It has nothing to do with the quickly changing political landscape in the US, but I guess it comes at the right time…
After several years of discussing our eventual move to France, Tina and I decided last year that 2017 would be the year we’ll be moving there. The move won’t be permanent as we plan on staying there for no longer than two years.
To make this happen, Tina will have to quit her full-time job. I won’t have to change much to my routine since I work for myself and just need a laptop and an internet connection. Both kids will of course attend school in France. Luca will enter kindergarten, and Chloé will enter elementary school.
While we originally planned on moving to the tiny village where I grew up, Tina is feeling anxious about living in such a small place, so we might adjust our location by just a few miles by moving to the next town over. It’s still small by US standards, but it’s what I’d call a self-contained town with enough amenities to make it feel like you’re in a “city.”
The main reason we’re moving there is that we want our kids to spend time with my parents and the rest of my family. We also want the kids to become fluent in French, and despite me speaking to them exclusively in the language, the only true way for them to become fluent is to be completely immersed.
So this will be a great opportunity to spend time with my parents, but most importantly for my parents to spend time with Chloé and Luca. Being an only child, it’s been hard on them to see me move so far away from them. And now with two grand children growing rapidly, it’s become even harder for my parents to witness their growth through FaceTime.
Living in France will also be a great opportunity for us to travel through Europe, something I didn’t really do when I lived there. We have several places on our to-go list, including Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece, with many more countries probably added as we go.
Now that we are getting closer to the move date (set for July 23rd), I am starting to feel anxiety. Not so much about moving there, bur rather about preparing for the move and making sure everything, including our house and furniture are taken care of.
Of course we have a lot to do, including changing our address, finding a management company to rent out our house, finding storage space for our furniture, packing, figuring out Tina’s legal situation, and do the all around planning. The planning might actually be the hardest part of it all because there are so many things to take into account.
Pretty exciting times ahead! I’ll do my best to document our adventures as we move forward, and who knows, maybe revive this blog altogether?