next stop: California!

It's back to California for these Lees!

That may sound like the most anticlimactic news ever, especially to anyone we haven't talked to much over the last 6 months, because California had been the plan for a long time. But since January, when the job we thought we had secured fell through, the job search has been our obsession. We feel like we've considered nearly every type of career you could have in orthodontics, in every corner of the country. We even flew (without the kids!) to check out opportunities in New Mexico and Kentucky. Our poor friends and family who have kept up-to-date through that whole time must have gotten so exhausted from the weekly changes to our plans. It started to feel like being the bachelor on the Bachelor, dating 4 girls at once. Just a whole lot less drama.

We finally concluded that the best thing for Jared and for our fam is to start up a private practice in Ventura County. (We'll share more about the specific location after Jared signs a lease on the building, per his consultant's advice.) We love that it's just a couple hours from his family and a short flight to mine, the weather is great, the area is beautiful and the beach is close. We're nervous about the risks of starting up from scratch and that we may have chosen the more difficult road, at least for the first few years. And I'm also a little terrified of learning how to be a suburban mom. I hardly remember what it's like to own a car!

Then I think about all the places we've been. No, not just been, lived. If we can survive 4 months in the highlands of Guatemala, living it up Mayan bathe-twice-a-week-in-a-mud-hut style; if we can spend 2 years in my parents basement (okay that was kind of plush) or a summer in my sister's spare bedroom in Portland (okay that was just fun); then we can find our way in Southern California.

And if New York taught me anything, it's that if we can make it there, we'll make it anywhere. We have, and we will.