Our Family – Moving from Good to Great

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Deep within in me, there is a desire to make a substantial difference.  A desire to supersede all expectations for me and blow the norm out of the water.  Even more than wanting this sort of change for myself, I want it for my children, for my family.

I actually believe that all of us have that desire.

 

This is the driving force for our move.  Not just to move to a different place.  Really, it’s to move our family from good to great.

Don’t get me wrong, we have an incredible life.  We have 3 beautiful children, live and explore together in beautiful places and have outstanding adventures.  Life is good and we are happy.  However, behind all of that, there lies unrest.  The unrest that comes from feeling like I can do more.  No.  That I should do more.

At no time have I seen more clearly how quickly time passes than when I look at my children.  How quickly the years have sped by while the days have crept along.  In the end, I often feel like I’m in survival mode.  Surviving the day to day of parenthood and the often repetitive tasks of feeding, clothing and caring for my children.  Whether on the trail or at home, these things can easily consume my life, leaving my days busy but less than full (like I talked about in Busy The One Trend that’s Ruining Everyone).

We decided to change that.  To stop living the life that everyone else was and that we were told was “best” for our family.  To live deliberately.  To take charge.  For us, we decided to make this look like an overseas move.  To stop saying “someday we want to live overseas” and change that to “yes, we’re moving overseas”!

 

Why do we want to live overseas?

When Andrew and I were dating, we spent several months living in Kenya.  To say that this was life-changing would be a serious understatement.  It took us out of our bubble of the US and exposed us to the WORLD.  We learned an incredible amount about who we were and our place in this world.  Since we got to experience that and learn together, that has always been an incredible strength in our relationship.  We knew right away that we desperately wanted to provide that for our children.

To venture to the unknown and discover and explore it together.  And while vacations are nice, they often lack the permanent change that we were looking for.  This had to be something BIG!

 

We want to have the common and consistent things in life be each other, our relationships, and our faith.  To be able to travel, experience new and amazing things on a regular basis.  To take the time to slow down and teach our children from all the amazing experiences we are having together.  To fully take advantage of this fleeting moment called childhood.  To make our family strong, interdependent, and best friends.

 

How will our move accomplish that?  We’re moving from the busy corporate work world to a culture and place where the demands on us will allow us to put our family first.  Where 8-5 really is the norm, and overtime isn’t just something that everyone does one a regular basis.  Where the expectation to constantly reach out through school, church, and community are not as strong, so we can be a little selfish and look in – look in to what matters most, our family.

And though I know I will desperately miss things like Target and Costco, I know that without the constant distraction of consumerism, I will have much more time for US.

Where we will not only have large amounts of time to spend together, but also money to facilitate travel (which although we’re not big spenders, with 6 people flying, things add up fast).

Realistically, we know that many days we will fail.  Not everything will be spectacular.  Things will be hard and unfamiliar, but we will move on – together.  We will become better.  For ourselves.  For each other.  For our children.  

 So while we’ll be saying goodbye to the mountains, rivers, weather, and people that we love, we feel like we’re giving our family MORE.

So here’s to our adventure.

To our family.

To being the best that we can be!

About Jessica Averett

Hi, I’m Jessica, a mom of 5 kids and married to my favorite adventure partner. I love to bike, ski, camp and hike. We've visited over 40 countries with our kids, but are equally happy on the road as we are exploring our home state of Utah.

13 thoughts on “Our Family – Moving from Good to Great”

  1. Love this: “Where the expectation to constantly reach out through school, church, and community are not as strong, so we can be a little selfish and look in – look in to what matters most, our family.” It’s so true!

    Reply
  2. Your words and actions are inspiring. It gives me chills to know you guys ares doing it and acting out your dreams and desires. Congrats. Can’t wait to continue reading as the adventures unfold.

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  3. You have a wise perspective you are taking with you on this journey. My family has recently done the same – moving from Colorado to Perth, Australia. And like you, I am well into my 3rd trimester and planning a birth overseas. It has been just as we had hoped – difficult in some ways and wonderful in many others! I wish the very best for you and your family on this journey! You won’t regret it!

    Reply
  4. I should refer my friends and family to this post when they ask why I home school. I know moving overseas is not the same as homeschooling but we have the same motivations. This is a great reminder as to what is important, and why we are trying to emulate your awesome lifestyle!

    Reply
  5. Ya… sure… that’s great and all, but I still miss my friend and my kids friends!!!

    Hope you are settling well and that you can bust out that tuna casserole when you need it. >wink<

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  6. You are an inspiration!!! This is exactly what I’d love to do with my family….my husband is unsure about quiting job and selling house etc. Please, do you mind me asking what job you moved for?? What kind of work do you or husband do?? Do you just forget about pension and what about healthcare?
    Thank you so much! This is my first time reachin out and asking…but you seemed to be the perfect person to ask!

    Reply

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