How Our Adventure All Started and The Picture That Launched Our Ship

There are so many of you out there that don’t have any idea what this whole Mexico thing is all about, so I thought I’d write a “blog addendum” to Brian’s wonderful work to catch you all up.

Then

Now

 

 

Once upon a time……  Brian and Tracy met and married while in Chiropractic College in the bay area.  Their initial idea was to practice for a year or two in Guatemala after graduation, but just before making their plans to move, they found out they were to have a baby and plans changed.

They spent the first years of practice and of their first son’s life in beautiful Santa Barbara and when the second son came along, their little rental was feeling kind of small.  They decided then to move to Boulder, Colorado, open up another practice and buy their first home.  They loved their house, their neighbors (well, most of them), their friends and their practice.  It turns out that 6 months of winter wasn’t so easy to handle.  They gave it 3 ½ years and formulated the “Mexico plan.”

Some of you know, that Brian spent his early years moving around quite a bit-dad was a flight surgeon in the Air Force and that guaranteed a move roughly every 3 ½-4 years.  He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, his brother in Okinawa, Japan and his sister in Nova Scotia.  An internal clock in Brian actually goes off after being in one place for about 3 years.  Sometimes a new office or a new house will do the trick, but the clock combined with winters that were too cold and too long made a move out of Colorado imminent. 

We put the house on Craigslist and posted the office on a few different Chiro college sites and within a week had both under contract.  We figured that the Universe was conspiring on our behalf and that what we were about to attempt was a move in the right direction.  We knew a few things…… we wanted to have the kids experience living in a different (dare I say, slightly less entitled culture), we wanted to learn spanish very well, we wanted to live less expensively and with less in general, we wanted to live in a temperate climate, we wanted to live near water, and we wanted to simplify our lives even more that we had accomplished in the states.

After much research on Brian’s part, we packed the car with what we could fit (and boy was it full), strapped the boys in, sat London the dog in between them and lifted Scooby the cat onto his perch above the boys, and set off for a 5 day journey to Ajijic, Mexico in the state of Jalisco.  The rest of what we still own is in a POD near Denver somewhere, waiting for when and where we decide to move it.  We have committed to living here for a year, but if we love it and the boys seem to be somewhat bilingual by the end of the year we may stay.  Or, we may move further south with our new found command of the Spanish language.  All in all it is a rather large scale adventure for someone that only called California home until just 3 ½ years ago. 

Most of the folks here are retirees from Canada and the U.S., which makes learning Spanish a little harder but easier to adjust to a new culture in some ways.  All of the shop owners and folks you come into contact with are very kind as long as you try to speak the language.  The kids start school in a private bilingual program in mid August, but have picked up a bit by just listening to the kids on the playground and watching Spanish television.  In kindergarten in the school we are looking at, they only speak, read and write Spanish.  We anticipate there will be some tutoring hours needed for Andrew, as half of his instruction day will be in Spanish. 

I am actually faring well.  I met a young woman (I call her young as we are at almost 37, very young as far as gringas go here) who brought me to a yoga class that I LOVE yesterday.  The teacher is Mexican, but trained in Canada and is honestly one of the best teachers I’ve yet to experience.  Thanks to some new American friends (and Fred Schultz and Rita Harrington-who some of you know from chiro college, yes they have retired here to an AMAZING lakeside house) we have dialed in where to go for all our necessities and where to go for good eats.  It is still a bit warm as far as evenings go, but the impending rainy season should cure that rather soon I hope.

All in all, an adventure well worth taking-alas I must go, Brian is ready to do our Spanish lesson.

Hasta Luego Amigos,

Tracy