Digital Nomad Family – Course Update #14 – Wander Through Winter Wonderlands

We’re back in New England, and as Brian said, “We only been in Massachusetts for 3 days, and I’m already shoveling snow.”

So, yes, we’ve already had a taste of snowy New England days, but I have to start this update with our final weeks in Tacoma, WA… because I can’t miss sharing about the holiday magic that we enjoyed just before leaving.

I’ll start the story by sharing about the milestone victory I hit in building my upcoming course. During my last Course Update, I mentioned that I finished drafting all the lesson scripts for The Freedom Evolution: The 5 Elements You Need for the Business & Lifestyle You Deserve. 

Well, in the final two weeks before we left I actually finished recording all five elements for the whole course (that’s 51 lessons approx. 6-15 minutes) So, on the road to that achievement (about halfway through the recording,) I discovered a perfect way to motivate me through the finish line AND have a magical, holiday experience with our 2-year-old Pumpkin. Allow me to back up and explain…

In early November, we came across a promo card in a coffee shop for an event called “Enchant Christmas.” Brian immediately it picked up, and we both were rather intrigued. However, time passed, and the card lingered in Brian’s coat pocket for a while.

Well, fortunately, he pulled it out and left it on the counter just a week before we were scheduled to leave. I happen to find it while on a work break. (Remember, I was neck-deep in recording course videos… so those “between recording stretch breaks” were very important.)

“Enchant Christmas” turned the whole Mariner’s baseball stadium in Seattle into a winter wonderland. (BTW, there are also locations in St. Pete’s, FL and Washington, DC.) It sounded awesome, and for a two-year-old I knew it would be mind-blowing. So, I reviewed my Master List to see how many videos I still had left to record, realized that I had a good shot of getting them all done before the following Friday, and boom… I bought us tickets.

What a great reward to motivate me to stay focused through the final 25+ recordings left to do! I absolutely wanted to be done before Friday so that we could really enjoy this event. And, mission accomplished, completed with even a little time to spare.

Friday arrived, and we picked up Pumpkin just a bit early on her final day. We said goodbyes to her lovely, nanny Kathy and drove into Seattle for this capstone experience. The photos can only barely do justice to the amazingness of this event.

The full baseball field was taken over by a lighted maze. When you approach the maze you’re greeted by people in costume who hand you a scratch off card telling you that Santa needs your help to “save Christmas” by finding the 8 toys hidden in the maze. On the card are circles for the 8 different toys that you’re looking to find, and there are coins at tables inside the maze that you use to scratch off the appropriate spot each time.

Meanwhile, you walk under lighted archway and into a child’s fantasy of holiday lights. There’s a skating river that meanders through one area, and different areas with holiday themes from presents, to lighted branches of trees, to waterfall tunnels of lights. There was also a full 40+ person live choir singing carols that were amplified through the stadium.

It was an amazing and magical sensory experience. There were even diffusers making things smell like pine trees and holiday cookies… and a few kiosks where you could pick up spiked hot cocoa too (Spiced rum might not have been my first choice for spiking holiday cocoa, but it definitely kept us a bit warmer.)

When you walked up from the field into the stands there was also an array of food stalls serving a fairly wide variety of options, many arts & crafts stalls for a bit of holiday shopping, and of course, you could line up for your photo with Santa & Mrs Claus. 

When we finally made it up to see Santa, I was expecting a long line, but nope, we walked right up. Now, that said, our Pumpkin is still not so sure about hanging out with these strangers, so we didn’t push it. She stayed in my arms, and we just walked over, waved and chatted with the lovely couple a bit. Mrs. Claus did a very nice job helping her to feel more comfortable, but it might still be a few years before she happily hops into Santa’s lap.

Brian and I agreed that this couldn’t have been a better way to cap off our time in Seattle & Tacoma, WA. 

The following day was a full-day of packing and prep, and we were flying out the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Everything was going reasonably well… we did stay up a bit later than we prefer. But, things were well prepped before we got to bed close to 1am.

Then, even the morning seemed to go fine… until I tried to call for an Uber… and again… and again. We couldn’t get a car?! I had had zero problem getting a car when I was traveling in September, but now… we were supposed to leave for the airport almost 30 minutes earlier, and we were SCREWED.

I made a somewhat panicky call to our nanny Kathy and asked if there was any chance that she could drive us to the airport. Kathy saved the day. She threw on clothes, emptied her Jeep to make space for all our stuff, and zoomed over to help us get everything loaded and the car seat installed.

So, this is when I will share my utter gratitude (not only to Kathy of course), but that we were able to get our Global Entry/TSA Pre-check completed a few weeks before this flight. If we had had to deal with normal security lines, then I think there’s no way we would have made it. But, with about 10 minutes to spare… we arrived with enough time to still take our Pumpkin for a potty break before boarding.

The big question I had been holding in my gut for months was… would we make it across the country without a potty-related accident?

… VICTORY! She arrived on the East Coast in the same clothes we dressed her in that morning! *Happy Dance* *Raise the Roof!* … the parental relief was palpable.

Overall, we had a very easy flight from Seattle to Newark, NJ. We picked up our rental car to drive to CT, and with a bit of knuckle-whitening driving through New York headed up to New Haven, CT. We arrived safe and sound (albeit after midnight.)

We had decided to stay for a full week in CT for Thanksgiving and have a bit more time to see all of Brian’s siblings and parents (rather than just for the holiday itself when everything is a bit intense and crazy.)

Honestly, the biggest victory in that decision was the fact that our Pumpkin got to spend a bunch of time playing with her cousin (who’s about 10 weeks younger than her). They had so much fun playing together, and overall they were very content to goof around and played well together.

Thanksgiving at my in-laws was an intense affair full of extended family (14 adults and 2 toddlers), but fortunately pretty much everyone gets along (so no big family drama here.) Lots of delicious food, a few excited (and occasionally cranky toddlers), but mostly it was pleasant and fun to see everyone.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we headed north (borrowing my MIL’s car) for our month in Rockport, MA. The drive was easy. We arrived in Rockport right before sunset around 4pm, so we were able to get everything into the house in daylight and spend some time unpacking and settling in.

The place we’re staying this time is an apartment in a 2-family house within walking distance of downtown Rockport and only one street away from the ocean. I’ve already walked into Rockport twice (just over a mile to Bearskin Neck), and Brian and I are both enjoying some peekaboo views of the ocean between the houses from the two desks we’ve setup to work from in the bedrooms.

We have been grateful to find a good in-home daycare/preschool for Pumpkin where, as it happens, one of the kids she’s know since she was only months old also attends. So, she has an immediate friend, and I left them fairly contentedly rolling play doh together this morning.

However, I started this update with tales of our snowstorm, so Brian was absolutely right, we hadn’t been in Massachusetts for more than 3 days when the snow began to fall and continued for over 24 hours for about 4-6 inches here in Rockport. We’d barely landed, and Pumpkin had only gone to school for 1 day before the snow began.

While the crews did a great job keeping our road fairly clear, the report from school was that they weren’t yet cleared out over there. So, spontaneous snow day for us! But, Pumpkin and I made the best of the weather-induced changes of plans.

When Brian woke our Pumpkin up he told her immediately “Honey, it snowed over night,” and our little Frozen-lover immediately replied “Do you wanna build a snowman?” So, before the day was even half-over she had helped build three different snowmen, and tromped around enjoying the winter wonderland.

Then, after nap time we baked some gingerbread cookies together to decorate. When we were in Washington, I had checked out “The Gingerbread Baby” from the library which rapidly became one of our Pumpkin’s favorites. So, getting to decorate gingerbread cookies maintained some appeal (for at least 2 cookies worth, then she left Mama & Papa to finish decorating the rest.)

All in all, it was a magical, classic winter snow day in New England. 

Almost immediately after arriving Brian and I grabbed a small Yule tree and got it up knowing that we wanted to enjoy it for as long as possible. However, on the following weekend we went out with my mom and step-father to help them pick up their tree, and get it up and decorated.

This year was the first time that Pumpkin has been old enough to understand about the holidays (thank you Olaf’s Frozen Adventure), and she’s been really enjoying decorating the Christmas/Yule trees.

Once we went through our meager collection of ornaments from storage, she started finding random items around the house that she could use to “decorate” the tree… mittens, letter magnets from the fridge, and many other items have been migrating to various branches of our little “Charlie Brown-esque“ tree.

Regardless, her joy in seeing it everyday warms my soul, and we’ll continue our holiday festivities for the next few weeks.

There’s more time planned with family and friends in the next couple weeks both here in MA and again back in CT before we fly back across the country to pickup our car and head south to New Mexico. 

So, my next update will be from the (hopefully) sunny southwest… provided we make it through the snowy mountain passes from Tacoma, WA to Santa Fe, NM. So, stay tuned for more adventures!

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