Us
We are a Baha'i homeschooling family, originally from the Pacific Northwest, who has spent the past decade living in the Chicago suburbs. We decided to say YES to our adventure when it came knocking this year, and set off at the end of April 2013 to live as digital nomads for a year.
Me
I'm Annie, the mother behind the blog Motherhood and More and the family you'll meet below. I'm writer by profession (Brilliant Star magazine) and wannabe amateur photographer for funsies. I love sunrises, sunsets, and chocolate. My strengths are that I can find the beauty and the funny in just about anything. My weaknesses are that I'm often too busy finding the beauty and funny in everything to deal with the practical aspects of life. C'est la vie.
The Muse
I've nicknamed our 13-yr-old after the Greek goddesses who inspire literature and art because 1) When I started this blog, she was obsessed with Greek mythology (thank you, Rick Riordan), and 2) She pretty much IS a modern-day goddess of all things artsy-fartsy. A gifted musician, artist, writer, and aspiring actress, she's a School of Performing Arts poster child. Wish we had one of those schools around here. She's also the child-most-like-her-mother, which is both a blessing and a curse - for her and for me.
Our middle child, age 9, sincerely believes she's an animal. Starting around age 4, she began galloping like a horse about 72% of the time. All fours. Full clippity-clop sound. It's actually quite impressive. She spent years being partial to horses, but she's really a lover of all animals. Her biggest complaint in life is that we don't have a pet, and her bin of plastic animals has gotten more use than any other toy we've ever owned. She's our "free spirit" kid - the one who spends hours outdoors when the weather's nice, building leaf piles, trotting around on all fours, barking out conversations with the neighborhood dogs. I can only imagine what the neighbors must think of our school-age daughter running around like a feral child in the middle of a weekday afternoon. So I've dubbed her Dolittle to honor her animal-whisperer tendencies.
I'm a little embarrassed to admit it now, but I never wanted a boy. Not once. I had two girls, and was perfectly content with that arrangement. Boys were loud and messy and rambunctious and too high energy for my temperament. So when the ultrasound tech announced that our surprise third child was a boy, I was ambivalent at best. I accepted it. I knew I'd make the most of it. But I had no idea how much love and adoration I would have for this little blond angel. How he'd be able to melt me right down to my core with every snuggle and sneeze. I like to say it was God's way of getting me over my prejudice about little boys. He's changed me for the better, and I am enamored with every bit of his boyness. It's so fun to watch it unfold. He LOVES balls of any kind. And airplanes. He makes us laugh constantly. His sisters adore him. A big 4-year-old ball of wonder and sweetness, he is. Yummy yummy yummy.
My hottie husband. Love of my life. My main squeeze. The big Kahuna. We met at Baha'i summer school when we were kids, and fell in love over one weekend when I was visiting my hometown from Japan after college. Two weeks later, we were engaged. Two months later, I came home, and six weeks after that, we got married. Now, fifteen years, three kids, and more than half a dozen moves later, we're still going strong. He's sweet, gentle, shy in crowds, quick-witted one-on-one, and a great dad. And he can do uncanny impersonations. Is he perfect? Of course not. That would be incredibly intimidating. But he's perfect for me. Plus he cleans bathrooms and mops floors. What more could a girl ask for?
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