32. We're BACK! An Update On Your Host's Leap + A Brand New Season

*Quick note: the podcast will be bi-weekly now - so you'll get brand new episodes every other Wednesday!* 

We're so excited to kick off a brand new season, starting with an update on your host's own life leap.  It's been (gasp) a year since we packed up our Washington, DC apartment, sold our car, quit a job, and took ourselves and our toddler (and now our pets!) overseas and ended up in Spain.  We've shared our updates along the way (starting with the day before we boarded the plane in Ep. 8, and our most recent was Ep. 31!) and now -- a year in -- we'll fill you in on:

• How we navigated a big disruption this summer -- getting evicted from our new chosen home in Spain 
• (Re)learned the importance of patience, staying focused, and adapting when needed -- plus the value of a good emergency fund
• How we redefined success, stayed sane, and made it back

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Transcript

K+J Update 5 - New Season

Life Leaps Podcast: [00:00:00] Welcome to Life Leaps Podcast, here inspiring stories of ordinary people who made extraordinary life changes. What drove them, what almost held them back, insights for the rest of us considering life leaps, big or small, because hearing someone else do it reminds us that we can too. 

Karen: Welcome back, everyone. We are kicking off this season by popular demand with an update from us. That's me, your host and my husband, Juan on our family leap. But first welcome to a new season of Life Leaps podcast. We'll be covering so much ground this season with so many inspiring guests sharing how they got their butts in gear to make a life change.

Or got a swift kick in the butt and decided it was now or never. What drove them, what almost stopped them, how they landed on their feet and what they did when they invariably fell. And I'm going to drill down on some new themes [00:01:00] too. Like the fear of losing your old life, not being able to go back or closing a door when we make a change.

How true is that? Leaping with spouses and kids, either as the main change maker or the support person. How do we navigate that to keep our relationships and kids resilient during times of change? What happens when the leap is not what you wanted and oh, so much more. People are leaning into careers. Out of them.

Bottom line, they're stretching beyond their comfort zones. And we're here to discuss what that looks and feels like to learn from it. Get ideas, get inspired, get ourselves moving, whether the changes we want to make are big or small, it all adds up in the end to take us either closer or further. from the lives we want to live.

Okay. So us, it has been a year since we packed up our Washington, DC apartment, quit my then job, sold our car , temporarily rehomed our pets and [00:02:00] 18 month toddler in tow decided we were moving across the ocean to try a new life. Juana's sitting here miming what I'm doing to mess with me as I try to read my intro, but he's here and he will start talking soon.

He likes me to talk more in the beginning and then, you know, he gets warmed up. Anyways, over that year we did a few podcast updates, which went something like, we're leaving, taking off tomorrow, can't wait for Portugal to, oh. We can't stay in Portugal. What about Spain? Oh my gosh, this is so hard. To our last update, which was in May.

Oh my, time flies. Us being like, we've reached the promised land. Now we get to rebuild. Blah, blah, blah. Because then in June, we went on summer hiatus and, well 

Juan: We were told we had to leave the country in 15 days, one month later. 

Karen: We were told we had to leave Spain. Dun, [00:03:00] dun, dun. That is right. So where do we begin?

I guess we should back. We actually got rejected for the visa three times. That's right. No less than three before we actually received the thing. And the, the comedy is I was listening. I was relistening to our old episodes. Like we've done four updates before this and they really did go something like the summaries I just made.

But the most recent one where, I mean, we literally titled it. Now we get to rebuild. Like, we, we, we go back through, , I'm, I'm listening to that episode and it's like, we finally made it to Spain, we finally got our apartment, you know, we're finding child care for Luca, we're so excited to get into a rhythm, to create some stability, to really get our lives together.

This has been such a, wow, what a rough patch back when we thought we were moving to Portugal but actually didn't. Oh man, lucky us. We furnished an apartment. [00:04:00] That was rough. Boo hoo. Anyways, shortly thereafter, my friends, we received notice that well, we weren't going to be doing any rebuilding because we had to leave the country.

Juan: Yeah. A week later, your parents, your parents were coming to visit. We're like, well, I might as well have them visit. Luca was having his second birthday. We're like, we might as well celebrate that here before we have to go. We got tickets and we left like 15 days to the day back to DC. And without, you know, not knowing when we'd be come back.

Other funny thing is not funny. It's funny in hindsight was that our cat was also in Spain now. So we had to figure out where we were going to home our cat to another little, you know, issue and yeah, luckily we realized just how. Lucky we were because well, 

Karen: let's, okay, before we get into how lucky we were, which we are, we were, we're like, obviously, can I just say how ridiculous all along we're feeling very [00:05:00] reassured.

We have all of the documentation needed for the visa. We meet the relatively simple requirements. Like we're kind of told this is a shoe in no big deal. And first. And then the visa rejection letters start rolling in. So first we are told that we are, have not adequately proven that we're in the country legally, lawfully, which by the way, like we were, okay.

But apparently the stamps on our passports were too light. I do not know. And so, but even then we weren't concerned terribly. The lawyers weren't too concerned cause it was clearly a technicality. They were like a new visa. The way they're approving it is. It's still up in the air, like, don't worry. Let's just submit all your information.

So we go and we do this affidavit and we have, I have pictures and screenshots of every from the timestamps on our iPhone showing like when we took off from the United States, passed through our layover in France, stopped over in Portugal, then entered Spain. Like we submitted all of this, like [00:06:00] photos of our child anyway.

So we submitted everything. Then it was denied again. Yeah, 

Juan: so not good enough. 

Karen: The force was not strong with us on this one. So got a second denial and said, we need to boarding passes. Y'all did. We did not keep, I mean, I don't think they said officially we need boarding passes, but the lawyers were like.

This is what clients are presenting when this happens. We didn't have our paper boarding passes. Like we just, we didn't have, they didn't give us digital ones for this particular flight. So we didn't have those boarding passes. Again, I think we went through a lot of extra steps. Oh, we're rejected again.

Okay. So we finally do present the information. Ultimately, they do accept that we're in the country legally, appropriately, all that. But then they raised a new basis and it was one we had not. Even like crossed our minds to think about that much. It was a government document that we were supposed to share.

We had not yet gotten from a certain governmental agency, which will not be named, but had been, we'd [00:07:00] been waiting for about six months for this document. And it was basically like a rubber stamp document that said we're paying social security taxes. Oops. Oops. I maybe made clear what document it was, but this government, this government agency, which will not be named.

Bottom line. We were waiting on this document, which never came until it did. And remarkably, the document arrived the day after we received our letter of eviction from the country. And we reached out to the lawyers and we were like. This is so exciting. We just got a letter of eviction as you all know.

However, the missing document, the missing puzzle piece just arrived in the nick of time. Granted to get that document, we moved heaven and earth and reached out to this government administration being like, we're going to get deported. Please help us. They pulled through very kind. Anyway, by the time the document arrived, we were We'd already gotten the letter and the lawyers were like, no, I'm sorry.

[00:08:00] You already received it. You've got to go home. You still have to reapply for your consulate. Like hooray, the letter arrived. Now you'll have a new complete application to do for a fourth time. So we, my, our family, my family is about to come for the first time to visit for like This big visit, luckily, that was still within our 15 day mark, so, pending our eviction, they did get to come and visit us, our cat was here the cat had just come like two weeks before.

Yeah, 

Juan: we had to figure out some way to, luckily, Malaga in the summer is a hot spot, so a lot of people wanted to come, and they'd be happy to, cats said to be able to stay for free in Malaga. So that wasn't a problem. But it was just a little stressful trying to figure out what to do with the cat. We figured it out.

We got a nice French Canadian couple to come and watch our cat 

Karen: so we spent all in all, we just got a nice little summer vacation in the United States of America. We [00:09:00] hustled, we scrambled, we got home so we were terrified about childcare, as you all may recall.

Getting childcare has been a huge theme for us. We'd finally just gotten childcare. And so the like woman who came with us who was basically a miraculous au pair type figure for us watching Luca during the days, we brought her with us. We were like, look, we leading up to it, we were like, look, we may get evicted soon if that happens.

Do you want to come with? She was amazingly to her credit. She was like, yeah, maybe I will. And so we felt good about that. And then when we actually did get evicted, poor Annette, when we did get evicted, we were like, okay, it's happening. So it sounds like you're coming. And she was like, yeah. And then we're like, nevermind.

We got the missing document. We're saved. She cheered as well. And then, I don't know, the next day when we heard from the lawyers, we were like, nevermind, sorry, we're really leaving. So Annette, if you're listening, thank [00:10:00] you. She, she came home with us, United States. She spent two and a half months with us or two months, something like this.

, and yeah, we bunked up with my dad in Charleston, South Carolina, who amazingly had the extra space for us. We were, we're so lucky with, for that. And our friend Christina in D. C. Yeah. And some friends in D. C. We'd be bopped around.

But our home base was in Charleston. And you know, we hadn't been back in the U. S. and at that point in like 6 months, 7 months. And so we just made the best of it. And I will say we got to the D. C. consulate and we were like. So excited to apply, we thought it'd just be sort of like, we show up, we give our documents.

You would think we were done with thinking that we could figure things like this out, stuff like this out easily. No, just eternal, just eternal optimists here, just at your service. Even our dog who's [00:11:00] laying on the couch behind us is sort of turning away from us at this one. She's like, you idiots. You know, I think back to that episode we did, again, we titled it like rebuilding back in May.

Rebuilding. And I just. Look at those people or I guess visa 

Juan: application

Karen: Listen to those people and I'm like you poor sweet dear fools like And maybe we'll say the same thing about ourselves in three months. So let's be careful. But Anyway, we show up at the DC consulate and they're like nice to see what we emailed them in advance and and they're like So nice to hear from you.

Please request an appointment That typically takes about a month and a half. And we were like, oh no. 

Juan: Well, it was requesting an appointment to get a document we already had, but it was like, well, you have to apply for it again. And then once you get that document, then it's requesting another appointment to apply for the [00:12:00] visa.

And then they're like, oh, we just rubber stamp all your application and send it back to Spain. And Spain approves it. We were like, no, not them again. Yeah, and then Spain approves it and they just give us a response and we give you a visa. So 

Karen: So bottom line, we are showing up to the DC consulate.

We're trying to get this appointment. Luckily, anyway, we finally do at this point, we're in Charleston. They're like, you got your appointment. It's in three days and we're like, we'll be there. So we get there and even when we got there. They said our paperwork wasn't complete initially. 

Juan: No, so again, the requirement is the same document that took, you know, six months for us to get the Spanish consulate in DC.

They didn't like that document. They didn't like, they were like, that document is not, is not suffice to prove that you're, you know, you're paying these taxes. I'm like, no, no, no, it is, it is. Trust us. This is, this is the one that. That the administration will approve, it's definitely it. And we had to get our, again, our, some help with the lawyers.

And eventually they did accept it, but it was [00:13:00] definitely a lot of, at least in this, this time we're talking to them in person, right? So we were actually able to speak to them and convince them and show them the documents and show them that we weren't too crazy. Just crazy and they agreed to submit the application to the, for the visa for us.

Karen: Yes. So finally we got the visa application in and you guys just final little piece in all of this, when we got the approval, only Juan and Luca got approved. I just want to say that we were in Miami with Juan's family. We get the notice that it's been approved. But it's only two of them. And so here we, I'm like, this is just, this is the final moment.

Luckily, later that day, the dog is rolling over right now. I think she's mirroring our reaction. She's like, yeah, at that point you were just rolling over. You were like, I surrender. Anyways, later that day, and they're like, by the way, Juan and Luke have been approved.

Congratulations. [00:14:00] Karen, jury's still out on you. Unfortunately, we'll see what happens. Stay tuned. We have no updates for you at this time. So we had another miniature freak out. And anyway, in the end, I got approved too. It was later that day, but that was a very long day. And a few weeks later, our butts were back in Spain.

So before I even talk about the current moment we're in, which is we're back in Spain, we're living our lives. We're okay. We're happy now. 

Juan: Right? Yeah. I mean, we're happy. It was, there's a lot of uncertainty. There was a lot of stress at the beginning. But I want to say we were unhappy. Okay. 

Karen: So, lightning question round.

Juan. First question I have for you is, why the hell didn't we just go home? Why didn't we give up? Like, it was such a hassle. Was there ever a moment that you just considered that? 

Juan: Yeah. No. I don't know. I think at that point we just, [00:15:00] we knew we wanted to do this and it wasn't like, you can't do this.

Door is closed, just don't do it. , like in the grand scheme of things, , I probably can say this now in hindsight, it was like, Oh, we just have to apply for this visa now from somewhere else. So let's do that. Let's try that. 

Karen: Follow up question.

Juan, do you believe you are being more calm? And centered in your response to this question than you were at the time. Do you believe now you're speaking with perspective in a way you did not necessarily do at the time? Yes. No further questions. No, I'm just kidding. Okay. So what I'm asking you is , did you ever actually consider us leaving?

I mean, did you ever actually consider us being like, nevermind, we're not going to try to get back to Spain? I thought we did. I thought we discussed it. Not, 

Juan: not like, let's not try it. Because it was like, we're always going to try it for sure. Even then we've talked about if we get denied, we already have this apartment that we put like a five month deposit in.

We would stay three months. We just use a [00:16:00] tourist visa and stay three months in Spain, three months in DC, three months in Spain. 

Karen: Oh, that's right. Yeah. Okay. So was there never a moment? Because I feel like. I don't think so. I really don't think so. No. Okay. What do you think it was that kept us going? Even though.

I don't know, a normal smart person might not have might have just been like, I'm done with this for me. It was that I'd already put so much effort toward being here and we'd already laid so much track work that going back felt as difficult or more as going forward not to get all Macbeth in on you.

Juan: Yeah, that's actually yes, that's probably what it is. It would've been more work to try to figure out how to apartment, all the things we had in here and then renting a new apartment in the States. You know, that would have been more 

Karen: work. Yeah. And I guess that was the other thing in addition to pride, which is, I don't even know where we'd go.

I mean, we, we hadn't picked a place to live. I think that was part [00:17:00] of it. Okay. So next question, my friend, were you worried about Luca, our son? 

Juan: Yeah, of course, I was definitely worried about just instability, just that again, like you were saying with the routine, like he finally had a little routine here like, and then it was watching him and so I was like, oh, my gosh, it's all this travel, all this moving the times and changes is that just going to be confusing for him.

So, yeah, I was, I was, yeah. 

Karen: Yeah, I think I was worried about him because I was worried about him until I realized until I learned that Annette was coming to stay with us and help us watch him because I knew she was another person in his life that she would help provide stability on top of us and that when child care was needed, it wouldn't have to be.

Someone new, someone different, like we wouldn't have to find a new babysitter or a new child care place or whatever. I knew that, you know, the central people who existed in his day, me, you and Annette at that [00:18:00] point would stay the same. And I think we just like vowed to keep small rituals the same. I think that provided me a lot of ease.

Yeah, 

Juan: for sure. I think bedtime was always the same. Morning and kind of breakfast was always the same. So yeah, nap time, try to keep that always the same. Okay, 

Karen: how did we make the money work? 

Juan: We didn't. 

Karen: We did indeed spend a little more money than we anticipated and I think that's one of our biggest disappointments, but I think that also highlights the importance of an emergency fund, honestly.

 We could not have done this if we hadn't spent a good amount of time saving and been like, We are going to have enough savings for like, if we need to live for X number of months without a salary, if we had to, we could do this. And then we're going to save so that we can live off of one income for, I think it was , we said eight months.

And then. We ended up doing that for several months, spent more than we thought, but we're [00:19:00] still within the realm. Anyway, I think that's the importance of emergency savings. I actually think I want to have someone on the podcast to speak about basic financial independence, money management stuff, because I think that's such, and we experienced that firsthand recently.

I think that's such an important part of a leap is controlling your money or it controls you. And I think only reason we've been able to do what we did is because of saving 

Juan: for sure. I feel like you can take a leap only when you feel certain in other areas of your life that you can make different parts of your life uncertain.

And so being able to have the certainty of the bank account, like you, you have enough to live makes it, you know, makes it super doable, super easy. Same with the certainty of . No matter what happens for us, we're lucky enough that we'd be able to have housing in the States if we went back, like we could say, you know, with your dad, you know, we could stay in Florida, we could stay with friends in D.

C. if, [00:20:00] you know, we had to, so. That was just another thing that we, but yeah, but how, yeah, how would you say that we navigated that? All that uncertainty and stress of like not knowing, you know, what's going to happen when you're a BSEC at the night? 

Karen: Honestly, I don't know that we did. I don't know how we did.

Like I was up crying in the consulate. Like we went, do you not remember the first time we went to the consulate and she, And she first told us we were going to have to apply for this whole new document, tax ID document that we already had, but we were going to have to go through the process again. And it was going to take a month before we could even do that to even begin getting in line to actually put our full application in.

Like I did start crying. I was just like, I'm done. I think Luca had. A container of rice or like he had a various containers of food that we had packed as supplies for our day in DC because we were crashing with a friend who lived way outside of DC. We traveled into DC to go to this consulate, like the day after we arrived from the overseas flight, you know, I think at that point I'd been up until that point, I'd [00:21:00] been trying to keep Lucas sort of contained, like keep him from like throwing the rice around the embassy lobby, trying to keep him from scaling their walls.

When she said that, I just let it all go. I was like, throw the rice. I'm crying. We're just gonna have a family moment here in this. Waiting room. So maybe you should tip it off on how we navigated this stress and the uncertainty. 

Juan: I use all the cliche things. I mean, you try to do all those things, even though at the same time, you're just like stressing out and worried about what you're actually going to end up doing.

We tried all the things, right? We tried like, well, Being being grateful what you are. We were super lucky. Like I said, to have all the family help and the financial stability more or less even though, like, you know, you still didn't have a job at that time. And, and, you know, my job is sort of startups is, you know, it's a startup job.

Karen: Yes, we had both left very secure jobs to even, like, move [00:22:00] overseas. 

Juan: Yeah, so it's yeah, exactly. But you do, yeah, you, you focus on what you do have and being grateful. You remember that you chose this, like at the end of the day, we chose all of this, like we chose to, you know, quote unquote, suffer this way.

And then we also, something that really helped me during the summer was really, really, really, really trying to know what was in our control, what was not in our control and being present in the moment. Which is, as everybody knows is way harder than it sounds, but definitely trying that helped especially around like being with Luca and around just being with family and because of the visa at this point, we realized, you know, what, worrying about it is not going to make it better.

And then we, of course, I of course thought about planning and just thinking about, well, what if we do get denied? What would we do? And thinking about timelines and, and just like make sure we have [00:23:00] like a plan C of, you know, if everything does go completely Plan 

Karen: C. What, what was plan B? No, I guess plan B was, we were living plan B.

Juan: Plan C, if it really did get fully denied, what would we do? When, but. You know, like somebody was watching Nugget, our cat 

Karen: and in Spain, we did leave her in Spain. She got very fat when we 

Juan: left. So yeah, that 

Karen: no, I think she got fat before that. Sorry. 

Juan: Yeah. So being present in the moment and, and trying to really delineate between those things that you can and cannot control and focusing on those that you can control,

what would you have done differently? You know, 

Karen: what's funny when I look back on the visa process and just really everything we've done. I don't know that we could, I think that if I had known everything about how much of a hassle it would be and how long it would take and all of the extraordinarily [00:24:00] intense logistics and upheaval and ups and downs and all the things, I don't know that we would have made this leap.

And actually for that reason, I'm glad I didn't know what a hassle it would be. , I just think we might've gotten stuck in our heads. I think that we, with having like the get up and go juice, we're going to do this combined with knowing we had the money to fall back on for a time if we screwed it up.

I feel like I just had this attitude of like, we would figure it out. And in the end, I guess we did. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if the question is more like. What would you do differently? Or what do you wish you'd known? 

Juan: Yeah, I agree. I think honestly the only thing that I wish I'd known, which is going to sound silly is reaching back out to the Social Security Administration with like emergency, like, help us, help us, help us, before it actually was an emergency.

Oh, yeah. [00:25:00] Because they actually helped. 

Karen: Yeah, I think there are small things that we could have done differently had we known them to make the visa more secure, but sometimes you get advice from people and it's not the full piece of the picture because maybe they don't know it because the law is new or whatever else I 

Juan: mean, now, looking back, knowing what we know, because he had a bunch of things, but with the information we had.

We, and I think we didn't know we were taking a risk obviously, but I think we ended up here and in Malaga and with the community we like really like right now, because we took that risk if we like planned it and really thought about it and just knowing my personality for sure. We would have been just doing a lot of overthinking and planning.

And I don't know that we, like you said, we would have actually jumped and then done it. So yeah. 

Karen: So I think this was a question that came up a lot for us. There were absolutely moments, Juan, when we were like, should we just [00:26:00] forget this?

There were, and I think we talked a lot about how are we going to define success here? And I think it raises a larger question of , a, what is success when it relates to a big life change and B, how do you decide where to draw the line? Like this leap isn't working. And for us, I think if we, I think we did say if we had gotten rejected.

Another time , that's it. We're done. We're going to figure out the next plan. We're going to just, yeah, we're going to spend a couple months here, a couple months there until we run out this lease. Cause we don't want to get stuck, you know, not having this place that we paid for. You know, we'll camp on our parent at our parent's house for a little bit.

If we have to, I think we did say , we're going to draw the line here, but we weren't ready to draw before that. Do you, does that sound right? 

Juan: Yeah, I think we would've gotten. The visa denied from DC, that would have been a whole different, I mean, I think at that point we probably would have just thrown in the towel.

Karen: And I think we did talk about how do we define success. So for us, I think initially success would have been like, well, we're [00:27:00] living in another country and we're fulfilling all these other goals we had, like spending less money to live, creating more time for our creativity, blah, blah, blah. That would have been our success at the outset of this adventure, right?

 We defined that. And I think at various points along the way, it became , well, this is looking a little different. How do we define success? And in the end we were like, I guess success needs to be, we tried, right? Yeah. We kind of redefined success in live time. As stuff was hitting the van, 

Juan: yeah, I keep thinking that I sent you some New Yorker comment a couple of weeks ago, which it was, it was a couple kind of like hugging and the caption said, let's move to a different country and have.

Is it the same problem somewhere else or just like, I just have like completely different problems or how do you just have the same problems in a different place? 

Karen: Yeah. And I made it my story after you sent it to me, actually, one of my few [00:28:00] on Instagram.

I 

Juan: think that's, and like that other book's like pick your shit sandwich. I feel like. Something's always going to suck. That's just, I think it's just like life. It's always something's always going to suck. And we're super lucky that we get to pick how is it, how it's going to suck that we have that.

That's a huge privilege that you get to pick how it's going to suck. And so we, and we this, right, we pick dealing with relocating to a new country, figuring out logistics, figuring out bureaucracy, figuring out new daycare, new cultures, new friends, all of that. And it gets not. Sometimes it's not fun, but it's what we picked because we wanted to try these different things out and see how they felt.

Karen: Yeah. I think that was the Mark Manson, the subtle art of not giving an F basically. And I mean, I think the title is meant to be attention catching and it is the bottom line. I think it's about stoicism, right? It's like a millennials version of, but he basically says, and we're obviously totally [00:29:00] paraphrasing is , pick your shit sandwich.

And the, and the greatest, my takeaway was the greatest privilege in life is being able to own that, to own the, the, the mountain you're climbing, to own the race you're running. Cause we're all going to be climbing and we're all going to be running regardless. So the more say you get to feel like you have over that, like what a privilege, maybe the biggest privilege.

And yeah, you're right. We chose that. And I think we, you know what, I think back to our original question of how do we cope? I think we kept reminding ourselves of that. We were like, these are the problems we signed up for. This is for the life we think we want. And so let's just keep trying.

And, you know, it's funny because. During that time, I think that actually was pushed us in a lot of other good directions. Luca got a lot of really good time with his family in a way, extended family, our parents and all the rest in a way that he otherwise wouldn't with us being over here. And it actually created the time and space for [00:30:00] me.

To finally sit down and like figure out, I did want to get a job after several months of being exclusive childcare and you know, for my identity, for money, for all the things. I ended up finding right now a law job that I actually absolutely love with people that I love and I'm very thankful for that.

So that created the space for us to be back in the U. S. for me to do that. And I also think part of the thinking was , look, if we're going to be back in the U. S., , let's go ahead and square this away because we didn't know how long we were going to be there, Juan. Like we, for all we knew, it could have been six months.

I mean, we had no idea. 

Juan: Well, we knew, we did say if, if at three months. If nothing's moving, you know, we knew that after three months, we could just go back to Spain, right? Because at this point, it would have just been the tourist visa resets every, you know, you can be in Spain three months out of every six months period.

So, we would have come back on a tourist visa for three months, gone back to the US. And you know, done that until our Spanish lease expired, basically was the, was the thought that I had [00:31:00] at the time. 

Karen: Yeah. True enough. So in the end, in the end we got to come back. And so I will not be naming this episode. It's time to rebuild. Because I don't even want to invite that kind of disruption that I invited last time. And I don't even want us to sit here and be like, we're building rituals, but we are, we're doing it again. Can't stop.

Won't stop. So we came back in September and I think, you know, often in these episodes I say, or like often in our updates, we ask each other like low point, high point. I think it's very clear what the low point was, you know, the whole getting evicted part. And I think for me, high point. Was and remains like when we came back here in September, at the very end of September, I just remember feeling like, Oh, this is, it was our second time coming back in the country.

The first time, of course, when we didn't even know we were going to move here. And it was like, Oh, we had our visas in hand. We had [00:32:00] our dog, we did bring our dog Sandy back with us. We were very anxious, but it ended up totally fine. Luca, we had enrolled in school to start like the following week, infant school, toddler school, and, you know, we had our apartment, it was furnished. We, as soon as we got back, we bought a car. Like we had friends, we had a community to welcome us back. We. I don't know. We knew our way around and it was just a completely different experience coming back to a place that now actually, like we had welcomed this place as our home for some time now, but that actually now with official paperwork and with the friends we've made, welcomed us back.

And. You know, it's funny cause this initial adventure was we were going to spend like a year and see how it felt. You guys, it's been a year and , I feel like we just settled in. Yeah, for sure. But that was my high point. Would you, would you second that [00:33:00] emotion?

Juan: Yeah. I agree. Yeah, definitely low point. Very obvious. Yeah, high point was, was nice being back. I I do feel like I just these lessons kind of, we all know them, but just life kind of has its ways of like, reinforcing them on you.

So, it's like reinforcing all these lessons of being in the moment and like, appreciating what you have and. Just reminders of , all of this is so uncertain, like everything especially for us, because we chose the uncertainty of where we were living. But a lot of things are and being in the moment, I think that for me, like now looking back feel grateful for that.

Karen: Yeah. And look, things are still uncertain. think in future episodes, we can reflect more on like what it feels like being abroad versus, you know, being far from your family, Trying to create this home. That's so far away from home, But you know it reminded us how precarious our situation was and how much Silly pride and simplicity we saw the things ahead of us, but sometimes I think that As long [00:34:00] as you're built your scaffolding in terms of , you have ways to keep your head on straight.

You've got money to support yourself. You've got supportive and, you know, at least one other loved one. But kind of how much of a gift that naivete was like our lack of knowing in a way it was a gift because I don't know that we'd be here. So for sure, takeaways, patience, grasshopper and achieving your dreams.

It takes a lot longer than you think, but yeah, we're going to keep trying 

always.

Thank you all for being here. We're a brand new podcast, so if you enjoyed it, go ahead and follow, rate, and review us in your podcast app so that we can know what you liked and others can find us. It would mean a lot. Last, but not least, we'll keep you posted on brand new episodes each week when you follow us on Facebook or Instagram at, you guessed it, Life Leaps Podcast.

Till next time.[00:35:00]