Lots of stuff getting real!

I use iGoogle for one of my home pages in Chrome (Google's browser, which I have been using almost exclusively lately). One of the widgets I have been able to add is a countdown timer. As most of you know, there are 3 significant things the Welsh family is counting down to... These things are really how we define our life at this point, so I thought I would give an update on each.

1 - Baby Welsh #3: 11 Days, 1 Hour, 42 Minutes, 57 Seconds (Estimate)
Steph continues to grow, although she doesn't see how there is any room left for this child to grow for 11 more days! So far, so good. We are into the weekly doctor appointments. At our 36 week ultrasound a couple weeks ago, the doctor was muttering over the chart while the ultrasound tech was taking pictures... When we asked her about it, she was estimating the size... she was projecting a 9 lb, 12 ounce baby! Steph was a little concerned, for obvious reason. Then I reminded her that I was a 10 lb, 10 oz baby... Probably not the best thing to remind her! She has since heard from some folks that those estimates are very inaccurate - we're hoping that's true! The biggest concern at this point is the speed with which third babies arrive... We're anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour away from the hospital depending on traffic. It's one thing for this baby to be able to say they were born in China, but we'd like the excitement to stop there and not extend to being born in a car or taxi!

2 - Repatriation: 110 Days, 1 Hour, 46 Minutes, 40 Seconds
Steph said it finally seems real now since we have tickets booked. 4 tickets booked out of PVG to PDX on 28 June 2009. I used a bunch of my system wide upgrades to move the family into business class... That should be nicer with the 2 kids and the baby. We'll get a ticket for the baby once he/she is born, and see if we can't upgrade that one as well. I discounted the rent for the people in our house to get them out a little early so they'll be out on 25 June. Then we have a cleaning crew coming in on the 26th and carpets being cleaned on the 27th. We land on the 28th and will only have to spend a couple days in a hotel, as our things in storage will be delivered on the 30th. So if all goes according to plan, we'll be sleeping in our own beds (and crib) on the night of the 30th of June. Then hopefully we're mostly unloaded and settled in by the 4th of July. We won't be able to get to Lake of the Woods for the 4th of July this summer, as we'll just have arrived home. The upside of it is that we'll get to actually enjoy the Oak Hills 4th of July celebration, which we hear is very nice - including a neighborhood parade and our own fireworks display!

Returning to the US is really bittersweet. While we are looking forward to seeing our friends and family, we have come to really enjoy China and the Chinese people. We have come to enjoy our friends and 'expat family' here in Shanghai. We would have preferred to stay, but understand the reality of the economic situation that is bringing us home.

3 - Sabbatical: 137 Days, 20 Hours, 47 Minutes, 1 Second
So my Sabbatical will actually start sooner than that. It starts shortly after we arrive back in the US, on July 6th (actually the 3rd, since the 3rd is a US holiday). But for the purposes of the countdown, I am using 26 July, 2009 @ 7:55am. That is the day and time I leave for Scotland. Before Scotland we'll have about 3 weeks as a family in Oregon in the summer. This will be great. We'll spend time settling into the house, we'll spend time at the pool in our neighborhood, we'll spend time at the Lake of the Woods, and Olivia and I will spend time doing some volunteer work before I leave. The trip itself has been well covered in another post (27 Rounds of Golf in 31 Days), so I'll skip over that. When I get back the 25th of August, the hope is maybe one more trip to the Lake of the Woods before getting back to Portland to start the preparations for my return to work and Olivia's first day of first grade at Oak Hills Elementary School. We should both start those new adventures on the same day, I believe - the day after Labor Day.

People keep asking about my job situation... And it's still fairly unclear. What I am confident of is that I will have a job! There are some layoffs happening within my division in the next few days, and I am assured that I will not be affected... I am assured of a role, and have had some very general conversations about what that role will be, but until the legal and organizational announcements are made, everything is very fluid. In the mean time, I have been staying busy in China helping to shut down the business we were developing here, teaching class to some of our Chinese leaders and managers and working with our training department on how to adapt the class I teach for a different delivery timeline. Lastly, I have continued to mentor some of the local Chinese employees.

So that's the update on the Chinese Contingent of the Welsh/Kratochvil/Merryman Family. Steph is spending her last days of pregnancy driving all over town trying to cross off her list the things that we want to buy before heading home - and that are easier to take care of before we have a 'wiggler' to take along. Some pottery for her, stone lions for me, some clothes being made for all of us... taking advantage of the deals China has to offer while we can.