C'est officiel

William looks a little more serious here than in his Dutch Wonderland pass!

As of yesterday, we are in possession of four passports into which have been pasted four French visas. And not a moment too soon! We leave the country at the end of the month. It has felt a little insane to have every other aspect of this year-long move in place—right down to having tenants sign a lease on our home here in Lancaster, to begin August 1!—without final confirmation that France was going to let us be there for a year. But it is done at long last, and we couldn't be happier.

For non-family readers: I'm taking a year-long, unpaid leave of absence from F&M and Jesse will be working remotely for HOPE (and traveling occasionally for HOPE). We'll be in Thouars, France, a small town of about 10,000 residents. We hope the temporary move will make it possible for us to spend a little more time with the English side of the family (indeed, we'll begin this adventure with ~2 weeks in England before heading south into France). And on September 2nd we'll be throwing the boys into local French schools. The big goal is for all four of us to come home with some serious language skills (which is why we're not simply heading to England for the year), not to mention a better sense of what it is to be outside of our comfort zones. We understand that our town is smallish, rural, and very...well, French. We swing between being giddy with anticipation (can't wait!!) and awash with anxiety (what on earth are we doing??!). Either way, in under four weeks we board a plane with one-way tickets across the Atlantic. Must get packing...