I am 33 years old–ok, almost 34. I have been married to my best friend for almost 14 years and we have four awesome kiddos. My husband is a Software Architect and Consultant and we own our own business. Because of the nature of my husband’s work, he travels. A lot. More than any parent should. This has been difficult over the years–growing especially harder as our children get older.

Our schedule has always been a little bit crazy, but it didn’t catch up with me until the spring of 2016. We had four kids in three different schools. We had a son in baseball which took up four evenings of our week and two kids in soccer which took up another three evenings a week. All four children were in rock climbing once a week and our last child was taking an art class one evening a week. All of this and my husband was traveling for work most of the time. Now, I know a lot of families live like this, but it was just not working for any of us. The pace of life we were living was slowly distancing us from one another. Something needed to change … drastically.

One night (I’m not exactly sure what had happened that evening, but I do know that it was in the middle of our crazy spring) I looked at my husband and I said, “why don’t we just travel with you? Our lease is up at the end of June, so we wouldn’t have to sell our house; what if we just moved to Europe and traveled around with you for a while?” That was the beginning of the journey we now find ourselves in.

This is what I will be writing about. You’ll find out about our initial trip to Europe, our preparations, how and what we’ve packed and there are even some pages with tips on cheap family travel. Each week my husband works in a different location. We travel together as a family living out of our suitcases as we move around each week. Thus, we are the Nomad Family. We have taken our kids out of school to homeschool them while we travel. As you follow us along in our journey, I hope that you are able to laugh with us as we make mistakes, learn with us as we figure out things, and that you are encouraged to explore this great world that we live in.

One unique thing about this blog is that our children play a big role in it. As a part of their schooling, they are to journal (blog) about their experiences. My hope is that as they write, you will join in their discussion, asking them questions about what they’re experiencing and learning. I have seen this interaction already encourage them to continue to write more–so please comment on their posts!

So far, we have taken field trips, learned about European history; we have learned all about currencies and exchange rates; we have seen many different cultures and we have spent hours on planes and trains. I’m excited to see where this next year takes us. I hope you join us in following our adventures!