Far From The Home I Love

I re-watched Fiddler On The Roof today and found myself getting quite emotional after hearing the song "Far From the Home I Love" sung with honesty by a daughter to her father. With our upcoming move overseas I couldn't help but related to it.

My parents and family (as well as Jared's) have been so supportive of us in the decision to move to Switzerland. They understand as much as we do that this is a great opportunity in so many ways for us. When the opportunity presented itself to us, there was no doubt in any of our minds that this is where God was leading us. And although we are 100% certain this is God's plan for us, that doesn't mean I'm not anxious and even a little afraid of the huge change this will be.

I've never lived more than 2 hours away from my family and they are very much part of my everyday strength. Being so far from them is not my ideal situation, but I know that we will not be too far to feel their love and support. There will be times for visits and thanks to technology we will be able to be in their living room and they will be able to be in ours via Skype - a fairly new video connection concept where we will be able to see them as we talk to them and they can in turn see us as they talk to us.

This song just made our upcoming move all the more real to me. It's something I want and I am looking forward to but at the same time, something I can't help but have other human emotions about. But I know that through it all, God will be with us....


I never dreamed that my life would one day include a wonderful, loving husband who I'd be moving overseas with. God has surpassed my dreams and expectations for my life. I feel blessed and thankful for the life he has given me.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. -Jeremiah 29:11

Switzerland Is In Our Future

My husband, Jared is finishing up his PhD in Chemistry and a few months after his graduation we will be moving to Switzerland where he has a 2 year post-doctoral opportunity lined up. I hope to journal every step of the way including the days and months leading up to our departure from the United States. We are looking to move in October of 2010. In the meantime, there is lots to do in order to prepare. We have already begun to sell some of our valuables that have no real sentimental value as we will not be taking anything more than the necessities with us. I have been asked a lot about this and the answer is YES, we WILL be taking our cats with us. They are not cats to us...they are our children and we wouldn't dream of leaving them behind. From what we have read and been told the process for transporting cats overseas to Switzerland is a fairly simple process and they are very pet friendly over there. The other issue we had to think about was transportation. While we will most likely use public transportation of the railroad system we also wanted to have a car during the 2 years we are there. Cars in Switzerland are roughly $10,000 more for the same car you could buy here and the price to ship or import a car is only $1,500 so what we decided to do was buy a small European style vehicle for cheap here in the United States and ship it over to Switzerland. It just seemed like the logical thing to do. So we traded in my SUV today for a Toyota Yaris. I have to say, it feels surprisingly roomy inside for being such a compact car and rides smooth. It has very small trunk space but the back seats can be laid down if necessary for more storage room. The dashboard is a little odd, but overall it's a good car. It's perfect for what we need. There are no big cars in Europe so we'll fit right in. We were able to get an unbelievable deal on the car! Sticker price was $15000 and after taxes we ended up paying a little over $10,000 after rebates and the trade in on my SUV. Pretty sweet deal. So here she is....our new 2010 Toyota Yaris. I didn't get a choice in color but the maroon is growing on me.



So with these first few steps toward the big move I thought now was as good of a time as any to start journaling about it. I will do my best to keep this blog current during the busy times ahead so check back often for updates!