COUNTING THE DAYS

According to an article I read in the latest issue of THE WEEK, researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Germany recently concluded a study involving over 200,000 subjects in 86 different countries,  which found that young parents with young children are significantly less happy than their counterparts who remain childless, but that older parents with older children are far happier than their childless counterparts. So, according to this study, the marital stress, sleepless nights, anxiety and financial burden that comes with young childen may be viewed as a long-term investment in happiness.

Well I don't know about that, but I do know that Sarah and I are planning on grabbing a big fistful of happiness in just a few weeks. That's right, Sarah and I are just weeks away from our "getaway" to the above hotel (The Clement) on cannery row in Monterey, CA. Yep, that's the ocean lapping at the pilings in front and that's the historic cannery row beyond. Just the two of us! We're both pretty excited about it. Nanny has graciously agreed to come up and babysit, which is a HUGE job. (Don't think for a minute, Nanny, that I don't appreciate the depth of your sacrifice. You're awesome!) As I told you all before we made the decision to hold off on a major trip abroad until next year, God willing, so we can save up our money and do it properly. We put our trip money in a CD where we can't touch it in the meantime, and have set out to save enough money between now and 2012 to go to the east-African island of Pemba. In the meantime, however, we are taking this smaller trip up the coast in recognition our tenth anniversary. That's a pretty significant milestone, right?

Monterey or bust!