2018

Moving overseas, even temporarily, is not a decision to be made lightly. A great deal of planning, paperwork, and preparation is required. Plus, a spirit of adventure is a necessity.

When my husband took a job in Stockholm in 2018, one of the selling points was that my youngest son and I could join him for six months of his stint there. Our older three kids were in college or working, and we were able to find an international school for the youngest to attend for the semester.

It took the whole year to prepare for this grand opportunity in Scandinavia. Although my husband started working in Stockholm early in 2018, my son and I wouldn’t join him until January of 2019, arranging our dates around his school schedule. The second semester of his sophomore year turned out to be the ideal time to study abroad, but it wasn’t an easy or quick process. We had begun coordinating with his current and prospective schools the moment we knew the move was a possibility. Nonetheless, it was very time-consuming and at times, stressful exercise.

We were excited that our oldest son would also be working in Stockholm during that time, and would live with us in our apartment. It was a unique opportunity to live life together again for a brief season.

For the year and a half before my youngest and I joined my husband, he traveled back and forth for weeks at a time. Sweden’s time zone was six hours ahead of Richmond, which obviously brought about some serious jet lag issues. It also meant long stretches where we couldn’t communicate due to different sleep/wake schedules, leaving only small windows of opportunity to touch base. We found that using a combination of texting, email, phone calls, Snapchat and FaceTime helped us stay on the same page. This made me sympathize even more with people in the military who may not be able to communicate much at all with their families.

Months before our actual move, my son and I flew over to tour the international school to which he had applied. We think my husband just used that as a ruse to get us there to put together the IKEA sofa in his apartment. The giant beast was still sitting in large boxes in the living room when we arrived. Putting that marvel of Swedish ingenuity together was really a highlight of the trip for our boy, as you can see in the picture, especially given the record heat that month in Stockholm, and the lack of air conditioning in our 6th-floor apartment.

Although we applied to the school far in advance, we didn’t find out until a few months before our actual move whether there would be a space for him in the sophomore class. We had to make preparations as if we were moving since we wouldn’t have enough time if we waited to hear, but we didn’t know for sure until the last minute.

Because of the moving tasks and my husband’s crazy schedule flying back and forth between countries and time zones, 2018 was one of the busiest years I have ever experienced. Preparing our house, college kids, and dog for our departure was no easy task.

But despite the hectic schedule for all of us, and my husband rarely being home, things went pretty smoothly, even if it sometimes felt a little weird (as evidenced by our unusual Christmas photo – we had to use a “cut out” of my hubby because we couldn’t get all of us together in one country to take the picture).

We definitely felt God’s rich provision and peace during the whole crazy year. I was excited to see what His purposes were for this relocation, and what plans He had for our family in this season.

During his weeks alone in Sweden prior to our arrival, my husband would work longer-than-normal hours. In the evenings and on weekends, he would take long runs around Stockholm, attend our Sweden church, or visit his very hospital Swedish colleagues for meals or weekend stays. For dinners, he would often cook chicken paprikash or spaghetti. He tried to create routines that made it easier to be away from us for such long stretches.

While he was away, I would manage the home front, juggling the kids’ needs, my work (paid and volunteer), dog care, house, and car maintenance, and our social calendar. I was also busily preparing for move day, getting our home and affairs in order and procuring what we would need for the apartment in Stockholm.

While in the U.S., in addition to working in the Richmond office, my spouse would spend time visiting the kids in college, seeing our parents, attending church, and visiting our wonderful friends.

Having our oldest son move to Stockholm at the end of the summer was a big turning point for my husband. He was thrilled that a member of his family would be with him in Sweden, and to know that a couple more of us were coming in January. For me, friends, family productive activity, and my trusty dog helped make the months of separation easier.

In November, just before the big move, I made another Sweden trip to hunt for a larger apartment while my husband was in the States with our youngest son. I enjoyed a nice visit with our oldest (we found a great restaurant called “Knut,” but mostly rested and watched The Clone Wars). I tried to make a homemade dinner, but the kitchen was not workable for actual meal preparation.

The apartment situation in Stockholm is a long story, which I will tell separately. Thankfully, I found a larger space for the four of us, available in early January. However, we didn’t find out until just before our move whether we would have a place to live. Miraculously, everything finally fell into place at New Year’s, including our last-minute visas, in the nick of time for our flights, and we were off on our Swedish Adventure!