Hello! TravelingMom Intro

Hello, blog readers! I am TravelingMom, because, well, I really like to travel. So much so that when I graduated college, I thought consulting would be a great job for me, because I’d get to travel a lot. I quickly learned that business travel, going to crappy cities and being away from home 5-6 days per week, is actually not very fun at all. It’s vacation travel that I enjoy! Plus, I was engaged. Planning a wedding in Seattle while living in Dallas and working in Michigan left a bit to be desired, and I didn’t want to start a marriage seeing my husband for a day a week! So, I left that job and found a consulting job that was in-town consulting only. It was so much better than the traveling job. I got to sleep in my own bed every night, and when I took a trip, it was purely for fun. Sure, I didn’t rack up the miles and hotel points, so I didn’t get free vacations, but my quality of life was much improved, so it was a good switch. But then, I got the client from hell that was also a 35 mile one-way commute. I was stuck there for a year-and-a-half. While I got to sleep in my own bed every night, that’s about all I had time to do! We were also getting ready to start a family, so it was time for the next job change. This time, I moved to corporate, non-consulting America. And not just any corporate job, mind you – I started working for a big travel website. Not only was my commute now a daily 15 minutes and no more, giving me lots more time at home, but I was also technically a travel agent as I worked for a travel company, so I got travel agent benefits like cheap hotels. Woohoo! It was right up my alley. It was at that job that we started our family and had our first child, Megan, in December of 2004. It was also at that job that we furthered our family, and I got pregnant again with our second daughter in 2007. She’ll be here soon, and is yet to be named. And at this point, I’m thinking my time in corporate America is about done. We’re hoping that I’ll stay home with the girls once our youngest (and last!) is here.

Megan is a super cool 3 year-old now. She talks like an adult (I swear – other people say it, not just me!) and she’s as fun as it gets. Yes, she’s challenging. Oh, she can be challenging. She's pretty quick-witted and she’s very logical, so she can trap you pretty quickly by what you say. But overall, she is such a great kid and my husband and I enjoy her so much. And, since I’m TravelingMom, Megan is a traveling kid. She took her first trip at 11 weeks, to see my family in Seattle. Since then, she’s been to Seattle at least half a dozen times (although probably more), California several times, and Hawaii. Some airplane rides have been a bit less fun than others, but on the whole, she’s a great traveler. She’s one of those kids that people typically say, “Wow, I didn’t even know she was here! She was so good on the flight!” So, I’m pretty fortunate, because goodness knows I’d be in trouble if she wanted to stay home all of the time!