Coastal updates continued
A few more shots that I picked out from our West Coast road trip
West Coast, Best Coast
Back at Christmas, I surprised my wife with a family road trip through the west coast. Fly into Vancouver, rent a car, then drive all through the Rockies and fly back from Calgary.
My wife had never been to British Columbia before, nor had she driven through the Rockies. Willow had never been on a plane. So it would be an adventure for everyone.
While our flights were booked, the actual itinerary was left intentionally blank. The only things that I knew for sure, were that we’d go whale watching in Vancouver.
I’ll do another post with some pictures, but the TLDR of the trip is:
- Whale Watching: no whales spotted, just seals & sea lions. Still awesome
- Stanley Park was beautiful and gigantic
- Whistler was just as pretty as the last time I was there
- Four Seasons Whistler was GORGEOUS and their outdoor pool was nice and hot despite the cold weather 😎
- Kamloops could have been skipped
- Kelowna is gorgeous and I LOVED the vibe. I could definitely live there
- Had a BBQ with some great friends, which was such an awesome highlight for me
- Banff is such a cute and tiny little Village
- Fairmont Banff springs looks nice from the outside/lobby, but is definitely not worth the money to stay at
- My daughter was a ROCKSTAR on the plane
Pics to follow.
April Update
Since my last post, we had four birthdays in our house. Willow, Me, Rascal (dog), and Rupert (cat).
Weather is still horrible (cold and wet), why do people say they like spring? They don’t. They like the last couple weeks of Spring. The rest of it is just cold, grey, and wet.
Until we meet again…
2109 days, 5 countries, countless moments.
A lot has happened since I started working at Automattic. We lost our house in a fire, had a child, travelled, weathered a global pandemic.
When I joined, there were a ~240 Automattians, but it still felt like a small company. Fast forward to today and Automattic has grown to 2000 employees. All working where ever they want in the world, within a fully distributed company.
I learned so much during my six years years. Met so many amazing people. Travelled to places I would have otherwise never seen.
Today I signed out of work for the last time. I had five weeks to prepare for this and going into today, I was ready. But when I closed my laptop it hit me… and I was not ready.
The tears are a great reminder that six years ago I made the right decision joining Automattic. They’re a reminder of all the great experiences and people I met. Next week I start a new adventure, but for right now I think I’ll spend a bit more time reminiscing,
Cheers Automattic and until we meet again ❤️
December has come and gone
Winter is here, which means I’ll be grumpy for the next 5 months 😂
Over the past month Willow has become really attached to Abbie. Abbie seems to feel the same way as she’s started jumping into Willow’s bed every night when we are doing story time. It’s very cute to see this friendship grow.
This was also Willow’s first REAL Christmas. I say that for two reasons.
Last Christmas we were all in lockdown, so she didn’t get to spend the time with her extended family. As well, she was a bit too young to grasp the excitement of the day.
This year though, being that extra year old made a big difference. Her daycare also hyped up the holidays as well, which didn’t help 😂 So all this to say, Willow was a maniac on Christmas 😂
It’s off to work I go…
The time is almost here.
In 36hrs, I’ll be back at work. Having finished my 3 month sabbatical.
Such an amazing perk of my work and I’m so lucky to have it. However, that doesn’t make this any less difficult 😛 Going back is going to be tough. Especially since about 1/3rd of my sabbatical was spent doing daycare for my daughter every time she got tiniest bit sick at daycare and had to stay home (thanks COVID).
In any case, it was still an amazing break. Lots of hiking with the dogs, watching TV Shows/Movies that have been on my “watch lists” forever. And even a couple little projects around the house.
As much as I’d love to get paid to remain on vacation, I am excited to see what my team has been up to. My role at work this year was very scattered and temporarily took on a lot of responsibilities that kept me from completed my actual goals. So it will be nice to be able to actually dive into the work I wanted to be doing before I went on sabbatical.
Quick summary on the last couple months:
- Willow LOVED Halloween. She talked about dressing up as a witch for almost two months leading up to Halloween. She was too young to really appreciate it last year. However this year, she thought it was incredible that she just knocked on someone’s door and got candy!
- Willow also got to feed and ride a horse for the first time and she loved it. I feel like she might grow up to be a horse girl, just like her mommy was.
- Fall seemed to pass by way too quickly and we jumped right into snow. That’s my queue to now be grumpy 24/7 until around May 🙂
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