I Want to Move Out My Family of the Us
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My family of four moved from the US to Thailand, and so to Portugal.
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In the process, we experienced lows and highs and grew as a family.
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I now encourage other families to take the leap and move out of their comfort zone.
In 2018, my husband, two kids, and I packed our lives into two suitcases, boarded three divide planes, and traveled 23 hours to our new home in Phuket, Thailand.
Information technology helped that my husband and I were experienced at living abroad — or and so we thought. Nosotros had lived in 2 other countries prior to having kids and had done our fair share of traveling. I'd built a location-independent business, so we had the income side fix. And we knew from experience that we loved living abroad: the newness of every day, the immersion in other cultures, being outside our comfort zone, the adventures, the food, the memories.
But we chop-chop discovered that living abroad as a family was vastly dissimilar from being 23 years one-time, childless, and able to jump on a bus on a whim and stay in cheap hotels around the Caribbean and Asia. Our children needed more than structure than we initially planned for.
We moved again, this fourth dimension to Portugal, where we found everything nosotros all needed.
At outset, things were hard
Nosotros spent the second calendar week after moving to Thailand hospitalized with food poisoning and the first months nursing our kids through violent illness after trigger-happy affliction. Our attic was infested with bats. We read daily reports of foreigner deaths from traffic accidents and dengue. Two king cobras were caught a couple of miles away, on a route where my husband frequently rode his bicycle.
However, we learned to drive in traffic on the other side of the road. We tried to acclimate to the sticky heat. We practiced safe outside: bathing ourselves in bug spray, staying abroad from bushes and dense jungle copse.
We also had many wonderful adventures — hikes in the jungles, twenty-four hours trips to nearby islands, weekends in Singapore and Vietnam. We spent Sundays at the beach, swimming in the ocean and playing on the sand. But our kids kept getting sick, our son specially, and with the threat of dengue too about for comfort, we picked another home: Portugal.
Then things got so much better
Nosotros packed our suitcases again and moved to southern Portugal.
Nosotros spend weekends at the beach or hiking the extensive trail organisation nigh our domicile. We walk cobblestone streets, consume casual oceanfront meals, adore succulents growing seaside, explore forests, and take surfing lessons.
Here, we have the space we crave, the safety our family needs, and the newness of a place that isn't my Idaho hometown.
At school, my daughter has classes in gardening, mindfulness, and animal care alongside writing, science, and math. My son is in a warm, supportive Portuguese school with teachers who value him as a whole person. They share classes with kids from all over the world, opening their minds and horizons.
We've learned a few lessons along the way
In the transition, we uncovered truths about moving our whole family abroad that hadn't practical when we were just a couple. Although Thailand is an incredible state, a clear "needs" and "wants" checklist prior to moving might accept helped usa recognize some of the quality-of-life bug that would be incompatible for our young family.
We also discovered the ability of taking action. Once we picked a moving engagement and told family and close friends about our plans, our dream began to feel real. We then made it concrete by booking flights and an Airbnb for a month, getting on schoolhouse waiting lists, and researching our new home.
And finally, we learned the power of seeing a dream through. If we had thrown our easily up in despair after our move to Thailand, we would have never experienced the wonderful life we have at present in Portugal. At that place are still certain challenges with living far from friends and family. But we've grown every bit people and as a family unit as we comprehend living in a country that's commencement to feel like home.
Stacy Ennis is a No. 1 bestselling author, success and book coach, and speaker on a mission to help leaders employ the ability of writing to uncover their unique stories then they can scale their impact.
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Source: https://news.yahoo.com/moved-family-4-portugal-leaving-163445118.html
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