To Sell or Not To Sell

Any type of move will require you to consider what is important to keep and what you should get rid of, but moving to a small island REALLY helps this decision!   This has been an ongoing process for a couple of years now.  We have sold MAJOR things – a big house and a boat – and a ton of small things.  Why do we have so much stuff?!?  Making the decision to move out of the country has really helped us evaluate what we truly need in our lives.  I always say I have no regrets about one dollar spent on any of our vacations throughout the years, but I do wish I could have a rewind button and not have bought so many things.  When I look back at the photos of Christmas when our girls were little, it is ridiculous how many gifts were under those trees.  Why?  Well, I got sucked into listening to the commercials, taking advantage of too many sales, and all those other terrible reasons.  But let’s not dwell on mistakes – let’s learn from them!  No more of this kind of thinking.  Now, I do still love to shop, but there is a whole new mindset of deciding whether we really need something.

It feels SO GOOD to be clearing out the crap!

So back to the process of selling nearly everything we have managed to accumulate over the years.  Back in 2013, we sold the big house (hooray!) and had a giant moving sale at that time so we could officially downsize into a rental home about half the size of the “big house.”  We’ve been here for a little over two years now, and the sales have become even more serious.  Before Christmas this year, we had a rather large garage sale and sold everything Christmas related.  This was really quite emotional as I did love my big tree, and my Santas, and my snow globes, and all that stuff.  I did end up saving two Santas that will find a new island home with us, as well as didn’t even consider selling any of my village pieces.  There are limits!

We are preparing to do another sale in about a month and this one will concentrate on getting rid of the remainder of our “decorating” items.  The walls will be completely bare after this one!  We will also sell some of the smaller, non-essential furniture items at this go around.  After this sale, we hope to have a more concrete date for the move and then the bigger furniture pieces will go away as well.  And then we still have the kitchen cabinets to empty.  It feels like it’s never ending…

What about the cars?  Well, we will be selling my Tahoe very soon, as it’s really not necessary for us to have three cars when I work at home, Maddie only goes to school until noon, and I have no excuse to really go anywhere each day other than picking Morgan up from school.  So if you know anyone who needs a really great Tahoe with all of the bells and whistles, she will be up for sale very soon.  This, like my Christmas stuff, is going to be emotional.  I know it’s just a vehicle, but I have had this vehicle since February of 2009 and there are so many precious memories.  I am rather attached to my Tahoe and I just hope whoever takes it will love it the way I did and make many of their own special memories.  Enough about that!  In order to have a vehicle in Aruba, we will be shipping our 2005 Mercedes and have that as our car there.  After doing a lot of research, we found out it’s quite economical to ship a vehicle rather than to purchase something there, so this is our plan.  Jay’s beloved Jeep will be sold right before we go.  Stay tuned for that one!

So my point of this blog is to let you know that, although our stuff had meaning for a while, in the long run, all of that doesn’t matter.  When I look back at all the money we spent to live in that huge house for 10 years, it doesn’t seem to make sense, until one of our friends tells us, “We had a lot of great memories in that house.”  And to remember all the fun kid activities we did there.  That’s what matters.  Making great memories and cherishing time with those you love.  The size of your house, the year of your car, the model of your phone, none of that is important.  To everything there is a season.  I feel like we had the “season of stuff” but now we’re ready for the “season of island life” to begin!  

Why Aruba?

First of all, I want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has looked at this blog!  I know you all read every word, right?!?  Well, whatever you did, I was really proud to have more than 200 views in my first couple days.  With being new to the whole world of blogging, I don’t even know if that’s good, but it was WAY beyond my expectations!  So keep reading (or at least looking!)

So another question we get often whenever people learn we’re moving to the Caribbean is “Why Aruba?”  There are so many islands to choose from!  Totally agree – and with our adventurous spirit, some other fantastic island will probably be in our future, but let’s do this one step at a time!

As I mentioned previously, we first looked into Belize but that fell apart.  Another island we considered was Barbados (love!), but they are under British rule and our dog, Molly, would have to go to quarantine in London for six months.  Now, that may sound silly to some of you as a reason NOT to move somewhere, but it was a game changer for us.  Molly is part of our family.  It would be like putting one of the human girls in a different country for six months and not being with us!  Everything just fell into place with Aruba.  They love Americans, they love dogs, and we love this island!

You can Google and find a million articles about all the good reasons to visit Aruba, but why MOVE there?  Most of the millions of reasons people visit are the same reasons we are so excited to move, but here are some very personal reasons (in no particular order):

1. It’s below the hurricane belt.  This isn’t saying that they never get storms, but the last one to even come close was 80 miles away in 2004.  “On average, a hurricane causing severe damage passes over or near the ABC islands every 100 years.”  I would say our hurricane chances are pretty slim!
2. It’s Arizona with a beach.  What?  Yes, once you get away from the beautiful white sand beaches, there are cactus and desert terrain and you can feel like you’re in Arizona.  Well, until you hit the other side of the island and see the crystal blue waters and crashing waves.  Rainfall?  Yeah, occasional, but there’s a beach:)
3. They have an awesome movie theater.  This was actually something on our list of “can we live without it?”  Our family LOVES going to the movies and it would be hard to imagine life without a weekly dose of popcorn and the big screen.  There are three movie theaters (we’ve only gone to one because it was that good), so there will be no loss of this amenity.
4. The food.  Oh my – we already have quite the list of favorite places to eat and each time we visit, we add to the list.  There are also “normal” fast food places like Subway, Taco Bell, KFC, Domino’s Pizza, and McDonald’s (and don’t forget Starbucks – ugh!).  In addition to great restaurants, the grocery stores are plentiful as well, and there is also a Price Mart, which is basically Costco.
5. The people.  There will be a whole separate blog on some specific people who are making our move WAY easier, but the people in general are amazing.  How could you not be happy living on “One Happy Island”?  Everyone is friendly, laid back, and overall a joy to be around.
6. Driving.  There are many Caribbean islands that there would be NO WAY I would ever attempt to drive in (scary!), but driving in Aruba is beyond awesome.  There are roundabouts instead of lights at most intersections, but there are a few lights here and there.  You don’t ever have to worry about turning left on a busy street because people are courteous and actually let you go!  Then you do a little toot-toot to say thank you (danki) and they flash their lights or wave as a you’re welcome.  Americans could learn a thing or two about courteous drivers from our friendly Arubans!
7. The airport.  Flying in and out of Aruba is one of the easiest international places I have experienced.  With being a cruiser, I don’t have a lot of personal experience, but I have heard stories of other places that are not quite so pleasant to fly into or out of.  There is a US Customs office in the Aruba airport, so when you need to fly back to the States, all of the Customs procedures are handled in Aruba so when you get back, you just grab your bags and go.  When you fly into Aruba, they’re just basically happy to see you and we’ve never even had our bags checked by anyone.   You just stand in a simple line to show your passport to their immigration staff, they give you a stamp and you’re on your way.  Easy, easy, easy!
8. Celebrations.  Arubans know how to party!  So far, we have only experienced 4th of July first hand, and it was amazing.  We weren’t sure how it would go since it is only an American holiday, but it was one of the best fireworks shows we have been to.  I’m sure being able to sit on the beach and watch it made it even better.  We cannot wait to experience all of the Christmas celebrations that go on, New Year’s Eve, and Carnivale.  There is always a musical festival of some sort going on, a wind surfing competition happening, or an endless of amount of activity to join in the fun.  There will be no lack of things to do, that’s for sure!
9. Safety.  This is also a huge factor in determining what island to choose to live on.  Because we have two teenage daughters, it had to be a place where we know they will be safe.  Please don’t even tell me if you’re thinking “didn’t some American girl disappear there?”  Yes, there was a famous case that we all know about it which was very sad and very scary.  And, yes, the psycho is now in prison in Peru.  Have you read your local newspaper or watched the news in your town lately?  Bad things happen every minute in America.  Our family feels a great sense of security and safety in Aruba.  Again, it comes down to the people.  The people there are happy, they look out for each other, and that makes a huge difference.  When people say to me, “Don’t you know their government is corrupt?”  I just burst out laughing.  Would you like to talk about the US government for a moment?  So, yes, I would walk down the dark beaches of Aruba any day and feel much safer than going to the grocery store in the States late at night.
10. BEACHES.  Yes, I saved the best for last.  The beaches, the water, the sunshine – this is what draws us to this amazing island.  The water is crystal clear blue, there are places you can go and be among crowds of people, places you can go and be totally alone, go on a sailboat, a catamaran, waterski, windsurf, just swim, cliff dive, swim in the Natural Pool, relax at Baby Beach, hang with your friends at Tres Trapi, unlimited places to snorkle, just float!  It would take me blogs and blogs and blogs to list all the wonderful things there are to do in Aruba that are connected to the Caribbean Sea.   The hardest part about moving there is going to be finding that balance between normal activities (like work and school – huh?) and just being in that water every day.  I can do it, I can do it, I can do it!

I hope the excitement we have about this move and the joy that Aruba brings us can be at least slightly portrayed through these words.  And now you have a little insight as to why we chose this island to be the first on our list of Caribbean homes.

Bon Dia!

You’re Moving Where?!?

It won’t be the first time people have had to ask this question.  We have made MAJOR moves two other times in our lives so it’s nothing new for us.  So let’s back up and start from the beginning…

Jay and I met in college in the 1980’s and there were two major components of our relationship from the very beginning…the beach and travel.  Now, back then, this had a totally different meaning than what it has evolved into 30 years later!  We lived in Erie, Pennsylvania and would visit the beaches of Lake Erie almost daily.  Since it was all we had, we thought it was pretty spectacular; and for a couple of broke college students, spectacular it was!  We started traveling together as soon as we started dating – trips to see friends who attended other colleges, crossing the border into Ohio for “legal” drinking, and Spring Break to visit family in South Carolina were some of the most memorable.  When we graduated in 1987, there was an immediate road trip to Florida where we planned to find jobs and live (near the beach, of course!).  We didn’t end up making it all the way to Florida, found jobs in Atlanta, and settled there for the next seven years.

During our time in Atlanta, we had a new stage of traveling.  New states to see, more money to spend, etc.  Two significant trips happened during our stay in Georgia.  The first one was visiting friends who had moved to Arizona and making the “crazy” decision to move there as well (quit jobs, packed up, moved!).  The second significant trip was in 1991 to Jamaica – first time to the Caribbean.  We had so much fun there and said “we will visit here every three years” (it was our three-year anniversary).  It took a while for us to return, but who would have known we would end up becoming Caribbeans ourselves?

Fast forward 25 years, two children, two houses later, and it’s time to make our move.  To sum it up, we continued to love to travel, discover new places, meet the people, try their drinks, go on their crazy excursions.  Cruising was definitely our favorite and this is where the Aruban dream really all began.  October 2010 in Cabo San Lucas while on a Carnival cruise in the Mexican Riviera.  We had just done a crazy, fun excursion on a RIB craft type boat, were relaxing with a cold drink in the warm, blue waters of Cabo and looked at each other and said, “Why aren’t we doing this?”  It suddenly became very real….this is what we wanted to do EVERY day.  Plans started to evolve and each conversation led to more decisions.

At first, we were focusing on moving to Belize, a small country in Central America.  It is beautiful there, cheap to live, and they speak English (all good things).  So we planned a trip to Belize to look at it in the eyes of “would we live here?”  Well, we aren’t really picky when there is blue water involved, and we decided, yes, we would live there.  As we did more research into the business part of things, we realized that the Belizean government doesn’t exactly welcome Americans to start businesses there, and it really wasn’t feasible for us to move.  Plan B = Aruba.

We had been to Aruba for only one day previously, again on a Carnival cruise, and loved every minute of it.  While we were there, Jay even said, “We should move here.”  But we were still focused on Belize and we also thought perhaps Aruba was too expensive.  When the Belize door closed, we did look at other options, and things kept pointing back to Aruba.  Really?  So off we go to, once again, look at it through the eyes of “would we live here?”  Well, the answer was YES about 10 minutes into the trip!

I will do other entries detailing why it’s so easy to say yes to this amazingly beautiful island in the Caribbean.  Here we are, 2016, and things are becoming very real, very fast.  We hope you will follow us on this journey, at least through this blog, with your prayers, and perhaps with a future visit.