Are we brave? Or nuts?

In June, one of my closest friends, Jen Clary, and her family, came to visit us in Oakland. Jen lives in Michigan with her husband Mitch and her identical twin girls, who are high school seniors. Jen and I have known each other since college. She lived in Oakland for many years before returning to her home town of Grand Rapids.

Enzo had met "the girls" a handful of times before, but on this trip, the three teens had such a good time together that they secretly hatched a plan for Enzo to visit them in Michigan before school started.

In late August, Enzo flew to Grand Rapids for a few days--a last hurrah before the beginning of his junior year at Oakland Tech.

Colleen told me before he returned, "You know he's going to tell us he wants to move to Grand Rapids when he gets home." I laughed.

She was right, of course. And when he actually said it in the car on the way home from the airport, something deep inside of all of us stirred. Yes, we need a change. Yes, a move would be good for us. Maybe we could move to Michigan.

On Monday night, we wrote a Pro/Con list while celebrating Enzo's first day of Oakland Tech over dinner at Dumpling Time.

On Tuesday, we were touring house rentals via Facetime with Jen, who thought we must have lost our minds.

On Thursday, we signed a nine-month lease on a three-bedroom house in East Grand Rapids.

On Friday, a U-box portable pod was in our driveway--already halfway packed.

The following week, we had a renter for our house in Rockridge and Colleen and Enzo were on a plane to Michigan to get prepped for Enzo's second first day at school.

This is the story of our seemingly rash decision to move to Grand Rapids, the many months (and possibly years) of conversation that paved the way to this moment, and what we are about to learn about ourselves.