Tucson

At the first of December, Raytheon called and invited Aaron down to Tuscon for an on site interview. This is the job that contacted Aaron awhile ago asking him to put in for a specific job down there. So last Thursday we took Aaron back to the airport so he could fly back to Arizona.

The interview went well. And yesterday they contacted Aaron and made him a verbal offer and said they would over night him all the details in writing. We have about three weeks to make a decision. Major life changing decision sooner than we expected it equals a lot of stress at the Swan house hold this week. On top of stress we are already feeling from Aaron's finals and trying to get ready to go on a vacation.

 Aaron said he felt like everyone he talked to down there really liked their jobs, and that the work environment would be enjoyable. He would get top-secret security clearance and work on designing missiles. Cool. From my perspective it also seems like a great job. The salary they're offering was a bit more than I expected, plus he'd get 3 weeks paid vacation right off the bat, plus an extra week and a half at Christmas time. He would work 9 hour days with every other Friday off. He probably wouldn't have to travel very much.

Sounds like a dream job, right? Well it is. So what's the problem? Why all the stress? Well, because the job is located in Tucson, Arizona, which is number one on my list of places I have absolutely no desire to live or raise a family. I'm not a 115 degree summer type person. I'm not a stucco house type person. And I'm definitely not an organized-rocks-for-a-back-yard-instead-of-grass type person.  I don't like cactus, or even palm trees, that much. I grew up in a place where I spent a lot of my days playing outside in trees and grass and dirt, so did Aaron, so we don't really know what our kids would do for play outside in AZ. We definitely don't want them to stay inside their whole lives and be couch potatoes. How will we build Lincoln and Ivan a tree fort? How will we raise a huge garden and fruit trees so we can do lots of canning and preserving? What about the tulips I always thought I'd plant in the spring? How about decorating for Christmas in 75 degree weather? What about that fact that I love to see my kids wearing fuzzy footy pajamas? I don't know. Some of these things sound stupid, I know, but they are what's running through my head.

Especially the playing outside thing. I keep coming back to that. I think it's an important part of development for kids to play outside, and have their own freedom to explore nature at their whim. I don't know how excited I'd be as a kid in AZ when all I have are cactus and rocks to play with, and other kids in other places have huge trees, and all kinds of plants, and streams and fields, and shade to spend an afternoon reading a book in, and on and on. Maybe it's that I don't know any better...someone from AZ please enlighten me. I know there are places to go and do things. You can go to a park, or a museum, or wherever. I'm not really worried about finding things to go and do. What I worry about is when we are home and I'm doing chores or whatever, and the kids need to be able to go out in the back yard and play. What will they do in an Arizona backyard? I refuse to get a house with a pool...I'd spend every waking hour of the day terrified that one of my kids was drowning in it. Maybe if they were older, but right now while they are all so young it just seems like asking for trouble.

So I get all this whirling around in my head and I think, no, we can't move to Arizona. But then I start thinking about the job. It's a job Aaron would love, I think. Which is really important to me. Aaron has worked so hard the last who knows how many years. He deserves a good job with a company that wants him, and clearly Raytheon does...they've pulled out all the stops, so to speak. The pay is great. The benefits are great. The company is family oriented. They would pay for us to move our stuff, pay for us to ship our car, fly us out there. Pay for us to come down a separate time to look for a place to live. And you really can't beat three weeks paid time off with a week and a half at Christmas and every other Friday off, can you? Can I pass something like that up? We'd get to see SO much of Aaron. I would love that.  So then I start thinking, ok, we'll take the job. It won't be so bad, lots of people live in Tucson, they must go outside. There is a mountain in Tucson, with a ski resort on top, so it would be better than Phoenix was. And I start looking on craigslist for places to rent, and I see all the awful stucco houses and want to vomit. Why can't this job just be located somewhere, anywhere, else?

The other side of the coin is the company in Spanish Fork that Aaron is interning for. There is a possibility that they will make Aaron an offer. It probably won't be as much pay, or as much vacation time, though. Aaron told them about his offer from Raytheon, so we are just waiting to see what happens. Making life altering decisions is not my favorite thing...but I guess in a couple weeks we'll have had to decide and it will all be over. Oh boy.