On the advice of our friends who had lived in Italy they said "it won't happen unless you put a date on the calendar." With that advice in mind, this year while doing our annual goals and accomplishments (something Marty and I have done every year on or around New Year's Day for the past 13+ years) we threw out the idea of moving to Germany with a leave date of August 1st, 2017.
Within three weeks of writing down this goal nearly every major component of our move fell into place. We found 3 amazing schools to apply to, found a beautiful family home to rent which was less than half a mile away from our first choice school and found a family from Wisconsin to rent our Seattle home while we were away.
Once these major pieces fell into place so easily and effortlessly, we were able to keep moving toward our goal on momentum alone. It truly was quite amazing and we often felt that we were just being taken down a river and to fight it would be more work than just giving in and going with the flow.
A few weeks later we booked our first-ever, one way tickets to Berlin with a departure date of July 29th. This date just so happens to be our 12th wedding anniversary. It feels perfectly appropriate to say "I do" on that day to another grand adventure and this time as a family of 4 instead of just 2.
Josie has always been totally on board for a year in Germany but wouldn't you know it that this time, when we were finally serious about it, she said, NO!" No, she didn't want to miss her 5th grade year and overnight camp at her awesome Seattle school and most importantly she did NOT want to say goodbye to her good friends for a whole year. She initially said she would do 6 months or a semester, no problem. We contemplated just a half year abroad but then heard that we would not be able to get back into our current school. I sat her down and told her it either had to be a full year or not at all. To her credit she didn't impulsively shout out an answer. She took some time to think about it. She came back to us a few hours later and said that she was fine with a year IF and only IF we get a family dog upon our return. We felt this was a good deal and agreed immediately. Since then she hasn't looked back... well, maybe a bit but not for long and is excited about the adventure. It will be interesting to see how this develops as we get closer to leaving and in our first days, weeks, months there.
Benjamin was very much into the idea which quite honestly shocked us. He seemed very excited from the beginning. He has always been the one who does not want to try to understand or speak German. In fact, when he was younger he would stick his fingers in his ears and yell, "I hate German" at the top of his lungs. You can see why we were shocked. It all became clear when I told him we found several great schools there. He said "Wait!! What?? I have to go to school there?!?" He apparently thought we were going on a year long vacation. Going to Germany for him had always been about a 2 week vacation where we swam in lakes and pools and had ice cream 3 times a day. He was all up for doing that for an entire year. However, I have to say I was quite impressed that he was still into it (although not as enthusiastically) once he realized what we were actually planning.
We are still waiting to hear back from the schools. Which has been a major cause of stress for me. The kids don't really understand what it would mean to them if we didn't get into one of our first choice schools which are all bilingual with instruction primarily in English. Home schooling is illegal in Germany so if we don't get into an International or Bilingual or private school they would go to the local all German school and it would most likely be a pretty tough first few months for all of us. I know they would learn German much much faster with the sink or swim method but one of the other schools would be a softer landing for all of us for sure.
Our first choice school is called John F. Kennedy School Berlin an American/German school which was set up by the Berlin government after the war to foster relationships between the two countries. It is a well respected, highly sought after, FREE, bilingual school with 40% of the population being American. Not just English speaking but US passport holding American. It isn't that we want to surround ourselves with only Americans, in fact it is quite the opposite and we are all looking forward to meeting Germans and other expats from all over the world but for the kids to continue their schooling in a place that feels comfortable and in a language they are comfortable with is quite important to us as we only plan to be there for one year. We have been told that we have an excellent chance of getting into this school as there is a mandate that 40% of the school population must be American which you can imagine would be difficult to do in a German city. So, we have planned our whole year around this school and are really hopeful it will all work out.
We have our 2 fall back schools, of course, but we haven't heard back from them about being accepted either. Time will tell.
Other than schools, the other big stress now is packing up our house and getting ready for our renters. It is something that should have been done anyway and although it is a TON of work it feels really very good to have less and be more organized. I keep trying to do a box or a closet a day.
I'm hoping to be a much better blogger and write the good, the bad and the ugly from our year long adventure. I know when I have blogged before it seemed really insignificant at the time but being able to look back on a family diary of sorts was priceless. Which is why I kept the same blog address. (familyriemer.blogspot.com) Keeping all of our family adventures in one spot.
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