To work or not to work

For the past month or so Marc and I have been seriously considering my work schedule. There are so many factors involved but basically at my one-year review at work I asked for an increase in pay. The principal at my firm is really nice and has been really flexible with me and my schedule. We talked for 2 hours and basically he said I'm not giving you a raise unless you come back full-time because its really hard when you aren't here every day.

At the time I agreed but as time has gone on the guilt has started to eat me alive. Every time I come home and see Beckett I just feel so sad that I didn't get to spend the day with him. The older he gets the harder it is, because he is now noticing when I leave and he has developed such an adorable personality that its just getting harder for me to leave him. I seriously don't know what to do in this situation. I never thought I would want to stay home but now that he's here I realize how special and fast this time is and I want to soak it up.

There are so many factors holding me back from doing that. First I went to school for 8 years to become an architect and I only have 1 year of experience working in a firm so I'm worried if I try to stay home for 5-10 years and then come back that I will be outdated and with little experience. The second thing is we would have to severely cut our spending. Having 2 people working full-time provides money to do all the extra fun things. These sacrifices would be worth it, but with Marc still working towards his PhD we would have a couple of years going without a lot of the luxuries we are so used to. Sometimes I wonder too if I would go crazy being home all the time. Grass is always greener right? Marc and I have made decisions to get schooling and unfortunately it is expensive and time consuming. It seems like most people our age are in careers at this point and we are still chugging away. At the end of the day I don't want to have any regrets and we both love Beckett so much we want to do whats best for him. Its just so hard I have been emotional and stressed all week! Anyone have thoughts or gone through this?

Indonesia

In May we had the chance to take the trip of a lifetime! Marc's cousin served his mission in Indonesia and hearing him talk about his experience made Marc and I want to visit a part of the world that very people have a chance to see. When Brad and Nicole invited us to go with them we knew this would be are only chance to see such an amazing place. Brad spoke the language, knew people, and would keep us safe. Marc couldn't stand the thought of leaving Beckett so we took him with. We flew about 43 hours total and Beckett was pretty well behaved. He had some trouble sleeping while we were there. But overall I think it was amazing that we were able to go and he got to have a pretty cool experience for a little baby.

We flew first to Jakarta. Jakarta is one of the craziest places I have ever been. So many people! Its amazing the poverty there. People just live in these little shacks. Marc and I came back so grateful for the luxuries we have been blessed with and that our little boy gets to grow up in a safe and clean place. Although there was a lot of poverty we never felt unsafe. Of course everyone was staring at us and especially Beckett...He was a a celebrity!!! Most of those people have never seen a white baby before. In Jakarta we experienced some severe jetlag but after a few days we were feeling better. We visited the largest mosque in the world. Over 200,000 people could go there to pray. The weirdest part of our trip was hearing the call to prayer 5 times a day. It really made you feel like you were in another world. We also visited some markets and went to church before flying to Ubud.

Ubud was the most beautiful place on the planet. It was so amazing. It is the city in the Eat, Pray, Love book. So peaceful. Getting to our "hotel" was crazy. We went on tons of winding roads until we were high up the mountain. Then we had to walk through a jungle to get to our little villas. They were basically almost like open air rooms no air conditioning or anything. I will never forget that place. I was a nervous wreck though because if Beckett cried everyone would hear him. I didn't get much sleep because I held him a lot so he would sleep better. I couldn't even imagine a more beautiful place and I have been all over Europe. In Ubud we went and saw rice paddies, saw a temple on the water, went to the monkey forest, went to a museum, went to the Market which was pretty crazy, and got rained on!!

Next we went to Bali. Another beautiful place. We stayed in a fancy hotel. It felt great after Ubud which almost seemed like camping. We went to the beach and Beckett had his first swim. We saw a cultural dance which was awesome. We also had a beautiful dinner on the beach at sunset with fresh seafood. After we visited some street vendors to get some sweet desserts that were amazing.

Next we flew to Yogyakarta. This is a huge cultural area. We were able to go to Borobedur (9th century Buddhist Temple) and Prambanan (9th century Hindu Temple). These are two amazing temple sites that are wonders of the world.

We feel so grateful we were able to experience something so amazing!!! Marc and I love experiencing other cultures and it helps us appreciate everything we have been given!

7 Month Pics!

 Skye Johansen is absolutely amazing and we were so happy to have her take some pics of Beckett since she was completely booked when we tried to have her do his newborn session. I think they turned out so cute! Beckett was so happy during the session and giggling so much he actually fell over at one point. Too Cute!