How We Began

We didn’t always have 4 kids and live in the south. Once I was 16 and met a boy in a band that was touring through our small mountain town in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Two years later, right after my 18th birthday I happened upon the same cute Canadian drummer at a summer music festival in Illinois and promptly showed up at any show and any stage that I knew he would be at. We spent our first day walking around camp grounds and stayed up all night talking by the lake. I promptly shoved that cute drummer into a tour van and kissed him the next day. He was my first love. I wish I could say we continued on from there, but along the way there was a messy break up because of an immature nursing students inability to cope with stress, there was a shot in the dark phone call after my graduation only to learn he had plans to propose to his current girlfriend, and there were a few long years of silence in which I grew up some (but not nearly as much as I would need to) and the relationship he was in fell apart. One night in my third floor rented room in Philadelphia after a long shift waiting tables due to my nursing contract falling through, I got a MySpace message simply asking if I was okay. When I said we shouldn’t talk if he didn’t want to marry me, he said he’d marry me still, so a year later he did. I flew to Canada, Sean flew to Philly, I flew back to Canada. We had a 90 day fiancee moment and were married by the justice of the peace and hosted our wedding 4 months later. We lived in a million tiny apartments in Philadelphia, but my favorite was our 11th floor studio where I spent weeks on bedrest and then brought our first son Hank home. 18 months later when we realized the Canadian in Sean could not handle the Philadelphia in me, we headed to Nashville with little more than a few friends who were there and a house we rented sight unseen on Craigslist. We have been here ever since. We had several more pregnancies, a handful of losses that were hard, some harder than others. Along the way we had Archie, Elsie, and four and a half years later were surprised by sweet baby Frances. In the 12 years we have been married we have grown this sweet little family that is something I always longed for. It is not lost on me that I got to marry my first love and that through all the easy and the hard I have grown up with him.

We find ourselves in a year of peace after two years of hard and in this space we’ve found a plan that we are excited to pursue. One that we hope can afford us some time and peace with our kids in a way we haven’t been able to cultivate where we are. We are embarking on an adventure without a map. Making our way one step and one application at a time. We welcome you to follow along, offer your input, encouragement, and tips as we get ready to move to Cambridgeshire, England.