to our phones, following minute by minute updates of the riots on Twitter. All we could hear was the sound of sirens every few minutes. And just to be safe, I packed a duffel bag with a days worth of clothes and our valuables. It was a possibility that our place could have been burned down since we shared a building with a storefront on a main street.

Finally, after getting to sleep, we woke up the next morning, thankful that it was morning because the looters only came out at night. Tony cancelled his meeting to stay home to make sure we were okay and to walk around the neighborhood and help with any clean-up necessarily. Luckily, our neighborhood wasn't hit too bad in terms of damage. Just some cracked windows but no broken glass.

Lastly, one breakthrough for us during the riots was that I really had my "Twitter moment". I always knew that Twitter was great for minute by minute updates about news but never had it applied so personally to me before. I felt that the tweets that were posted by our community were my eyes and ears outside our home. I could know exactly how far they were from our place and in many aspects, feel safer because of this knowledge.

Car's Promotion

Lucas and Tony spent the day together, hitting up Westfield mall and got to take part in the Car's promotion. Lucas loves to spend time with daddy.

Majorca, Spain

We heard so many things about Majorca from others...as THE destination for sun, surf, sand. As the main island of the Balearic islands, it sits just off the coast of Spain and is a popular holiday destination for Europeans, especially Germans. With our favorite destination on the other side of the globe, Hawaii, this seemed like a good alternative.
We stayed in Alcudia, located on the Northern side of the island at a family friendly resort called Viva Tropic. I chose this hotel specifically for the kids pirate ship that was advertised. It's an amazing pirate ship with three different slides that branch off of it into a splash pool. All I could think of was how Lucas was going to love it! *more on that later

Alcudia, itself, was a quiet town with small stores and a small main street. It has a port and right next to it is a harbor area with a nice sandy beach. The sea in the inlet was completely still except for small ripples and only came up to our knees for many meters ahead. During the day the beach was packed with beach umbrellas and German tourists but we mostly went in the morning to avoid the scorching sun and red-faced sun-burned Germans. It is the perfect beach for kids because the water is so calm and still.

Lucas had a wonderful time in Majorca. He loved eating buffets for breakfast and dinner, stuffing his face with watermelon, eggs, sausage, and yogurt. He loved walking by the tourist shops and playing with their sand buckets, and shovels, and balls. Every time we passed by a shop, he's point and say "ball ball". He was happy with the simple things like playing on our hotel room balcony, taking out the pots and pans in our hotel room and littering them everywhere, sitting in the arcade car in the patio, and running around the lobby. He also loved splashing in the water, but didn't want to swim as much after I traumatized him.
Yes, I'm a bad mother. I was so excited about the Pirate ship, I took Lucas on it the first time and for some reason, decided to take him on the tallest slide, which happened to be the steepest and fastest. Of course, Lucas sat on my lap. But as soon as we started going down, I knew this was was going to be trouble. I was going faster than I expected and when we hit the water, both Lucas and I were submerged into the water and his face was completely splashed by the water. I definitely scared him from that incident. Then if that wasn't enough, daddy took him on a smaller slide, which also ended up being pretty fast and 'splash', it happened again. Poor Lucas, after those incidents, he wouldn't go in the water unless he had his arms around us and his legs around our waist. Lets hope he can bounce back and enjoy the water like he use to.

All in all, it was a nice family vacation. Tony and I realized that with young kids, our vacations will definitely be different until they are much older. Vacations will no longer center around what we want to do but what our kids can handle. If it were up to us, we would be scooter-ing around the island, hiking the mountains, and jumping off rocks and piers. But instead, we have to cater to nap times, sitting down to eat, and making sure Lucas has fun 'his' way. Because, if Lucas has fun, we have fun.

Two Month Mark

We've officially reached our two month mark as expats in London. Our shipments have arrived and we've unpacked almost all the boxes. Everything is put away in their respective areas and our mews house is starting to feel like 'home'!
Not only are we completely physically 'moved-in' to London, but emotionally and mentally. No longer does this feel like just a long vacation, but we're slowly building a community here. From the familiar faces we see each week, they give us a sense of normalcy. We are especially thankful to God for the prayers that have been answered in such a short period of time. Before moving out, we knew that finding a good church and community of fellow believers were important. And since moving out here, we've found a wonderful small church called Christchurch Mayfair with solid Bible teaching and warm and welcoming community. We couldn't have felt more welcomed during our first visit to the church. Since then, we also have plugged into a small group in our area that surprisingly is mostly a group of expats, mostly couples and young families from all over the states. We've gotten together with a few of the couples for meals and it's been nice to talk to them about their experience here. We all have the common bond of raising our families or working in London.

Feeding swan at the Round Pond, Hyde Park.
Hyde Park is Lucas' favorite park and we're lucky it's so close.

It's funny how far I've come to accept moving to London. At first I really had a hard time coming to terms with it. I knew i wanted to support Tony and his career but at the same time, wanted to have stability and consistency. So despite all my preconceived notions of London, I am grateful for this chance to live in another country. And am especially thankful to God and His faithfulness for watching over us and providing all the ways we need. I still miss my family and friends, but I am also enjoying my time here and looooooving London. =)

Nice, France

After spending the first several weeks unpacking and settling in, we were ready to take our first trip to Nice, France. After all, we thought it'd be nice to take Tony's parents somewhere other than London before they returned home.
I'll have to start by saying that the most memorable part of the trip was the journey to get to Nice. Usually it takes about two hours by plane to get there, but we took a little 10 hour detour. After missing our flight (due to a combination of several factors), we had to book an entirely new flight to Pisa because the next available flight to Nice was in two days. So after flying to Pisa, we spent the whole day catching trains, three in all. I think the in-laws will permanently be scarred by PTSD suffered from catching trains at the last minute.

No sand, just rocks.

With that said, we had a beautiful time in Nice. We felt the warmth of the sun just after stepping off the plane, something we hadn't experienced for a week or so in London. It was a nice contrast to be in hot weather and be able to don our sandals and shorts. We mostly spent our days in leisure, walking along the Cote d'Azur (coast), swimming in the ocean, and eating delicious seafood and gelato. This is the life!

Lucas loves spending time with NiNi and YehYeh

Just Another Day

We had a lazy morning today. For some reason I was particularly tired today, even though i had about eight hours of sleep. My body just felt exhausted, as if I spent yesterday running a marathon. Probably a combination of all the walking I’ve been doing, carrying Lucas up and down our four-story mews, and lugging heavy groceries home. I’ve been forced to adopt a much more active lifestyle than I’ve ever been use to. I’m sure my body will adjust in no time, but for now, I’d much rather lie in bed.
After our lazy morning, we went to Chinatown to take my mil to lunch and also for the purpose of getting a rice cooker. I couldn’t find a rice cooker that suited my tastes at the home appliance stores in my area so I went all the way to Chinatown. I guess that says something about how serious I am about my rice. Luckily, we found a Chinese market with a ricecooker that ‘looked’ like the one I have at home. Hopefully it works just as well.

Lucas wandering around the storefronts of Chinatown.

"Hello, nice to finally meet you London rain."

I guess I can consider myself lucky if I had been in London for ten days (including our house hunting trip) and haven’t experienced the much talked about rain until now. So today I officially met London rain. I’m not sure if he will be a very good friend of mine. He definitely isn’t fun to be around. I mostly stayed indoors, took Lucas to Whitely’s, an indoor mall about 10 minutes walk from our place. It does not compare to Valley Fair, San Jose. It is much smaller, but anything indoors is a great alternative when it rains. I also had to run an errand in the rain, until I bought an umbrella. I guess I didn’t realize how serious LR was before coming here or else I would have packed it. However, I did pack a BOB weather proof cover for our BOB stroller. It’s in the sea shipment and I can’t wait to use it!

I just hope life doesn’t stop here when LR visits like it normally does in Cali. If so, I’m gonna have a long Winter waiting for me.

"Free Admission"

Lucas at the children's play area at the London Science Museum

I love seeing those words as I walk into a grand, stately museum or a majestic, walled garden. It seems like London really knows how to welcome it’s visitors. Although everything else is expensive, you can enjoy its attractions for little to nothing.
Today I took Lucas to the Science Museum in South Kensington. They have a wonderful hands-on child’s play area downstairs with all sorts of gadgets. The best part was an indoor water gadget where Lucas got to test all the physics of how water moves. They even have little colorful waterproof aprons for the kids to wear so they can really get their hands, and more, wet!

Day Five

It was yet another beautiful day here in London, sunny, a little breezy, in the 70′s. My mother in law came into town yesterday to help with our move, and at just the right time. Tony left for his first business trip after moving here, some tech summit in Paris hosted by Nicolas Sarkozy. Although Paris ‘use’ to sound far, it’s only a two hour train ride away now.
So today was my first day without Tony, and sorta on my own. I made good use of the weather and spent Lucas’ wake times outside, showing my mil around the various parks in our area. We first went to Kensington Gardens, on the North West corner of Hyde Park. Kensington palace is where Princess Diana lived before she passed away. There is a large children’s park built in memory of her. We checked it out last weekend but unlike a few days ago, it was much nicer without the weekend crowd. They have all sorts of play areas including the typical swings and slides, little wooden play houses, and they have a little water park. But the main attraction is the PIRATE SHIP! You can hear kids running around on the ship playing pretend pirates. It’s very cute! And the famous Peter Pan statue is nearby. The best part is that admission is “FREE”, all you need to do is show proof of child. =)
After Lucas’ afternoon nap, we took a five minute bus ride to Holland Park. I had no idea what to expect there since i wanted to just go explore. But when i got there, I was so amazed at how beautiful this park was. It reminded me of Descanso Gardens in La Canada but the difference was that admission again was free! It amazed me how lucky I was to be living near such a beautiful park. This park was different from Hyde Park, it has a lot more trees AND it has animals, Lucas’ favorite! He got to see real pigs, ducks, fish, and a peacock that tried to attack him. Every time we tried to take him away from what he was seeing, he’d cry in protest.

Kyoto Garden at Holland Park

Lucas sees a peacock for the first time. The peacock felt threatened with Lucas being so close it almost spread his wings.

I’m convinced after this week that God knew best when we were deciding on homes to rent. We didn’t get our first choice but location wise, living in Notting Hill was the best decision for our family. I love how convenient it is to just walk down the street and pick up some groceries, or to have a nibble and return home in a few minutes. I thought i’d miss my car much muCH MUCH more too, but really, it’s not bad. Also, i think i’m starting to familiarize myself with the bus lines and locations and London is slowly starting to feel smaller and smaller.

Officially Expats

The last three days have been pretty eventful. We finished throwing everything into our suitcases and tried to pack as much as we could all that remained at home into boxes, said our good byes to friends and family, took a 10 hour red eye flight to London with little Lucas, got the keys to our new home, when we got to our new home tried to figure out all the different switches here, and then finally got a Vodafone usb drive to temporarily get on the internet before we establish our wifi connection. The last thing really felt like the most important thing that could help us feel connected and also be able to look up information. We are now working on getting a cell phone, because really, we can’t do much without that.

Phew! I’m just thankful to have made it here. Lucas did really well on the plane, mostly because we let him sleep on the floor since we scored the bulkhead. Tony layered about four blankets including our jackets for our little prince. He was comfortable as can be although i had to scoot him back onto his sleeping pad since every so often he’d move off his pad. Once here, we were greeted by our wonderful taxi driver, Peter, who we met the last time we were in London for our reconnaissance trip. He is now our designated airport drop off/pick up person. It was nice to see a familiar face!

After picking up the keys to our new home and getting dropped off there, the fun began. Just figuring out all the little switches took some time. All i wanted to do after arriving was to shower, eat, and sleep. Couldn’t do anything really yet until we figured how to turn on the hot water and the fridge, it was not intuitive. Lets just say that it took us a few hours and a trip to our rental agency since we didn’t have a phone.

The first day we arrived, we got to do some exploring of our new neighborhood. I’m really happy we ended up here in Notting Hill. It is really kid friendly and accessible to almost everything! And, loving our new place.

Will be posting pics as soon as our things arrive. =)

Bare Bones

It’s nice to feel what it feels like to live with less material things, even if it’s just for a few weeks. I have less dishes to wash, less clothes to fold, less toys to put away, and no rugs to vacuum. And, Lucy can chase after her ball which bounces and bounces since there is nothing in it’s course. Lucas also gets the freedom of walking around everywhere, even pulling open drawers that now sit empty.

Last Monday the movers came, and all three of them packed and inventoried everything. It took a good 7 hours for them to complete the work. But when they were done, they had nearly filledthe medium sized orange truck they brought.

I felt like a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders knowing that the big part was done. All we have left is basically what we will take with us on the plane. And I assure you, is still a lot.

So five more days till the big move into our new home in Notting Hill. Gonna really miss my home here and my friends and family.

The Packing Begins

I packed my first three boxes today! After a wonderful week of saying good-bye to family and friends in Los Angeles, I came back ready to face the task of preparing for our international move. This is no easy task, but a daunting one. I have three categories: the must-have-move-to-London group, the keep-at-home-storage group, and the ‘freecycle’ give away group. It doesn’t seem like much work since we will be moving to a furnished home, but after living in a home for three years, things pile up. I guess the good thing about moving around often is that I have many opportunities to purge my things. Sadly, I still haven’t unpacked many of my boxes from my move from LA to the bay area when I got married. My dental articulator from dental school is sitting somewhere in my shed, same with old expired composite and etchant material.

We will be moving in about three weeks from now and the clock is ticking. Funny thing is that i still feel like i have a lot of time. Someone needs to kick me in the butt to go into high gear!

A New Impression

About six years ago I went to London. My first impression of it was not very good. My friends and I arrived to a crowded, smelly airport and took the tube to our small dingy hostel. After we arrived, we walked around aimlessly through the streets looking for an affordable restaurant. Without any luck, we settled for sandwiches from a convenience store and enjoyed them on a bench in an empty park. The next day, we were off to Europe to begin our tour. That was the last of London I would ever see…..so I thought.

So with my husband’s job relocation, I certainly wasn’t too excited about moving to London. However, after our five day reconnasaince trip from April 7-12, it’s left a different impression on me. I’m actually excited to return!

My thoughts on London now:

-Sizeable taxis large enough to fit a stroller

-Food is actually decent, don’t listen to the rumors. We had good Korean and Japanese food!

-Clean streets and beautiful parks. There are so many places I can take Lucas to visit.

-Beautiful buildings

-Nice British people especially the doorman, Jim, who we met at the Atheneaum Hotel where we stayed

-Not ‘always’ gloomy and foggy. I saw that it was possible to have nice, sunny, and warm weather with temps at 60-70 while we were there.
Well, I guess that’s a start. At least London and I were able to start on a new foot. I hope we can be good friends in the next year. I will really miss my dear sunny California.

Officially Becoming a Full-time SAHM

This was not an easy decision. As a child, I had always looked up to my mother, a full-time homemaker. I loved watching and helping her cook, and helping her whenever she let me. I always thought I was lucky that my mom was always there to pick me up from school and cook a healthy meal for dinner, everyday. Of course in my early years, I thought that this was just the norm, that everyone’s mom stayed at home. However, these days, it is far from the norm.

Today women are more highly educated today and have very high paying successful careers. And the women who choose to have children, they are expected to return to work after a “generous” maternity policy of three months.

Anyhow, being a dentist, I have a pretty flexible job. I could work part-time, either 2x/week or 3x/week. So when I was deciding to go completely full-time, it wasn’t an easy decision. It would be easy to do both, yes, work and be a mother. But I had to really grapple with that, did I want to do both? It felt easier to work part-time so that I wouldn’t really have to give it all up. I think THAT was the hard part, knowing I was giving it up, at least for now. Even writing this is hard.

But, I think the reasons I wanted to keep working weren’t strong enough, there wasn’t a ‘good’ reason. I don’t need it for financial or emotional reasons. And I definitely see more purpose in my role as a mother. As far as I know, there was never a shortage of dentists in California.

So I did it, I ‘inactivated’ my license today.

I know my identity can’t come from my career as much as my education has been a defining part of me. Now, my main role and task in life is to focus on my family. I’d be definitely happier focusing on one aspect. I give props to all the other SAHM’s out there, it’s not glamorous or easy, but the day-to-day toils will make a difference in the long run.

I want to thank my husband for completely supporting whichever decision I made, for my parents for supporting me all my life to achieve my educational pursuits, and for my fellow colleagues who didn’t look down on me for being a SAHM, but rather blessed my decision. It really meant a lot!

And for those that need to work or decide to work, everyone needs to make their own personal decision to what they think is best for their family. So I just want to bless you in that decision.

Thinking and Praying

So, what would be your first response if your husband came home one day and asked you if you wanted to move to London? I can’t remember what I said but my mouth just dropped and the emotions within me went into panic mode. The questions like “WHY London?”, “How will life be with a one year old?”, “He can’t be serious” spawned within me. First of all, I don’t do well with transitions, especially moving away from family and friends. I did that once after getting married and moving to the bay area, but now there stood the possibility of going further away, and I mean across the North American continent and Atlantic Ocean, not just 300 miles North.
So there is that big part of me that fears the unknown. But there is this smaller part, very small might i point out, that thinks it might be interesting and could be a great experience. Still to think of the magnitude of moving a family to a country I am vaguely familiar with, is scary.

So far, no one knows about this possible move except a few friends, not even my family. I don’t want to worry them until we are 100% sure we are leaving. I hope to write about my journey in London, if it happens, on this blog and also chronicle the months before.

Please pray for us, if you’re out there. =)