Wow! It is so hard to believe that one year has come and gone. Often times, our family thinks back to those first days after we just moved to Madrid. Some of the questions running in our heads were, What will we do for work now that Logan quit his IT Executive job in the U.S.? Will the boys miss their home and friends in South Carolina? Is this the best decision for us? What will this look longer-term? It’s amazing to us to see how once we stepped out in obedience and moved abroad to Spain for the initial gap year, the Lord answered all of those questions we had, and more, in His perfect timing.

Logan quit his job of 15-years in order for us to spend one year living in Spain. He always knew it was a dream of mine to immerse our family in a new culture and it was in February 2023 that all four of us began to feel the pull that it was time to move abroad. I tell Logan he literally gave me the world, because this experience of living as an American family in Spain has been something more valuable, more special and more coveted than anything I’ve ever owned or desired.

It’s hard. The language barrier for Logan, Griffin and I is much harder than we anticipated. Landon, on the other hand, is all in on Spain and says “Soy de Espanol”, meaning “I am from Spain” – ha! He has become close to fluent and truly thrived in this culture here in Spain. While Griffin loves it too, he’s more of our go-with-the-flow kid, so the language learning is slower for him like us. Madrid is a city full of Spanish speakers and very little English is spoken daily. While the three of us have been able to get by, form some surface-level friendships and order food, go to the doctor, etc., we really are slow to learn Spanish. We rely a lot on Landon to help us daily as we learned he is gifted with the ability to learn and love languages.

We also find the lack of community here in Spain difficult. While we love our American International Christian school, which is the main reason we are in Madrid, it is harder for Logan and I to do things we enjoyed back home like run Bible studies or get together in fellowship by opening our farmhouse. Most get-togethers in Spain happen out of your small flat and many friendships you enter here are more surface-level and less digging deeper to learn about a person and their family. Despite the hard, we’ve had big wins including getting to know families at our school, Logan finding friendships at CrossFit, having kind neighbors at our urbanizacion and Meg having a solid expat community through Instagram.

While I’ve addressed some of the harder things about living in Madrid, Spain for this past year, I absolutely can’t miss all of the tons of positives! We LOVE living in our flat in Valdebebas, where we can walk to get our grocery fresh daily. We love the high quality and delicious Spanish foods, and I love knowing that our family is eating healthier and cleaner than would have been possible in the U.S. due to tighter food regulations in the E.U. We’ve added a puppy to the family, bred in Madrid, Nacho, our Cocker Spaniel, who love taking walks with and enjoying the beautiful Spanish sunshine. The boys love playing on their club futbol teams for our barrio, while Landon also plays padel any chance he can get.

We’ve also had so many incredible opportunities to travel in Spain and around Spain. In the past year we got to explore so many beautiful small towns and cities near Madrid. We also visited San Sebastián, Alicante, Mallorca, of course Tenerife, Menorca and Ibiza. We explored the diverse countries of Romania, France, Italy and Portugal and have really grown to love Europe and life here.

I mentioned that all of our burning questions have slowly been answered. Logan now owns a U.S. IT Consulting company, currently on a likely two-year contract project with a UK company. Because of our instant connection with new friends on our first night in Tenerife, Spain, we were able to launch this successful digital nomad IT company and maintain an income. We also continue to rent out our farmhouse in South Carolina. Unexpectedly, I have begun monetizing my Instagram, YouTube and coaching channels, all which have blessed our family and created a digital scrapbook of our life here in Spain.

While the boys do miss things like being with their family and friends more, their ATVs, the chickens, a large yard, etc., they really are both really smitten being here in Spain. They both have made great friends at their international school, enjoyed the local sports, savored the travel experiences and love the life of living abroad. Griffin misses grass as we live in an urban area of Madrid, but overall every family member is grateful for this amazing experience daily. So, yes. Moving to Spain was a wonderful decision for our family. We don’t know what the future holds for the length of time that we’ll be living here, but we do know that we’re supposed to be here without doubt. For how long? We aren’t entirely sure. Every year, we pray for clarity for the next year, dependent upon Logan’s job, renting our house and our continued interests.

As we head into year two living in Spain, we’re up to the challenge of all of the hard: the language, the lack of community, the frustrations with the visa process and more. Because truly, the positives so heavily outweigh the negatives!