How it all started

Many of you may be wondering where the Reeds got this crazy idea to go to Mexico. Well I'll explain our thought process here. First of all, good or bad I have to take credit for the idea. Dave and I, since we got married, have wanted to spend time outside of Utah. We love Utah for many reasons, but its homogeneous, almost all Mormon, sterile environment sometimes makes us crazy. We always thought (and this may still be true in the future) that we would move out of Utah for good, but in the couple of instances that we had the opportunity to leave, we just didn't know where to go. Where do you go when you can go anywhere? We've been drawn to Oregon, Washington and North Carolina at various times, but just couldn't actually leave.
So last year, Dave's company, eSpeakers, seemed to be coming to a point where we might be able to make a move if we wanted to. So where do we go? This time I felt like we had other factors keeping us in Utah. My parents are in Alpine, the kids have good friends here and I love my house. In contemplating a move, I wondered to myself "Why can't we just go somewhere for a little while?" I remembered a friend I had in D.C. whose family, the Eyres, lived in London for 6 months when she was young. But 6 months seemed too fast and too disrupting, so why not a year. A year would be a full school year, long enough to get to know the place, but short enough that the kids friends would most likely still be here when we got back and we could rent the house more easily. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. So now to tell Dave. Dave thought it was a good idea too!
Immediately, we started researching. Where could we afford to rent and still keep our house? Where could Dave still do the work he needed to do without a weird schedule? Why not another country? Did we want seasons, cold weather, hot weather? What were the immigration laws for Canada, Mexico or South America? Could we drive, or would we have to fly? Where would we be safe? So many questions, so little time? Wait for my next post for some of the info we found.