One Family, Two Cities
A few weeks ago, my family and I got back from our fourth annual summer trip to Seattle. My husband and I started this tradition a few years ago, when our first kid was 18 months old. While adding a baby into our old style of traveling—something oft-recommended by the adventurous set—was possible, “your life doesn’t end after kids,” lol sure…it wasn’t a whole lot of fun.
In 2022, faced with the prospect of another hell-on-earth summer in Texas, and working primarily remote jobs, we decided to pack up and spend a few weeks in Seattle. Instead of strictly vacationing, it would be like relocating temporarily.
The first year was a success. So we booked the same Airbnb next year, this time with two kids. Another good time. It’s been four years now and I really hope we get to keep doing it, especially while our kids are so young, adaptable, and can’t dictate their own summer schedules yet.
Anyway, since we have such a great time in Seattle, we’re always asking ourselves what we can do to make our day-to-day back home feel like our time away. It’s like getting home from vacation and wondering how you can maybe feel a little more relaxed, but back home. Is it possible? Is it Seattle specifically, or something else… We love it there. It’s a riot. But we love Austin too. Why doesn’t our life here feel quite so special? Or does it, and I’m just looking at it wrong?
Arrival
Landing in Seattle is a heady rush: descending onto the tarmac, all pine trees and cloudy skies—the locals bemoaning “June-uary;” celebrating summer solstice in sweaters. Coming from a few weeks of 100ºs in Austin, the contrast is intoxicating. The 5 a.m. sunrises, feeling cool air on our skin when running, ditching our car for 6 weeks, walking and biking everywhere, returning to our favorite coffee shops and playgrounds, even going back to my Seattle office to work. Seeing the friends and coworkers we met last year or the year before, picking up where we left off. I wonder if we’ll have time to fit it all in, but we will.
I feel guilty saying this but it feels delicious to decline everyone else’s invitations back home, and just do what we want for a few weeks. We’re a tight little pack of four. A trip with toddlers is always challenging, and we are a little reckless with the bedtime schedule but we get to do things we never would back home—Ferry cruises, car-free life, parks every day, spending all weekend together.
After a few weeks, our visit concludes. We are resolute: back home, we will do more walking. More family time. We must declutter. Maybe we should live in another neighborhood? Take the bus more. Be a tourist in our own city. And we talk and talk and talk about it.
Return
Then we actually get here and it doesn’t quite work out like that. First, we’re shocked by our clutter. I’m stressed by my normal schedule and social obligations. With the heat and the constant boob sweat and probably dehydration, I become the crankiest version of myself. I am unable to appreciate great things in my life. It’s like, OK, I can’t fix the weather, but now I’m mad about my beautiful, affordable house? My full-time remote work schedule? Cry yourself a river, girl (people would kill for this). I’m stressed that I have to figure out when to see my friends? Really? Is it that hard? I don’t understand it, and it’s jarring.
But then a few weeks go by. And it starts to get comfortable again.
The kids go back to their preschool, which is the most beige, calming happy Montessori classroom you’ve ever seen, staffed by angels and filled with cute kids.
I stop being flustered by the piles of laundry sitting around. Maybe I finally clear off my bathroom counters and my desk. Run two bags of clothes to the kids consignment store. Look at her go.
And the people. God…it’s so good to be with the people who know us. We see them everywhere. We’re zipping by each other on the trail, stopping to chat on the street, bumping into each other out at the stores. We host chill Sunday dinners. Brewery playdates. There are so many cool women who I want to run with that I cannot see them all.
The heat sucks, but we’re in it together. At least it’s hot enough to make swimming fun again. The live oak trees calm me down. There’s a cool morning or two.
I drive anywhere I want, weekend day trips, do an overnight without kids. I see my parents again, my siblings, the cousins.
Community
Most of this requires a bit of commitment, a schedule sticking-to. Showing up because that’s where the good stuff in community comes from. And we’ve got the usual chores of daily life that we evade in Seattle: house maintenance, car maintenance, going back to the dentist and doctors, getting haircuts and chiropractic adjustments again.
In Seattle it was fun to be more on our own. In Austin…the fabric of our daily lives is that we’re not on our own. I don’t wonder if we’ll have time to fit “it” all in. Because there’s always another week, then the weekend, then another.
So maybe that’s not the point, to bring the experience here. Maybe Seattle can stay its own separate world, our own magical escape.
It feels good to leave.
And it feels good to come back.
Maybe it’s just two cities, for one family. I think that’s more than enough.
FAQs:
This isn’t really in the spirit of this post but if I was reading it, I’d want to know 👀
Family: People always ask us if we have family in Seattle. We don’t, but we’ve got enough fellow Austin vacationers, Austin ex-pats, and acquaintances left from my Oiselle days that we get by just fine.
Cost: They also want to know “how” we swing it, which I take to mean “are you guys rich or something?” And I mean, it costs between $7k and $10K for the Airbnb, which is a privilege to get to spend. Staying somewhere besides Airbnb places would certainly be cheaper. I looked into Furnished Finder and Trusted House Sitters this year, and even sent out inquiries, but couldn’t find anything in walkable areas that was available. Facebook sublets would be good but I’m afraid of getting scammed. It’s one thing if it’s me and Jake, but I’d hate to be across the country with two small kids and have our housing fall through! The cost is partially offset by barely paying for childcare while we’re there (our expenses at home are $4200 / month). And it’s our only big trip of the year—definitely a priority!
Time off: We both work full time, but we each take two weeks off while we’re there (more privilege, yes). Adobe does a shutdown week over July 4, which helps me feel less guilty about being out… They also have an office in Seattle, so I go in and work there every day—a real thrill for this extroverted yet remote gal. Not that my management has ever complained, but I think that makes it better from an optics standpoint. So that gets us to four weeks with vacation time, and if we have extra childcare we do get to stay longer (since we keep working). Last year our nanny came out for a couple weeks (which we did pay for of course), and this year my mom joined us for two weeks (this PS brought to you by free labor of women!).