Shorter story: A few months ago Scott was contacted by an Apple recruiter and invited to a recruiting event in Boston. Though the interview went well and he was invited to interview at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, CA, we didn't really expect anything to come of it. Still, Scott went ahead and continued the interview process. Two days later we had an unofficial job offer, which became official a few days ago. So we will be moving to California (though not to Cupertino -- we couldn't afford to live in a cardboard box there), and Scott will be starting a new job with Apple on March 31st.
Long story: Just a little over a year ago, GE Healthcare notified everyone at Scott's site in Northampton that they would be shutting the site down and moving operations to Sweden. They asked Scott to move to Sweden for two years to help oversee the transfer. We were SO excited!
We began researching and talking to people and making plans. We told the kids and their teachers. Scott scouted out neighborhoods when he made a business trip to Sweden. In all of this we were always careful to say that we might be moving to Sweden or that we were probably moving to Sweden, since we hadn't yet signed anything making it official. But all signs and evidence pointed to the fact that it was going to happen. Then, in July of last year, just as they were on the verge of sending us the papers to make our ex-pat status official, GE put the site transfer on-hold. At the time we thought it was just being pushed back by 3 or 4 months because of budgetary concerns. By the fall, though, it became clear that the transfer was not going to happen and we were not going to be moving to Sweden. What was going to happen at Scott's site was, however, very uncertain.
It was just around that same time that Scott was contacted by an Apple recruiter and invited to attend a recruiting event in Boston. Partly because things at GE were so up in the air and partly out of curiosity, Scott decided to attend. We really did not think that anything would come of it, but he was then invited to interview at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, CA. Though we still didn't really expect anything to happen, Scott's interest was piqued and we decided to continue to pursue the opportunity. Two days after the interview in California, we had an unofficial job offer from Apple. That offer was made official a few days ago; we accepted it, and Scott will be starting at Apple on March 31st.
We told the kids tonight while getting ice cream at Friendly's for Family Home Evening. They were mostly too distracted by their ice cream to really give us much of a reaction. I don't think Asher really gets it. Caleb seems excited (he loves California -- I think it's his surfer hair), and I think Evan's still deciding how he feels. Oliver just wanted more ice cream.
It's funny, even though Scott and I are both from California, I never really thought we would move back there and it's nothing we've ever sought out. Even now that everything is all official it seems unreal. We will be within driving distance of all our family except for my two sisters. The Bay Area will be an exciting and vibrant place to live. The opportunity at Apple was too good to pass up. And yet there is so much that we will miss about Massachusetts. Call me crazy, but I think the seasons are one of the things I will miss the most, especially the Fall. And I will miss the green and the trees. The farmstands and the maple syrup. All of the locally made ice cream in the summer. Boston. Our small, country school. The history. How close we are to so many interesting places. The Fall foliage. Our huge backyard that would cost us millions of dollars in Silicon Valley. And especially, of course, the people.
