Big News!

For the past few weeks we've been contemplating a life-changing decision. Samtec, the company where Ricky works, has an open position for a "Field Applications Engineer" (FAE) in Austin, TX. Initially, when Ricky mentioned it to me, we kind of jokingly bantered back and forth - "Hey you wanna move to Texas?"..."Sure, let's go"...

Then I couldn't stop thinking about the opportunity for our family. And Ricky, unbeknownst to me, couldn't stop thinking about how it might be good for his career at Samtec. A couple days later one of us brought it up again, this time posing it as a more serious question worth some consideration. We were both surprised that the other had even given it any more thought.

One thing led to another and before we knew it, Ricky had thrown his hat into the ring for the position and the two of us were on our way to Austin. We spent a week in the beautiful Texas city - Ricky went on sales calls with another Samtec FAE in Austin while I looked at houses with his wife who happens to be a realtor. Throughout the week, we were given a great tour of the city, the neighborhoods and beautiful dining spots overlooking Lake Travis. Ricky got a better feel for what his role would entail if he switched gears from being in the corporate office in New Albany. By the end of the week, we were pretty surprised once again that both of us were about 95% in favor of making the move.

Upon returning home, Ricky went back into work and gave Samtec his decision. We decided as a family that we were ready to do this. We are moving to Austin!

This won't be a permanent move - somewhere between 3-6 years - and it is a decision that Samtec fully supports is a good move for Ricky's career. Right now it looks like we will not head down there until the fall which works out great so that I can continue to plan Little Fire Big Heart locally - regardless, the event will still go on as planned no matter what our timeframe for the move ends up being.

It will obviously be very hard to leave our family and friends back in Indiana and Kentucky, but I think we've come to the conclusion that this will be a great opportunity for our family to travel to a new place and meet new people. We already have a few acquaintances in and around Austin that will help us feel at home. Another huge plus is the fact that we will be just 3 hours south of Dallas where Aiden's specialists are at Medical City.

So there you have it! I haven't been able to talk about it during the decision making process until we had 100% confirmed we were going to go. It feels great to get it out there finally!