Maternity Leave... It's a Vacation Right?

I started 2009 with a bang. I gave birth to my first daughter, Calla at 2:30 in the afternoon on New Year's Day. The ongoing joke for me as a new mom was that Maternity Leave was going to be like a year long vacation.

Ha. 

Well... the body forgets pain and the mind forgets crying babies... needless to say, our second beautiful girl came into the family picture in October 2011. The somewhat traumatic arrival of Cecilia Grace marked the beginning of yet another year long vacation in the throes of parenting a newborn.

Well, 9 months has passed since she has "graced" our home, and I decided it was high time to put this one year vacation theory to good use. It has taken a little while to get the whole thing rolling, but needless to say, the vacation has arrived. In less than one week, we will be boarding a plane, children and all, and heading to Hawaii to finish off my Maternity/Parental Leave in style...

For 7+ weeks.

49 days if you prefer.

I admit, I couldn't do it without my husband, Jason. Or Cecilia for that matter, without her, parenting leave this time around wouldn't have happened.

Anyway, just thought I would bring you all up to speed on how this is all coming to fruition. Careful spending, careful saving, and an abundance of unused Vacation time on my part has facilitated this adventure. Not to mention the generous support of the Canadian government for funding Jason's parental leave.

So, without further ado, we shall be packing up our buckets and swimsuits; sunblock and rashguards and hitting the Hawaiin beaches... endeavouring to reach that mythical state of Aloha.

If you care to join us on our adventure, I will try to keep the blog updated with our photos and tales of adventure as often as I can.

If it is any consolation to all of you back home in Canada... you will mostly all still be experiencing the awesomeness of Indian Summer... (except Calgary, who knows when the snow might show up on your doorstep... literally).

Aloha.
Julie