Summer sojourn

As written about previously (see Leaving home, The best decision we ever made, Where we're supposed to be for a few examples), my wife and I are both from Minnesota originally and live here now, but have experienced life elsewhere. To friends outside the state that probably doesn't seem all that notable but most Minnesotans never leave, and if they do they frequently come back. It's cultural. Though moving away was difficult for me I grew to love living out east, largely because of the city of Frederick. Now that we're back my wife and I do not think of ourselves as forever Minnesotans. We weren't even supposed to come back at all. The first move, Minnesota to Maryland in 2014, was apparently going to be followed by a subsequent move, Maryland to Arizona in 2019. But that got put off indefinitely and, in a way, we've been in limbo ever since. The 2021 move back to Minnesota was always thought of as a temporary situation but, more than four years later, here we are.

To be honest that feels like ancient history at this point. We've settled back into life in Minnesota and keep getting more and more connected where we are, with our old friends, with youth sports, with church and schools. We've considered more seriously the idea this is the place we should be for the long term, at least as long as my wife's parents are around. For that reason, and because it's a hobby, my wife is constantly looking at houses elsewhere near where we live, where we could get out of our HOA, perhaps get more land, be closer to church and/or friends on the other side of town. Moving within Minnesota doesn't make a lot of sense if we're leaving the state with any rapidity.

Now, however, there's a new situation. It's becoming required of certain people in my wife's position to take temporary assignments, covering maternity or other leaves, elsewhere in the country. This doesn't impact everyone, only divisions where they're supposedly 'overstaffed,' but ours is one of them. My wife was under the impression that

sometime in the next year and a half to two years she would have to take one of these covers. There's two choices, you either volunteer for one that comes up or you wait around and are thrust into something that very likely is not going to be ideal. So, when the next leave included the Phoenix market, over the summer, my wife raised her hand.

Ok. This means we're going to be living in Arizona, for a little while. Instead of her flying out Monday and back like Friday every week, which is what would've happened if she had to take some other assignment, we're going to up and move for a few months. I'll have a stretch at the end of May and the beginning of September where I'm home alone (in MN) with the kids during the week, but most of this period we'll be together as a family. This only works because 1. it's over the summer and school won't be missed and 2. my parents (and my sister's family) live in Arizona already. We'll be able to use my parent's house (they're elsewhere most of the summer anyway), which they're (nonetheless) generously loaning to us. As my wife explained the situation to me, before we made the final decision, I couldn't help but see the logic. It felt predestined to tell you the truth.

Taken as a whole our summer is, obviously, going to look and feel very different. First and foremost we're going to miss baseball, a big deal in our family. We were debating trying out our eldest for traveling, it's the first year he could do that, and, while I wasn't excited for all that entails, I (at least) had accepted that was the only way he was going to be challenged. He's been doing a pre-traveling clinic in a nearby dome and, physically, he's more than ready. Emotionally is another matter, but that's a topic for another day. Also all his baseball buddies of the last three years, kids of good to great ability we've met and he wants to play with, will be on that traveling team. Alas. This was, as well, to be our second son's tee-ball year, where I was going to coach him for the first time. Instead neither boy will play in a league. One of my challenges will be getting in enough sports activities but I'm learning there's more places to do that than I previously realized. More than baseball we're not doing any of the camps we've done in past years, at the MN Zoo, or Dodge Nature Center, etc. Nor will we be able to get to anywhere near 100 parks again, but we'll do what we can before and after our summer sojourn, as I'm going to call it.

Liked this AI picture

I don't mean to be a downer because there's considerable upside to our plans. We'll get more time than ever with my parents, who can relieve me in child-rearing, and my sister's family. It'll be cousin time like we've never had before. Exactly what we'll be doing I have yet to sort out, but, while night and day from how our summers look here (i.e. tons of outside time), I think this is worth getting excited about. Perhaps more than anything else we're going to learn about life in Phoenix. Can we survive the summer heat? Can we handle that much family time? Will my wife actually like working there? That's all to be seen. We've long wondered about life in the desert, considering it was always a possibility or even an eventuality, and now we're going to have those lingering questions answered.

Overall, if you can't tell, I'm conflicted. There's a lot of good and a lot we're going to learn. But we're going to miss summer here and the community we've built up recently. Luckily we'll be back, just around the time it's starting to get cold again. Minnesota winter to Arizona summer to Minnesota winter is not the best way to do it. But it's only weather right?