IN THE BEGINNING

Welcome to those who find this blog. Our story began with friends who invited us to "come visit, you have a free place to stay". Well we did go visit in February of 2008 and after 18 days, we came home and said ... why not us? So we began to plan.

We have two children who were 16 and 19 at the time, so that was a consideration. My mother is in her 80's, and we had a huge house, about 30K in credit card debt and two very lucrative jobs, and comfortable life styles nestled in the middle of an up and coming wine appellation in Eastern Washington. But we wanted to change all of that. We knew that to have the life style we currently had we would have to work till we dropped, and that was just not a comfortable feeling. So we planned..

First we paid off all our debt. We did the Dave Ramsey thing of selling everything until the kids think they are next... I actually sold my daughters bed before she was out of the house... she slept on the couch for 3 weeks. All our toys and extras were strewn out for all to pick through, and as our treasures went for pennies on the dollar we realized that it was all just stuff... we could do this! It really is a freeing experience to realize that you only have a car payment and a house payment.

Next it was the house. We met with our realtor on a Tuesday night in June of 2009. Filled out the paperwork and we had two showings the very next day. We sold our house in 4 days for full price, with nothing given to the buyers... hot dog! You could not wipe the smiles off our face.

We found a awesome duplex in town, that had recently been remodeled, all new everything... and the owner was the father of a friend of ours... how cool is that... oh and he is a great guy to boot! So we were set... just sit it out, and save our money...

Randy currently works for Washington State. This state is in the same boat as the rest of the U.S. and due to consolidation he was offered and early out. He applied and was accepted. So his last day of work will be March 31st. This moved our plans up by a year... so now we are on the fast track.

We have purchased our tickets we will leave the U.S on June 30th. So begins the adventure.