The journey begins?

Tonight we had dinner with Mike & Nadine Guise, who own the house we are considering renting in Aix en Provence. Mike and Nadine own Sunshine Nursery in the Turk and Caicos, which is just a stone's throw from our house. He is American and she is French and they met in Mexico. They have two kids who were mostly raised in TCI, but live and go to college in Canada now. They brought their kids to the Aix house when they are about the same age as Savannah and Lindsey are now, so they know all about the experience, although it was bit easier for Nadine since she is a native of France. Her kids went to school there for two years and loved it (after not loving it to start - sounds familiar already)

They have ex-pat tenants in the house now, a couple and 3 kids from Australia. They will leave in June and Mike and Nadine want to rent the house short term til September, when we are thinking about going there. We talked alot about what it's like living there, especially with kids. They are big fans of the school that is less than five minutes walk from the house, where their kids went, too. It's a bi-lingual school so the kids wouldn't be totally immersed which should make the transition easier.

Nadine gave us a lot of good info on budget and cost of living in Aix. Some aspects sound reasonable, while others sound expensive, but we are used to a high cost of living here in TCI. Toni set to work making a budget for us, something we have never actually done before. We're figuring on making less income when we are there but Nadine was real helpful in telling us where and how we can cut some corners

Savannah is not too psyched about the prospect of going there, and Lindsey is a little more accepting. When we got home from the Guise's I had a long talk with Savannah to help her better deal with it. It went OK but she talked me into agreeing to home schooling her if we go. Toni veto'ed that quickly. I can tell Savannah will be on of the bigger challenges involved in this whole move.

So this was kind of the first step in our journey. Alot to think about and Mike invited me to join him for a trip to France in March to check things out. So Toni will make an appointment at the school, and I'll start looking for flights.