Newest Life Plan

Oldest life plan: live in Dubai for 2 years, move to Europe, move to Asia, move back to Colorado with a baby.

Old life plan: live in Dubai for 3 years so we can travel and save a shit ton for our future house in the Rocky Mountains.

New life plan: live in Dubai for 2 years, move back to Colorado.

Can you see a pattern here?  Our time away from Colorado seems to be getting shorter and shorter, but with amazingness like this...

 

and this...

how could we stay away longer than 2 years?

Advantages of living in Dubai for 3 years:

Tons of traveling and tons of saving (but mostly traveling).  I'd get to visit most of my dream destinations - Austria/Switzerland, New Zealand, Greece, Norway, possibly Thailand, and amazing places in between.

That's pretty much it for advantages.

Advantages of moving home a year earlier:

COLORADO!, being within driving distance all of our favorite people again, mountains, clean air, having a baby, visiting all of our friends' new babies.

The choice seems pretty clear to me.  Dubai is amazing for a lot of things, but for people who are ready to settle down, it's not really the place to be.

All except maybe 2 of our friends are either having babies, just had babies or are trying to have babies.  My sister's second baby is almost 2 and I barely even know her because I've been away pretty much her whole life.  She's pregnant with her third now and if I want to regain my status as Superaunt, I need to be closer.  Plus Morgan's practically a teenager now and I'm missing all the good stuff. 

Other things pointing us toward moving home:

About half of my teacher friends are moving home this year :( :( :(.  They're the main reason I like Dubai, and I'm really worried that Casey will have to work weekends again next semester and I'll be stuck at home again with nothing to do.

Working in the UAE is stressful to the max.  We can't quite put our finger on why; there's just so much pressure and so many expectations that are sometimes unrealistic.

We miss our family and friends and feel like their lives are moving on while ours are on pause.  This makes me really sad.  They're all having babies, buying houses, doing grown up things, and we're just here in Dubai being here in Dubai (I know, big problem to have, but it's how we feel).

I want a dog.  And a baby.  And I want to work in a public school again.

This...

and this...

and this...

I realized last night that most of the places I want to visit in the world are mountainous - New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, Norway... Why would I spend most of my time in a desert so I can travel to faraway mountains when I could just spend all of my time living in the mountains?  Colorado is our happy place and I'm realizing this more every time I see a new piece of the world.

Dubai has been an amazing adventure and I know I'll be sad when it's time to leave, but moving home to Colorado will feel like a big heap of happiness.