a change of heart & big announcement

WE ARE MOVING HOME!

... in 338 days... for one year.

If you had asked me three months ago whether this was even in the realm of possibility, I would have said: no (rather emphatically). However, Ruby has proven to be a game changer, and, in the end, I guess it was a little naive for us to think this wasn't a very real immediate possibility. 

I mean-- we just had a kid. 

This is the biggest thing that has ever happened to us. Ever. Bigger than any job, move, adventure, or the like. 

She is a live, breathing human being we brought into this world, and, as it turns out, the world we want her to be a part of at the moment involves grandmas and uncles and cousins and clean air and mountains and forests and ferries and ocean and backyards and fire pits and BBQs and family holidays and old friends and things that are familiar and things that feel like home because they are home. 

Home. 

That is the world we crave because, let's face it, we have a pretty amazing home.  

So what does this all mean? 

It means we are on a countdown. 

This will be our last year living in Hsinchu. 

It will be our last year working at our school. 

It means that come July 2018, the four of us will board an airplane with one way tickets back to the Pacific Northwest. 

We will likely live with my mother for a short period of time and Sean's parents for a short period of time. We probably won't work, and instead just live off our healthy savings account. We will most likely do monthly airbnb rentals to avoid a yearly lease, and so we can live in our favorite communities. Then, we will work on recruiting for the following year. We will pursue the DODEA and register with International School Services and Search Associates again. 

Who knows exactly what will happen?

I am okay with not having that answer because I can see the bigger picture: we will be coming home after six wonderful years away, 100% debt free, with quite an impressive savings, as the parents of a beautiful little girl and a silly fur dog, and as the owners of passports full of stamps from far off places, and at the end of the day, this is what we know to be true:

When we came to Taiwan, we had no answers and no idea what to expect, yet a beautiful story emerged from all of the uncertainty. We have no reason not to expect the same to be true moving homeward and onward.