Blog is Moving!

Catch us at www.sv-mangas.com

The Journey continues....

   Four years ago, we stepped off of Mangas and back into our regular routine. We returned to our roots in Arizona and I took a position with a electronic components distribution company headquartered in Phoenix. 
   
   But, for those of you who know us well, normal routine grounds us for a bit, but our feet are soon attempting another liftoff. 
   
   Last summer, I was contacted by a recruiter for a position out of the country. I talked it over with Mike and he said, sure, go ahead and interview, after all, there is no offer to consider yet so no use getting worked up over something that probably will not happen. 
   
   I had Skype interviews and face-to-face interviews and weeks and weeks in between with no insight into how I was fairing in the process. With every new round, Mike would say, go ahead and interview, after all, there is no offer to consider yet so no use getting worked up over something that probably will not happen. 
   
   I suppose you can guess the rest. Six months and 2 weeks later, I was offered the position. Not just any position, but the position. An Opus position of sorts for individuals in my field of information technology. And, to make it even sweeter, with a global company whose mission and purpose are not just website tags to be dusted off at annual leadership meetings. The team I met actually live and breath the values that those statements espouse in their everyday work efforts. But, more to come on all of that later.

   
   The takeaway for now is that the family is headed to The Netherlands. This is not an "expat assignment", this is living and working for a Dutch firm as a migrant worker. The ability to easily travel throughout the EU will provide us opportunity to indulge our wanderlust, while we keep a constant home base.
   
   It also means that we will be joining one of the richest sailing cultures in the world. So we need to plan how we will get Mangas, from her current on-the-hard in Puerto Peñasco where Mike is taking care of a bit of the ol' boat pox, to Amsterdam. 
   
   The family heads out to the Netherlands during the kids' Spring Break of March 19th and we will take a look around at our location and housing options. 
  
   I decided to start up the blog again to keep family and friends up to date on our progress and to journal the adventure for our kids sake when they are much older and they inevitably ask why? . I won't just cover the odyssey of getting Mangas from Rocky Point to Rotterdam, but also everything it takes to move a family with 3 middle-schoolers and 2 Airedales from the US to Europe and what we find when we get there. 
  
  Updates coming!