Years ago when our kids were small and we had all the time in the world to make our big plans happen, we decided we'd like to take a year or two and live abroad. We didn't know exactly what that would look like, but knew we wanted our two boys to have the experience of living in a different culture. We still feel that way. Unfortunately, time moved forward faster than our planning and execution did. So now, we're we're days away from graduating our first child from high school. What the heck?!?
Although we're too late to make our original "live abroad" plans happen, we decided we could at least explore a small part of the world beyond where we live by taking an extended trip to Europe. We will visit six different countries over the next few weeks and hopefully expose the boys to places they'd like to return. In my ideal world these return trips will also include our whole family, but even if they don't, we will have the shared memories from this one.
So, in one day Jacob graduates. In three days Spencer finishes his sophomore school year. And, in four days our family leaves for Europe. The whirlwind begins...