One question I get asked all the time is “Why are you moving?”, and to be honest there are a ton of reasons. I would first like to tell you about our life in America before I get into why we decided to uproot our family and move to Central America.
Let me start by saying that we love America. We have traveled all over the world, and we always love coming home. When we go through customs and they say “Welcome Home”, it’s one of our favorite things ever. We have chased the American Dream and done things (mostly) by the book for the last 15 years and have been fairly successful (in our eyes, at least) at that. We were so lucky to buy a house when the market was low, we both have jobs that we love, 2 cars, 2 dogs, 2 kids. Exactly what we were taught we should do as adults. We live in a quiet neighborhood with excellent neighbors and good schools. Our life in America is wonderful. So, why would we give that up?
My husband and I took our first international trip together in 2016, as a 10-year anniversary gift to ourselves. We went to Thailand and split the time between Bangkok and Chiang Mai. This trip changed our lives forever. You have those “before and after” moments in life, like before kids and after kids. For us it was travel. After that trip, we knew we needed to go more places, experience more things, create more memories with our kids, and show them the world! We wanted our daughters to see that there is more to life than the daily grind and keeping up with the Joneses.
I was hearing incredibly sad stories from friends and co-workers about kids my daughters’ age who were attempting suicide. The news was filled with stories about violence and heartbreak. I was seeing that social media was going to force her to grow up very quickly in a society that was feeling unsettled and hateful. I wanted my daughters to be able to not feel that pressure to grow up, even if it was for just a few more years. Our oldest daughter became a pre-teen, and I quickly saw that our time with her was running out. I knew that it was now or never, and that she will likely hate us for a while, but I needed to try something different.
We decided to take a huge leap of faith. We would sell everything, quit our amazing jobs, pack up ourselves and some clothes, get our dogs, and go.
the eventually home 