We Are Moving!
BIG NEWS!
We are moving out of our home of 10 years on Juno Avenue in St Paul at the end of August.
Tabby and Ellie will both be moving out to attend colleges on the East Coast, and we will just have Malia and Ivy, ages 11 and 8, with us.
Every year, we take time to consider the next year and what it holds. Both Mark and I have been feeling like we are on the brink of change. We’ve decided not to re-sign our lease, but before moving on to a new home, we are planning a 6 month U.S. road trip.
We see this family travel as a pilgrimage, a time of learning, and a chance to see God in new faces and places.
The idea for the trip came back in the summer of 2021 while Mark and I were on a drive to Chicago for a wedding. We started noticing license plates from different states and writing them down. We were just dreaming together as we drove down the road and Mark said, “What if we took a trip and made a show called “Where Will We Move?”
I usually reject these kind of big ideas immediately, but for some reason this time, I felt a resounding, “Yes, Let’s Do It!” Maybe not a show, but the road trip.
We told our friends Ross and Jenn about it, and they said they knew a family who had done something similar a few years back. We set up a meeting with the Schenk family of five and they shared with us stories from their road trip which lasted 9 months and spanned most of the United States.
That meeting gave me faith that this kind of thing was possible. I had only heard of people traveling longer term with an RV, but this family had stayed in the homes of their friends like we envisioned doing.
The next step was to tell our kids, our families, and my piano students. Even though we are only planning to be gone for about 6 months, it will be during the winter months and we will miss the big holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas back in MN.
Mark’s main DJ season ends November 1st and that is when we plan to begin our trip. He will have occasional weddings and events during the trip and will also be booking future business in MN while we are gone. I will be taking a break from teaching piano and focusing on homeschooling Malia and Ivy and doing some writing.
Where will we go? Where will we stay?
We are in the beginning stages of setting up an itinerary and finding people to host us. We envision our trip starting in November, lasting 6 months, and covering most of the Southern states.
Places we know we will be visiting are Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, California, and Utah.
Let us know if you would be interested in hosting us, or know of people we should meet.
I want to include Malia and Ivy as a way of keeping in touch with people we care about. We will document the places we visit, the things we see, and stories we hear in a newsletter called “The Story Hunt”
If you would like to support our travels in a practical way, you can join our patreon community. For $6 a month, we will send you a postcard from the road and our ”Story Hunt” newsletter over email each month starting in November. Enter your email address below to get details on how to follow our upcoming adventures.
Also, let us know if you would like to host us as we come through your state or if you have people you think we should meet or places we must see.
Thanks in advance for your support of this big adventure!
Anna, Mark, Malia and Ivy
