You might be asking yourself, "What makes a family of 5, decide to uproot their nearly school aged children, move further away from family, give up their SUV for bikes, and experience the hardships that come with moving to a new country?" Well, that's a good question and one we have asked ourselves multiple times in the two years we have been back. As those know who followed my first blog, we had a difficult time repatriating to the US, but after about a year, things seemed to settle down and we started feeling more at home.
It was at this time that we felt like we could honestly and (mostly) unbiasedly, evaluate our time abroad. We could see the good and the bad as we were past the "grass is always greener on the other side " phase. We were able to pinpoint things we really appreciated about the Dutch culture and things we didn't mind leaving behind. Thoughts of moving back abroad were always on our mind but the logistics behind another international move just seemed too far fetched. . .until it wasn't.
Dan was contacted by a recruiter from an Amsterdam based company shortly before Christmas. In true Dutch style, the recruiter said she'd be out until after the first of the year but if Dan was interested in chatting, to send her an email. We both almost dismissed it as he was in the middle of interviews for another job but decided it couldn't hurt to have a conversation. Fast forward a month, we decided the other job didn't feel right, Dan had made a trip to Amsterdam for an on-site interview and our wheels were turning about this becoming a real possibility.
We were excited about exposing our kids to different cultures, about them becoming fluent in a second language, about the ability to travel to other countries. We were excited about living a simpler lifestyle (albeit more difficult in lots of ways), drinking good coffee and eating good bread. But we were also hesitant. Hesitant about another international move, hesitant about leaving our family and friends, hesitant about hauling 3 kids, groceries, and who knows what else, around on a bike ( yep, that picture will be me in a few months)
After much prayer, talking it over (and over and over and over), we really felt like all the pieces of the puzzle fell together perfectly and everything pointed to GO! So we are going. Again.
My hope is to document our journey of navigating an international move, lifestyle change, and adventure with our three kids and two not so newlyweds.
