Quite the activity over the last week and a half, but we successfully moved out of Jacksonville and brought our stuff down to Cape Coral.  We plan on hanging out here for a month or so until our trip to Europe in early August.  Enjoy the following video with highlights!

Looking forward to a trip to Key West next week!

So far we have booked flights to Barcelona and leave in early August and return in late October.  We have only booked the first week in Barcelona at an AirBnb apartment in the suburbs.

For anyone interested in good flight deals, I have found success in the email alerts from Scott’s Cheap Flights (https://scottscheapflights.com).  They have a free service and a paid service.  (Our RT flights between Orlando and Barcelona were $350 per person!)

Our tentative itinerary includes Barcelona, Southern Spain, Portugal, Southern France, Geneva, Lucerne, Munich and Bavaria, Prague, Salzburg, Slovenia and Croatia.   Please send us a comment with any thoughts or ideas!

Planning with a toddler is adding a twist this time, so we hope to stay in each location at least a week.  This helps with weekly accommodation discounts, plus gives a chance to settle into an area.

Been busy with packing, selling stuff and enjoying our remaining days in Jax Beach!

Some final successful fishing trips in Jax

Enjoying Jax Beach on the bikes

Chef Charlie’s pizza creation

Family day on the boat

Rita’s is #1 on a hot summer day

It’s hard to believe that the start of our first sabbatical was 5 years ago!  It’s been a whirlwind of finding jobs, relocating to the beach, pregnancy, celebrating 10 years of marriage, starting a fishing charter business and raising our son Charlie.

Our path seemed to be on track this year for settling down somewhere at the beach and Charlie starting pre-school in the fall.  We’ve quickly transitioned in the last couple months from that path to something a bit more unique but somehow fitting of our  lifestyle.

Sometimes life seems to point you in a particular direction and a few things started to align to a potentially different path.  Chris’s contracting job was coming to a close, our home lease was ending and Charlie’s official school didn’t start until August, 2018.  Cindy and I began discussing whether to stay in town, find new employment and a new place to live.  There were numerous reasons to stay and continue enjoying this area, but the idea of another sabbatical began to emerge as a possibility.

As the weeks passed, the alignment continued as details emerged of these major changes but the downsides of leaving town was evident for both of us:  pausing relationships with friends, leaving Cindy’s excellent job, putting the fishing charter business on hold and possibly disrupting Charlie’s stability and growth.

An international flight deal arrived in my inbox one evening after work, which initiated the discussion again.  While the downsides of leaving were still a concern, there were some definite reasons to go for it:  desire to see other parts of the world which we missed last time, Charlie’s school being optional this year and his developmental opportunities to see new things, meet new people and learn new languages.

Before heading to bed that night, we had booked flights to Barcelona, Spain!  Since then, it’s been a plethora of activities for planning our first trip, wrapping up our jobs, packing up stuff to keep and selling a bunch of items that aren’t worth storing.  Glad I kept all of our old lists and plans from 2012, which has made it easier this go-round.  Plus we don’t own nearly the amount of stuff we had in 2012.

Be on the lookout for regular posts to this blog as we continue preparations and then start the next adventure!

A huge thanks to all who followed us along the way with your support and kind comments!!

We spent the last couple days sifting through all our photos and videos from the adventure to compile the following montage.  It’s something special that we can save for years to come!

Well, we are getting settled back in Jax and it feels good to reunite with the wonderful friends that we have here. One of the things I realized while traveling is how important our friends and family are and how much I missed spending time with them! I have accepted a part time dietitian position with Walgreens Take Care Clinic for Johnson & Johnson Vistakon with a tentative start date of October 28. I think it is going to be a great fit for me!

It has been such a great thing to step away from the day-to-day hectic schedule of working these past 16 months.  I have been working or in school (or both) since I was 16 years old, and it felt so good to take a real break, to slow down, and to live each day for whatever it brings.  So, here are some things that I have learned during our career break:

• Don’t let fear prevent you from a great experience. The anticipation is usually the hardest part.
• Be open to tossing your original plans out the window. Something better might, and probably will, come along.
• As often as possible, live in the moment. It is the only way to truly feel content.
• Security is what you make of it.  Find out what makes you feel secure and let go of everything else.
• Less stuff = less stress.
• Spend as much time as possible outside- it’s good for your mental health.
• Family and friends are the most important things in life.
• Healthy eating, exercise, and a sense of humor are the fountain of youth.
• Don’t sacrifice your health for your job.
• Don’t be too afraid to try something scary.  It will make you stronger and less afraid.
• Be accepting of the faults of others, you have them too.
• Surfing is good for the soul.
• Contrary to what our local news stations would have us believe, most people are nice and good.
• The U.S. is really beautiful, and we really do have it good here.

While I love to travel and have visited an array of amazingly beautiful places, I realize that Florida is my place in the world.  It is where I began and there is nowhere else I have found that I would want to live.  I can’t imagine my life without Florida’s warm ocean waters, sandy beaches, salt water breezes, gentle waves for surfing, salt-water fishing, mild winters (which are still sometimes too cold for me:), and even the humidity (yeah, maybe I’m crazy but I like it!).

Taking 16 months off of work also made me realize how happy I am that I studied nutrition and became a dietitian.  I truly love what I do and actually missed it!  I feel that this break has given me more confidence in my career.  It has given me time to reflect on my philosophy of nutrition and I feel that I will be a better dietitian for it.  

And, saving the best part for last, this break has strengthened my relationship with Chris in the best way.  I always felt that we have a great relationship, but it’s been so awesome to get to share these amazing experiences together, and to just spend our days together.  I actually have missed him during the day this week as he went back to work.  I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to spend the best part of our days together for 16 months.  You definitely get to know someone inside and out when you live in a 15 foot trailer for 4 months!  

So, to sum it up, here is a quote from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, one of my favorite movies, which I think is something important to remember as we go on:  “Live moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it.”

Well it’s been a week back into the working world. Not much changed at the office the last 16 months, which is both intriguing and comforting. Some folks have used the term ” returning to the real world”, but that seems incorrect. I think we have been in the real world the last 16 months! It feels good to settle down, visit our friends and explore new things in the old neighborhood. I do miss spending entire days together with Cindy..

Spent some time over the last week thinking about our adventure. Below is a summary of my current thoughts about the entire career break:

• The USA is an amazing country to explore with a vast array of sights to see and a mind-boggling amount of empty land in the western states. A person could spend at least a year to see just the western half of the country.
• Watching news on TV is a detriment to your well-being.  Watching a 30 minute episode of any local news program will make you fear your own neighborhood and the state of the nation.
• While this country has issues to solve, it’s easy to forget benefits such as:

1. Low cost of living (gas doesn’t cost 8 dollars a gallon)
2. Government isn’t blatantly corrupt (police don’t take cash in lieu of speeding tickets)
3. Ease of travel (exploring an immense land from coast to coast with no restrictions)
4. Availability of things (dizzying array of items available to buy at any time)

• Living with fewer things is a new priority. Re-allocating our spending on health, savings and recreation, rather than endless expenses with an oversized house containing too much stuff and a second car.
• Live near  things you enjoy. Working during the week to just enjoy the weekends doesn’t maximize the enjoyment of each day.
• While lazing around every day can sound enjoyable, confirmed that I enjoy having a list of tasks to accomplish. (Jalapeño disagrees with this one 🙂
• Exercise is not only good for physical health, but immensely beneficial for mental well-being. We both noticed differences in our attitudes during days of only driving in the car versus days of outside activity.
• Eating less meat is a good choice for your health. Slowly transition with one fewer day per week of eating meat and be amazed at your physical improvements.
• Removing a primary daily focus of a job, your mind can wander into many directions. Recollecting events from the past, self-analysis, more vivid dreams, etc.
• Vacation and a career break are completely different. Obviously the duration being a main difference. The removal of most obligations is key to truly releasing from the daily grind.
• Creating undue stress and drama seems to be human-natured, but hoping to avoid that by properly maintaining a renewed work-life balance.
• While many other places were nice to visit, Florida is my favorite place to live. Haven’t found another place in this country that offers all the things I love to do (surfing in warm water, fishing, camping, boating)
• While we didn’t get to all the places on our original list, this break wasn’t about checking things off a list. It was a period of time to mentally unwind, improve my health, try new activities, visit family and enhance the relationship with Cindy.

In the next week or so, look for one last video which should nicely summarize our adventure the past 16 months!

Since Jalapeno joined us for a good amount of our career break, she would like to provide her top highlights of the adventure.

1.  Long periods of lap time during road trips.

2.  Taking my aggression out on Chris’s suitcase with my nails.

3.  Yelling at semi trucks as they pass by.

4.  Checking out the scenery and the people from the truck window as we drive through new towns.

5.  Watching the squirrels and talking to the birds from the trailer screen door.

6.  Napping by the warm campfire.

7.  Taking mom and dad on walks.

8.  My first walk in the snow (wasn’t my favorite, but a new experience anyway!).

9.  Walking through the biggest litter box ever at White Sand Dunes National Park in New Mexico.

10. And last but not least, snuggling between mom and dad under the covers each night in the trailer!!

Our friends have been kind enough to take us in again for a few nights while we spent the last couple days searching for a place to stay.  Been focused on the Beaches and Riverside neighborhoods of Jacksonville.

Success on both the job searching and house hunting!  Cindy accepted a part-time dietitian job and we followed that up with signing a short term lease for a fully furnished condo in Riverside.  The place works perfectly for us since we currently don’t own any furniture or housewares after our 2012 liquidation.  Everything seems to be falling into place so far!

A great place to call home

Made a trip up to Jacksonville on Wednesday so Cindy could attend an interview and we could check out some rentals for a place to live.  We still rent out our house, so we get to find a new place to reside in town.  Exciting to be able to shop around in different areas of town for the best place.  Hopefully find something in the next couple days.

Haircut for us both was on the to-do list this week

This one summarizes another spectacular Florida Keys trip!