Well, it has been a little while again! In that time, the following things have happened:

1) We moved into our new home on the 21st

2) We found a car! Right after we gave up on just about all of our parameters (detailed here), we found one that met all of our original specs. We are picking up our Ford Fiesta tomorrow! (Also possibly our Sienna, which has just arrived! Albeit sans wing mirror, ugh.)

3) We spent six days in Naples and Rome with friends to celebrate Thanksgiving and Chris’ birthday. You may have noticed we don’t announce trips before we leave — small concession to security. A follow-up post about this to come!

Chris and his buddy had quite the adventure trying to get to a Roma soccer game (my birthday present to him), thanks to a brief train and taxi strike. More on that later.

4) Our household goods arrived yesterday! Most of them. Seven of nine crates arrived, and it was really impressive to see the movers lifting stuff onto one of the second-floor balconies using a portable elevator they installed. Unfortunately, we are still missing some of our stuff. The most notable of the missing items are: our television, the frames of three bookshelves (but not the shelves themselves), a mattress, the legs to our patio table, half of our couch and the footboard for our guest bed. I have many, many questions about why some of these things would even be separated in the first place. I was very worried because a friend of mine noted that her neighbors didn’t get a couple of crates and they ended up being lost forever, but we just got notice that the two stragglers should arrive tomorrow and we should get them Monday. We won’t be entirely convinced until they are actually here, but it seems like a good sign.

So the last 10 days have basically been a whirlwind around here and we are exhausted, but happy to be in our home at last. And BEYOND HAPPY to be reunited with our bed after months of shitty mattresses. I do need to do a post about the many ways our house would make the perfect setting for an ax-murder movie, but that’ll have to wait for another day. I know you’re all disappointed.

I spent most of today unpacking the million of boxes of kitchen stuff, washing it all and trying to find a place for everything in a kitchen with considerably fewer cabinets than our last.

We had less than 6,000 pounds of items to ship to Italy, but I swear half of it was kitchen things.

The kids and I did take a break to go walk around our new town and try to find some milk* to make cappuccino, and it turns out that — holy cow — we actually *did* pick a house that is walkable to town. Somehow we were so dazzled by the house that I guess we never properly explored enough to realize that a bunch of shops were right down the street (and across the roundabout). I ended up strapping the kids into the double stroller, which hasn’t gotten much use lately since there wasn’t anywhere we could really walk with it in Motta (the town where we were staying in the hotel) because of the lack of sidewalks. I won’t say our new town has perfect sidewalks — they are narrow and end randomly and there are a lot of curbs — but it has some and that is an immediate upgrade!

Anyway, probably about half a mile away ended up being a variety of shops and this giant church in the middle of the downtown (such as it is — this is a small town). Isn’t it gorgeous?

So the trip was basically exactly what I pictured when I imagined us moving to Italy. We popped into a bread shop and picked up a bunch of rolls, we stopped by a vegetable shop to buy some fresh broccoli for dinner and we would have gotten some pastries for dessert if we didn’t forget that everything closes for riposto time. Whoops. Turns out, Chris’ coworker also lives in our town (this is a pretty small town and further from base than most locals want to live, so that’s an odd coincidence) and so Chris was texting me recommendations from the coworker while we were walking.

Walking around did reinforce, however, that we absolutely need Italian lessons. I went into a panino shop so the kids and I could have lunch (our kitchen still looking like it did in the above picture) and ordering a plain hamburger turned out to be a whole hilarious ordeal. The shop had hamburgers listed on the menu, but trying to explain “plain” or “only meat and bread” was definitely confusing. The cashier ended up yelling for a guy she saw walking across the street to come translate, and while he seemed to understand what I was saying and — I thought — told them, after he left they still had a lot of questions. They seemed fairly mystified that we didn’t want prosciutto (bacon, here) on the burger and, I mean, fair point. The kid is weird, what can I say? At that point we turned to Google translate to explain “just bread and cheese” and ultimately this was the finished product.

So close!

Incidentally, I reached out to an Italian tutor today. Let’s hope we can start in January!

*I did not end up getting the milk because I’m an idiot. I walked into a shop that was labeled as selling milk, and when I couldn’t find it I asked. I was all pleased with myself for remembering the Italian word for milk, but then the clerk tried to hand me something from the shelf. Confused, I went “refrigerated?” And he gave me a weird look and said, “No ….” At that point, I fled because apparently I’m still 8 years old at heart. I have no idea whether he was trying to hand me powdered milk or what (Chris suggests formula?) and now I’m pretty sure I’m too embarrassed to ever go into that place again.

The post First days in our new house first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post First days in our new house appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Well, I certainly didn’t imagine I’d go this long without blogging but … things have been insane.

And now we leave tomorrow. And tomorrow starts in an hour and a half at the time of me writing this. We’re at Grandma’s, and I’m finally feeling like everything that I can get done before tomorrow has been done. Our clothes are packed. Devices are charging. I picked up random odds and ends we still needed this afternoon. The kids each have a backpack stuffed with toys, activities and snacks that I’m desperately hoping will keep them more or less chill during the 18 hours or so we’ll be traveling starting tomorrow.

I meant to go into why it has been so long that I’ve written; for example that our departure date got briefly moved back by eight days and then moved up by three so that we could avoid that delay. I’ve been insane trying to finish up various freelance projects and we’ve been spending (super fun!) weekends in Chicago and Indianapolis with family and friends. We had a mini-birthday party for Owen last night with friends and Chris has had to drive to St. Louis to drop off our car.

But as dramatic as that all has been in the last two weeks, it all seems a bit irrelevant now that we are actually leaving.

How am I feeling? Nervous. And excited. Stressed. Happy to finally be leaving. Astonished that it is already time to leave.

But most of all I’m feeling profoundly grateful. I’m grateful that we have this incredible opportunity to see the world with our kids. I’m grateful that I have an amazing husband who not only wanted to do this with me, but actually pushed for it when I wasn’t sure the time was right (it definitely was). And I’m grateful that we have such wonderful family and friends who make leaving so hard. Love to you all.

The post On the day before we leave first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post On the day before we leave appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Well, we are settled into our hotel! The new owners took possession of our house on Wednesday with no tears from anyone but me. (Though this morning Fiona did ask me if we could “go home” and was a little upset when I told her we couldn’t. I’m sorry, baby girl).

I’m more impressed with our hotel than I expected — two bedrooms, two bathrooms and (best of all, obviously) free beer and wine between 5 and 7 p.m. on weekdays. BOOM.

Complimentary, not complementary.

The kids are pretty impressed and even did reasonably well sharing a bed last night. They had a great time in the pool and obviously pressing elevator buttons a million times a day is the best. The first thing Owen told his preschool teacher this morning was “We live in a hotel now.”

They are also impressed with the amount of Happy Meal toys they’ve gotten in the last week as Mommy and Daddy rushed around getting ready for the move. Seen here with SuperGirl headbands and tattoos.

Best news of all — it does look like we are leaving two weeks earlier than expected (albeit two weeks after when we originally intended to go before the error detailed here)

AHHHHHH! And also, YAY!

The post A quick update first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post A quick update appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

It’s been a busy couple days over here!

1. The movers have come and gone already! It took them all of Monday and only a few hours on Tuesday. Considering the original estimate was four days, I guess we have less stuff than the average family?!

2. We closed on our house yesterday. The new owners take possession tomorrow. Cue sobbing.

And finally …

3. OUR VISAS ARE IN!

This is huge, because we may be able to leave earlier. AHHHHH! but also YAY!!

More details when we know more.

The post Major developments first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Major developments appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

In other news, things are moving right along for our move! There is even an outside chance that we might be able to leave a bit earlier, if the visas come back in time. Since we are living in hotels and with family for more than a month as things stand now, that would be welcome news. Anyway, here’s what’s happened in the last week.

1) Our official passports have arrived! Earlier than expected! Yay!

2) We were able to apply for our visas for Italy, the last major step. Paperwork for these things took Chris HOURS and the kids and I got to have another fun visit to his work, but at least it is done.

3) The stuff that we aren’t going to be taking to Italy is getting picked up next Monday to be taken to storage, so we’ve been combing through our house trying to decide what is staying and what is going. We now have a nice mountain of stuff in the basement that will go to storage, which includes all our small appliances. No more toast for us.

4) A surveyor looked at our stuff today and determined that it will only take two days to pack our household goods, so now they’ll be doing that right before we move out. I’m glad for some extra time!

5) Everything is done for the sale of our house except the actual closing, which is being scheduled for less than two weeks from now. Sob sob sob. But also, whew.

6) Fiona’s birthday party was great!

The post Moving right along first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Moving right along appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

We just heard from Chris’ sponsor that not only are there a couple hotels near base that have two-bedroom set ups, but also that we should be able afford one within our temporary housing allowance. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

It probably sounds like a small thing, but I have been worried that we were all going to be exhausted and crabby and stir-crazy if we had to stay in a regular hotel for weeks or months on end while we hunt for a house in Sicily. I do realize this was always a #FWP but I don’t care. I’M SO RELIEVED. We are probably not all going to lose our minds! I’m still going to be able to get work done after they go to bed! I will have somewhere to hide when I need ten freaking minutes to myself. WHEW.

In other news, we are having a great day celebrating Fiona’s birthday. The kids are chowing down on their first-ever slushies from Sonic at the moment and they are very impressed. Next up, swimming, pizza and cake. Woo!

The post Sigh of relief first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Sigh of relief appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Well, this won’t be a particularly exciting update but things are continuing to move along as September (aka … the last full month we’ll be living in the United States for the next few years! gulp!) approaches. My thoughts are kind of scattered today because Fiona turns TWO in a few hours, so I’m going the bullet point route.

1. Chris got his sponsor! The sponsor’s job is basically to answer questions and help smooth the way for us in Sicily. His sponsor is awesome and has given us a ton of advice, and his wife is equally cool. They also have little kids, so they know exactly what we’re going through.

2. It looks like full-steam ahead for moving out in September. All we have left to do is wait on the report from the assessor and schedule the closing, and we should be good to go. That makes me sad when I think about it too much — we brought both our babies home here! — but I’m trying not to dwell. Chris and I realized this weekend that we only had two full weekends left before the movers (scheduled to be here mid September for four days) start, so we are finally getting organized. It isn’t really that we are “packing” because the movers do that, but we need to place all our belongings into four categories: a) stuff we are sending to storage, b) stuff we are sending in the giant package of our household goods, to arrive about 2-3 months later, c) stuff we are sending in our “express” package shortly before we leave and d) stuff we’ll need to take with us in suitcases.

I know people have been asking, so here’s the deal with our stuff — we are taking most of it, though leaving behind some furniture and all our small appliances and about half the kids’ toys. We are also shipping our minivan, though I’m not sure when since it will also take between six weeks and three months to arrive. I keep seeing people on the Facebook groups I’ve joined suggesting that people ship their cars super early, but to be honest I don’t really understand the logistics of that. I mean, I need my car now, obviously. Yes, I’m going to be inconvenienced in Italy if I don’t have a car but I also can’t really function without a car here in Indiana so ….

3. Speaking of housing, I’ve been spending a lot of time searching various websites for houses to rent. It’s a bit of a pointless exercise at the moment because none of the homes we see are likely to be available when we arrived in October, but it is nice to know there are some really pretty options. Chris has been doing a lot of research today based on advice from our sponsor, and we think we have a good idea of what towns we are most interested in. We won’t really know until we get there and start seeing places though!

For my part, I’m just hoping we find some place fairly quickly. I’m less worried about the hotel stay in the U.S. because we’ve rented a place with two bedrooms, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that out in Sicily. Not to be a whiner, but sharing a room with the kids is pretty much my least favorite thing ever because none of us ever sleep much. If we are all sharing for a month or more, we’ll probably lose our minds. Or just get used to it, I guess.

4. Emotionally, I am feeling really good about the move like 95 percent of the time. Periodically I get bummed out (like when I imagine Owen leaving his amazing preschool, or missing events with my friends and family) or get panicky about the fact that we are actually moving to Italy but mostly I am feeling really positive about everything. And I’m not yet too stressed about the logistics since we figured out where we are going after we move out of our house.

On the other hand, I keep having very realistic dreams that my teeth are falling out and waking up astonished that all of them are still there and not even wiggly. I don’t usually think much of dream interpretation, but I googled this one and apparently it is a super common dream when you are stressed about a transition. So I’m guessing my subconscious doesn’t agree with my previous paragraph?

5. Lastly, FIONA TURNS TWO TOMORROW. How did this happen?! Tomorrow we are going to have a big breakfast (she is obsessed with breakfast food), go to Open Gym so she can run around and jump and climb like the little daredevil she is, go swimming with Daddy, go out for pizza and have cake and presents as a family. She’ll have her party on Saturday!

In honor of my baby girl’s birthday, here’s a couple bunch of pics. Enjoy!

The post What we’ve been up to first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post What we’ve been up to appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

The short answer why our move will probably be pushed back more than three weeks is this:

It is literally easier to just accept a mistake than to fix it.

Yeah.

So, the more complicated answer is probably not all that interesting to most people. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure I fully understand it myself. With those disclaimers out of the way, here we go.

Basically, Chris’ initial offer letter listed Sept. 1 as his proposed start date. Everyone we know who has been through this process or knows about it basically laughed and said those dates are always crazy unrealistic, and not worry about it. Sure enough, we were later asked to put on a form the day we “want” to leave.

(Side note: January 2017 — my dream date so that we could still go to a friend’s wedding in Mexico in December — was apparently out of the question. Waaaaaa!)

So, we chose Oct. 1. Filled out a bunch of forms, then patiently waited for Chris’ orders to come so that we could start submitting the most important things, the official passports and the visas. And then the orders arrived. YAY!

Until we looked carefully and noticed:
1) Chris inexplicably had the wrong job title listed. (Like, way off)
2) Our start date was listed as more than three weeks later that we requested

Naturally, these orders were sent at the end of the (Italian) business day on a Friday. Ok, we think, we’ll get them to fix it Monday so we can get our next document in. Just kidding, Monday is a holiday in Italy. Tuesday, then? Haha, it is August in Italy. Everyone is on vacation for the rest of the month. Ok, how about one of the Americans working there help us? Bahahahahahaha.

So, after wasting a week trying to get these orders amended, the advice we were given was to change the dates on our official passport applications to reflect the date on the orders. Then change the date on our visa applications to reflect the dates on the orders and passports. Then, only after the visas are granted, can we try to change the date. Except that visas are processed in order based on expected arrival date, so you can probably guess how likely it is that we’ll get it significantly earlier than our dates.

So we basically gave up. The kids and I made another trek to work with Chris to redo the paperwork. The kids had a lot of fun, as you can see:

This is actually not the first snafu that has affected our timeline, though we didn’t know it until recently. Chris interviewed for his job in early June, thought it went really well and that he was extremely well-qualified for it (it is literally his exact job now, including some specific aspects that few other people with similar positions would have done. Yes, this is vague) and that he had a good shot. Then we heard … nothing. We got annoyed, booked another vacation as a combination tantrum-and-jinx-attempt and started to give up hope. And then, a month later, we found out he got it! (Read about that here: Here)

More recently, we found out the reason that it took so long. Apparently they chose Chris basically immediately and told HR to notify him. Except somewhere along the way, someone misspelled his name and couldn’t, somehow, find him in the system so that they could let him know. For reasons that are unclear to me, it appears that whoever encountered this problem just kind of shrugged and moved on. A month later, Chris’ future supervisor went and asked HR why he hadn’t heard back from Chris yet and found out he’d never actually been offered the job. He was notified the next day (again, BY E-MAIL. That still seems insane).

Whoops.

(We canceled the tantrum vacation, by the way. More on that at a later day.)

The post Why we are (probably) moving 3-4 weeks later than expected first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Why we are (probably) moving 3-4 weeks later than expected appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Well, our house sold within a week. The new owners take possession on Sept. 21 — aka, ONE MONTH FROM TODAY. That’s the good news!

Or at least, it was. Back when we were leaving on Oct. 1.

The deal is, the government will pay for 10 days of living expenses before we leave for Italy. Hotel, food, dry cleaning, etc. It is intended to fill the gap if, like us, there is a period of time between when you have to vacate your current housing and when you actually leave the country.

We got our buyers to wait a little longer than they wanted specifically so the timing would line up perfectly with using our 10-day period before we left. Because we are so clever. (/sarcasmfont)

Except that now we may not be leaving until Oct. 24

Yeah.

I’ll save the whys (more accurately, WTF WHY WHY WHY WTF WHYs) of this for tomorrow, maybe. But the one-word answer is “incompetence.”

The good news is, we do have a plan. I tend to lose my shit a little bit when I don’t have a plan, but now that we’ve worked it out I feel like I can breathe again. Even thought it is a fairly shitty plan, which includes driving up to Chicago or Indianapolis to stay with relatives every weekend between Sept. 21 and Oct. 24 and staying in a Bloomington hotel (so Chris can go to work and Owen to school) during the week. Because did I mention that basically all the (decent) hotels in Bloomington are also already booked up on the weekends because of football? Whoops.

Still, it’s a plan. I’m clinging to some optimism (Chris would does refer to this as “delusion”) that we won’t actually be stuck here until Oct. 24, that people will come through and we’ll leave, if not on Oct. 1, sooner than the 24th. But if not, at least we know where we’ll have places to sleep this time NEXT MONTH.

The post Homelessness approaches first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Homelessness approaches appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

If you are my mother or close friend, you can probably feel free to skip on over this post.

As for anyone else who doesn’t already know me — oh, hey there. What’s up?

The goals of this blog are twofold:

1) To keep people informed about our happenings since we are moving about 5,167 miles away, and to thus make me feel like less of an asshole when I forget to respond to texts, Facebook messages and e-mails.

2) To share our experiences in traveling with little kids throughout Europe (and beyond, eventually) for the next several years. I’d like to be able to let others know what worked for us, what didn’t and what you should OH MY GOD NEVER TRY TO DO BECAUSE IT WAS THE WORST. Let’s not pretend there won’t be a few of those, ok?

Speaking of advice, I’d really appreciate it if any of you veteran travelers would share any advice of yours with me. Pretty please?

Anyway, those who know me know that I’m a little bit obsessed with travel. I have my parents to thank for that (more on that at a later date). My inbox is basically half airfare alerts from various websites showing me can’t-miss deals, and my Facebook newsfeed isn’t a whole lot better (sorry to everyone I tag in all those good deal posts …). Before we found out that we were moving to Sicily, I was driving Chris a bit nuts with my constant e-mails about where should book our next trip. Thus far, we have only taken the kids on car trips to various beaches — learning a lot along the way! — though we were planning our first plane trip with them to New Orleans next month before this all happened. I was plotting to take the kids to Europe next spring, destination TBD based on wherever I found an incredible deal to a place we were interested in. Or even ones we weren’t all that interested in — I once strongly considered a trip to a random country in Eastern Europe because we could have flown there for like $250 each. Chris was not impressed by my position that we’d actually be losing money by not taking a trip that cheap.

So, a little about us. Here’s our cast of characters:

Chris: My husband. Best guy ever. His interests include video games, college basketball (go Hoosiers!), soccer, cycling, history, travel and being a human jungle gym for our kids every evening. We met at Indiana University through mutual friends and alcohol, and have been together since the fall of 2007. We got married in September 2010, and still like each other =-)

Owen: Our almost 4-year-old. Where to even start? He’s hilarious, goofy, inventive, logical, insanely stubborn and is already starting to outsmart us in negotiations. He’s a bit of a sensitive soul, and tends to worry about other people a lot. His imagination astonishes me. His interests include Star Wars, Wild Kratts, building things, dinosaurs, reading, swimming and Harry Potter (yesssss).

Fiona: Close enough to be called 2 now. Our wild child! Sweet Fi is always climbing things, hiding in cabinets and jumping off of shit. I have about six heart attacks a day because of her antics, but that’s down from about 60 a day when she first started walking so that, I’d say, is progress. She is also the sweetest little girl in the world and always wants hugs and kisses and cuddles, and tells complete strangers “Hi! I’m Fiona!” whenever we go out. She’s also a baby genius like her brother, in my humble opinion.

Moi: I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, came to Indiana for school and stayed for love. Before kids, I was a newspaper reporter in southern Indiana for three years, followed by another 11 months at a different paper in our college town. When my son was born, I became a stay-at-home mom and freelance writer. Now I write for some local magazines, as well as doing some technical writing for a law firm (way more interesting than it sounds). As to the rest — I think you can probably gauge my crazy for yourself.

The post About this blog first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post About this blog appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Beep.

“We focus on a sense of community and — ”

Beep.

“– our offices and that generation seems –”

Beep.

“– really well –”

Beep.

I was in the middle of a phone interview, and I was starting to get pissed. It was bad enough that both kids were awake while I was trying to do an interview (thank you, fruit snacks and Wild Kratts and also more fruit snacks), but now I was dealing with a husband who felt it was necessary to call me 1,000 times in a row when I didn’t pick up the phone the first six times.

Take a hint, dude. I’m not available.

So, I was typing a Facebook message to STOP CALLING — while also still trying to listen to my source and ask intelligent questions — when Reasonable Kasey took over and it occurred to me that Chris isn’t in the habit of calling me incessantly unless there is a very good reason. And then I knew. Either he:

1) Fell down a well and needed aid ASAP

or

2) HE GOT THE JOB

A quick Facebook message confirmed that it was Option 2. Here is our very dignified and adult conversation. Please remember that I’m still on the phone at this particular point.

Weirdly, I’m actually in the habit of missing phone calls from him when he has big job news. When he originally got his job in Indiana, I was working and left my phone in the car ALL DAY by accident while he was freaking out and dying to tell me. I got the news over Gchat at the end of the day, and ended up flipping my desk chair in the middle of the newsroom in my excitement.

My response to this news was similarly measured.

I am NOT PROUD of this next part. I really am not. And for anyone reading this who ever wants to consider hiring me, I swear I am a professional. I swear I never do this. This was the first (and only) time I’ve done this.

I, um, “dropped” the call. Called Chris. SCREAMED. Danced around. For 90 seconds. Asked about a dozen rapid-fire questions (the answer to all of which was “I don’t know,” because he’d just found out. Via E-MAIL. Can we talk for a second about how INSANE it is that the government sends life-changing news like YOU ARE MOVING TO ITALY by E-MAIL? No? Ok, maybe we’ll come back to that later.)

And then I remembered that I needed to be an adult, called my source back and apologized for losing her somehow (guilt guilt guilt) and somehow finished the interview in what I hope — but doubt — was a normal voice.

The post How I found out first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post How I found out appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

So we’re moving to Sicily.

We’ll be living near Catania in Sicily for the next three to five years.

No matter how many times I’ve said this to basically every person I know (and some randoms like the person who butchered cut my son’s hair the other day), it honestly still does not feel real. But, since we have filled out approximately 145,324 government forms in the last month, I’m thinking that it probably is going to happen. So here are the facts:

1) My husband works for the government, and has taken an assignment in Sicily. We are required to stay a minimum of three years, and could extend to five years if we so choose. Five is the max we are allowed before being required to come back to the United States. At the end, Chris has the right to return to his current job in Indiana.

2) We are aiming for an Oct. 1 leave date, and as we’ve already sold our house and need to be out toward the middle of September I’m really hoping that this pans out. Unfortunately delays seem to be pretty common, so that makes me a little nervous.

3) We’ll be shipping the majority of our possessions to Italy and storing the rest. And since a lot of people seem very interested in the fate of our new minivan sports van — yes, it is coming too! We’ll probably be separated for two to three months (sob!), but it’ll get there eventually. We are planning to buy a beater as well once we arrive on the island.

4) We can’t hunt for a house until a couple weeks after we arrive, so we’ll be staying in a hotel on base for probably the first month or so. Gulp. This is honestly the thing that is driving me the most crazy because I’m a planner, damn it.

As to how we are feeling? Mostly excited, with the occasional deer-in-the-headlights WHAT HAVE WE DONE? moments. Right now is pretty stressful because we are waiting on various government agencies to complete certain paperwork so that we can move on to the next, very important steps, like applying for visas. Our house fortunately sold pretty quickly so that is a weight off our minds. The kids seem enthusiastic about the move, and Owen (3.5 years old) likes to tell people that we are moving to “Siiiiiicily, which is in ITALY” pretty frequently. Fiona, who turns 2 at the end of this month, has a fairly limited understanding of what is going on.

Honestly though, this is basically a dream come true for us. Chris and I have been talking about moving overseas ever since we found out it would be possible shortly after he started his job almost seven years ago. At one point I was pretty adamant that I didn’t want to do it until the kids were older, but somehow over the last several years my mindset has shifted from “now isn’t the right time” to “well, go ahead and just apply to this ONE because it is so perfect and it probably won’t happen anyway” to Chris coming home telling me “I applied to jobs in Germany, Italy and Belgium today …” and me actually hoping it would work out. While I always felt sure it would work out at some nebulous time in the future, I have to admit it is a bit surreal that it is actually happening. I’m not sure I’ll actually believe it until we’re there.

*Author’s note. This was written last week, and some things we “know” have changed. However, since web sites are harder than I thought I make we had to start over (second update: twice) and hence the older posts.

The post So this one time we decided to move to Italy. first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post So this one time we decided to move to Italy. appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.