And so the pursuit of happiness begins ...

Don't pack me! 

All a little surreal.  School's out.  Packers are in. In 24 hours, we get ready to depart Singapore for a year, it's been home for 11 years for Ted, 9 for Belinda and a lifetime for Jackson and Jaime. Adventure awaits.

A one year sabbatical inspired by TED Talks by Stefan Sagmeister and Shawn Anchor.  Extremely summarised, Stefan says take a few of your retirement years and sprinkle them through your work years creating a sabbatical every seven years to rejuvenate and refresh your creative outlook.  Shawn says happiness inspires productivity and we can train our brain to be more happy in the present. Similar advice on the pursuit of happiness, from Eric Barker' blog, How to Find Happiness: 3 secrets from Research.

Don't get me wrong, we love our jobs ... and we are coming back! But we've been given an opportunity to pursue happiness with our two favourite people, Jackson and Jaime, be intentional about how to improve it in the here and now.  So we started last night with the kids asking them what they are grateful, ok that needed explaining ... thankful for ...

Jackson's response, "my friends in Singapore", coincidentally, 5 seconds later, same answer from Jaime.  She adores her older brother.

It's going to be a happy year and we are super stoked to get it started!