When Aloha Means Goodbye

I have a secret that's really not that big of a secret: my life has spoiled my plans over and over again. Don't get me wrong, life's been good to me so far. But, it's also messed with me a lot, specifically with my travel plans. Right after I graduated high school, I wanted to go to England and Scotland with the AP English class, but somehow I couldn't go due to a combination of lack of funds and the fact that I didn't actually technically take AP English.

In college, a group of friends went to Mexico, but I was really sick and couldn't go.

We wanted to go to Hawaii for our honeymoon, but as we got married in the middle of the semester on a random weekend, our schedules didn't permit it, so a long weekend in Pismo Beach it was.

Tyler and I were in the early stages of planning a trip to Peru when I found out I was pregnant with Lillian and we decided it would be more fiscally responsible to actually, you know, save our meager funds for our unborn child instead of splurging on airfare.

After graduation, we did get to spend almost 2 weeks in DC and Boston, which was a miracle and so much fun.

Since then we've been to... Idaho. Which was a lot of fun, but it's still Idaho, in line with that pesky fiscally responsible attitude that we have adopted.

Ever since the stars aligned for us to buy our first house during the time that the government was throwing free money at first-time home buyers, I've had visions of Hawaii dancing in my head. We would be able to afford the air fare with minimal financial impact AND Tyler has a really good friend (Hi Erin!) who lives in Hawaii who offered to house us for at least part of our trip. It was a really good plan and I was really excited about it.

We knew that we wouldn't be able to make a trip like this for a looooooong time where we'd only have to buy 3 tickets and only have 2 kids. I looked up airfare, planned out the things I wanted to do and see, and perused Frommer's at the library during story time. I told a bunch of people that we were going to make them jealous and looked at maternity swimsuits online. All that was left was for us to coordinate better with Erin and Tyler's work about a date.

Then, President Obama ruined my life. You may have heard that he cut the funding for the Constellation Program, which program has been paying our bills and purchased us our first-time house. I'm not worried about Tyler's job: even if he does get laid off, I'm 99% sure he can find another one... just one that is not in Tucson. The caveat for the first-time home buyer's credit is that you have to stay in your house for 3 years. Come March, it will be one year, and Tyler's job is guaranteed for at least one more year. But, if we have to move after that, we have to give the money back. I haven't looked into the scenario of having to move and buying another house right away, but I'm not counting on us being able to sell this one right away, or even after a long time, or at all.

So, once again, I say aloha to Hawaii.

The one upside to waiting is that after next year my mom will be retired and can maybe watch one (or more?) of our kids, so we won't have to buy as many tickets. Eh, mom? What do you think?