This month in Spain felt a little differently. After having settled into Madrid and the lifestyle of a high-rise apartment, walking to shops and restaurants and taking our puppy up and down an elevator daily, we began thinking longer-term in Spain. While there will always be factors in our lives that could lead to an earlier return to the U.S., such as Logan’s contract work opportunities and renting out our U.S. farmhouse, we began to consider what the future could be in Spain. With our oldest prepping next year to go to middle school, it made our decisions feel even more important. While we love the precious Christian school that the bros attend in Madrid (and this is truly what brought us to Spain in the first place), it does not feel like the best fit for long term. While we’d love to spend more years at LIFE, we believe it is time for our family to experience secondary education elsewhere.

Because of the desire to change regardless, we began to consider schools outside of Madrid, specifically in the suburbs of Malaga. We chose Malaga to focus on for many reasons: the climate year-round, an abundance of American international school options in that area, an increase in fellow expat families who understand our lifestyle and a warmer climate for my parents to snowbird in cold New Jersey winters. One of the main goals was always to remain in Spain for the next season and there were many reasons for that. Our family loves living abroad and sending our children to international school, specifically Spain as Landon especially has become a likely lifelong resident (ha). We also love the culture, the food, the people and the language here, although all of us aren’t nearly as good at it as Landon.

What started as a month visiting Tenerife, Spain tuned into a gap year. That gap year morphed into our second year in Madrid and now we’re looking longer-term at what a life in Spain could look like for us. We’re excited to have found a school choice for our family for middle school for Landon and finishing the primary years for Griffin that we’re really excited to get connected in. After years of living in one of the world’s biggest cities (and never being true city people at heart), we’re excited to experience the perks a little more of a smaller town of Estepona, Spain, such as walking to the beach, biking to a restaurant, hosting families in our home and walking to school.

While a move to Estepona from Madrid (so to the beach from the city), comes with so many amazing things, we need to make sure to address the concerns. We’re concerned that we won’t enjoy no longer walking to the grocery store and our favorite restaurant like we do here in Valdebebas in Madrid. We’re concerned about the airport now being over an hour away vs. the five minutes that we spend getting to the Madrid airport now. We also love a lot about the authentic Spanish culture in Spain and want to make sure that Landon especially continues to feel connected with local Spanish speakers in Andalucia, the are in which Estepona is located.

We feel so fortunate that we have the ability to even have this conversation as we discuss the next best steps for our family. It’s wild to think how the Lord has orchestrated all of this for our family and how He continues to make a way here in Spain for us. This past week, the bros and I took our second quick trip to the area to do some scouting. These were some of our at first, instant glimpses of Estepona and its beauty. We have lots of southern Spain left to explore, along with nearby Gibraltar and northern Africa like Morocco. You can see Africa from the rooftop of their new school!

Looking forward to sharing more about this exciting new journey for our family.