Heading South...

in April, that is. To Atlanta. For about 3 months. Yikes!

So, Scot has more military pilot training to complete - he will be upgrading from copilot to aircraft commander. We have known this would be coming for awhile, but just didn't know when. And now we know - we actually got his dates in early October but have just recently figured out the logistics of it all. Awhile ago I think we both assumed he would just go down there by himself and do it whenever it came up. Ha! My perspective quickly changed about, oh, 2 days into his most recent deployment to Afghanistan. It became clearer and clearer throughout his 8 week absence that I was in no condition to take on yet another absence with one more child.

Just one small detail - what was I going to do about my job? The timing seemed like it couldn't be any worse. If I have this baby sometime around my due date, I will be going back to work the first part of April. And now to ask my boss for another reprieve starting at the end of April? Ugh. Well, I got the courage to bring it up a few weeks ago and surprisingly she was very supportive. In the end, I think we have agreed that I will take a personal leave of absence between late April and the end of May and then I will work remotely part time for the rest of our stay there. And the timing actually worked out better than I initially thought, as we're already prepping another gal in my dept to take over some of my tasks while I'm on maternity leave - now we'll just add a few more months to that.

So, it is pretty exciting to think that after the first of the year I will barely be in the office until the end of July! The thought of moving the 4 of us down there is a little unnerving, but it should work out all right. We'll probably just take our 2 vehicles and then rent a furnished apartment while we're down there. I haven't really spent any time in Atlanta before, so I think it will be a lot of fun to explore. And my mouth is already watering for some sweet tea...yummy.