Monday, 23 February 2009

My First entry

Wow - I've heard about blogging for a heck of al ong time, but never thought I'd actually be writing one.

Here's how we got this far:
Friday (Feb. 20) while on a beautiful family ski vacation, Wendy goes out cross country skiing with her friend Nikola and discusses our current dilemna (I'll be jobless as of July 1, this isn't the best time to find another start-up company to run, we're losing our connection to our kids, we want more out of life, etc.) and Nikola and Wendy realize that we've been given a wonderful opportunity:
1) no mortgage (assuming we can sell our UK house)
2) no job obligations
3) enough money (thanks to the severance agreement I negotiated when my company was acquired two years ago)

Friday night, Wendy tells me the "Big Idea" and I'm instantly hooked. Instead of starting a job search during the worst job market in decades, we can bring the family closer together, give the kids a better sense of travel, service and adventure (all at the same time) and we can have a great family adventure.

Sunday (Feb. 22) back in London, Wendy and I go down to our local pub to do what we do best (write to do lists). She's in charge of figuring out home schooling, pricing for storage, setting up meetings with the principals at Josh & Simon's school, writing our family newsletter (which will announce our plans), etc. I'm in charge of technology, budget, health insurance and a few other items.

Monday (Feb. 23) Wendy has done her job and drafted the family newsletter, so I've:
1) Registered a domain (Familyadventureyear.com);
2) Started building my first Web site (thank you Google apps)
3) Started my first blog
4) Spent an hour researching RVs

I'd like to think we're going from idea to execution very rapidly (and we still have 6 months before the adventure starts for real), but that's what Wendy and I do well, once we're set in a direction we pursue it aggressively.

We still haven't told the kids (we're planning a family meeting for this weekend) so everything will be in stealth mode for a few more days.