Well hello there Fabbies! Whew! It’s been 3 months since I’ve last spoken to you guys. And I promise it is for good reason. I was simply hibernating for the winter and waiting for Spring to come so I could blog again. Hahaha just kidding. The reality is, since the start of 2019, (well, really at the end 2018 too), my family and I have been preparing for our huge move…to MEXICO! If you follow me on Instagram and have seen some of my IG Stories, then you may already know that Supreme, the kids and I all moved to Mexico at the beginning of March. San Miguel de Allende to be exact. And let me tell you: It has been nothing short of an amazing, busy, whirlwind journey across the border. But we are here. In our new home. In a whole new country to continue this wild journey of our free-spirited lives. In this blog post, I will tell you why we decided to choose Mexico, how the process of the moving abroad went, and what we plan to do while living here.

As many of my day one readers know, I’ve moved around a lot in my adult life. I actually detail some of our moves in my earliest blog posts, which you can find HERE, HERE, and HERE.  Those blog posts were written years ago, and since those times, so much has changed, yet, so much has stayed the same. One thing that has remained the same is  Supreme and I’s passion for travel and changes of scenery, and after living in Arizona for a few years, we both were ready to plant our roots elsewhere.

Why Mexico? Well, that’s a great question, and one that I get asked often! And my answer is always this: A V O C A D O S! I needed to move somewhere where avocados are in season year round, because I love them so much.

I kid I kid.

Supreme and I had always casually discussed where we would want to live next, and early on, Mexico was never mentioned. I mean, helloooooo, we have already lived in several cities, so really, we both instinctually felt that it was time for a bigger, (and some might consider drastic) change. So we were both eager to go somewhere new.

And one day, Supreme said to me, “how about Mexico?”

I lit up like a Christmas tree! “YES!” It made perfect sense to me. Mexico has year round warm climates in many many cities across the country, it is indeed another country, so that means we would be immersing ourselves into a whole new culture (which Supreme and I both loved! We loved that part about living in Italy back in 2011-2012), and we would now give our children a chance to experience a new culture and learn a new language as part of their childhood. Plus since I took 4 years of Spanish in high school and 2 years in college, I can speak and understand the language moderately well. It was a no-brainer to us. We told the kids we were moving, and although they didn’t know what a Mexico was, they were excited and ready to go!

As a sidenote: Supreme and I both homeschool Zé and Vito. We always have since they began talking really. We would have them do little exercises and practice writing their names and reading, etc. very early on as toddlers. We also have found great online resources that help guide their curriculums, and they both love it so much.  When Zé became school age and it was time for kindergarten, she very much wanted to go to school, so we let her. (Against our initial plan. See, we knew that we would also live a life of travel and living all over the world, and traditional school just was not a part of our vision. We want to give our kids a life of freedom; learning about life and all it has to offer outside of traditional school. So teaching them the basics and following a curriculum in the comfort of our home-wherever that may be in the world–just works better for us. Plus, who can really give Zé and Vito the real game educational and otherwise better than me and the Premer? 😉

So, Zé enrolled in a charter school, and was off to the proverbial races of traditional “school”. After a few days, the verdict?

She. Hated. It.

She was already used to learning the way that Supreme and I were teaching her, and the “school” way just was NOT popping to her. So we listened. We withdrew her from her school after 4 days. Yep. Zé was a kindergarten drop out.

Welp! Back to our original plan of homeschooling our then kindergartner! (She is now in first grade, and Vito is in kindergarten.) I have a draft saved of how we homeschool our kids and everything! I just haven’t finished yet because ya girl is always doing a million other things, so blog posts don’t always get finished, but it’s coming! And I’ll provide more details there. 😉

I said all of that to say moving abroad, or just moving to a new city period can be a stressful time for parents, and that’s in part because of the quest for finding good schools, but since we homeschool, that was one aspect that we did not have to worry about. We will, however, get a Spanish tutor to come out to our home a few times a week to teach Zé and Vito Spanish, so I can’t wait for that! And truly, experiencing life on all levels is our greatest teacher.

After deciding that Mexico would be our new home country, we then casually looked online for homes for months in every part of Mexico. We looked at the “beach cities” like Cabo and Cancun, we looked in Baja, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico City…and then, we came across a gem of a home in a city we had never even heard of: San Miguel de Allende.

Ya’ll. We literally knew NOTHING about this city. But we found a house we loved in this never before heard of city, decided that that would be our next house, and began doing what any other sane person does next: GOOGLE. We then googled everything about San Miguel de Allende, and found all kinds information on the history of the city, its beauty, tourist attractions, and well, this article sorta sealed the deal:

You can read the articleHERE.

So here we are! In the “best city in the world”! We gave all of our furniture/tv’s/everything basically to our neighbors in our neighborhood, (Thanks for putting me on to the neighborhood app Ashlee T!) We then shipped our clothes, shoes, kids toys and miscellaneous stuff to Mexico, and peaced out:

 

We made it San Miguel de Allende after traveling for a few days.

As you guys know, I have been working on my shoe and handbag line, Raven Collection for the last few years, and now, our new headquarters are in Mexico! Once I launch, all orders will ship from here. There are also many other exciting things on the horizon, and   since Supreme and I both work from home, our home can be anywhere in the world:

 

Since living here, the Real Estate company that we rented from has been a huge help with assisting us with finding everything we need from grocery stores, drivers, the post office, restaurants, etc.  We have also discovered an Organic supermarket that doubles as a restaurant upstairs that we absolutely LOVE! OMG! They market side sells lots of vegan snacks, gourmet hummus, vegan hot tamales, vegan cakes and desserts, and so much more. And the restaurant?! We go there at LEAST once a week, but really like twice a week already. We’re hooked! And best of all, it is very close to our home!

And the restaurant food?!

Speaking of food, I’ve also eaten at a few other restaurants around San Miguel, including when I took myself out on a solo date while I was out running errands to a cute little restaurant called Café Monet near what’s called “The Square” in downtown San Miguel:

 

 

This restaurant has the cutest decor too!

My mom also came to visit us for about a week to babysit Zé and Vito while Supreme and I went on a business trip to Sacramento. While she was here, we also went to a restaurant near the historic church, La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel. We ordered soup, chips and guac (I told ya’ll I’m obsessed with avocados), enchiladas and margaritas!

Here are a few things I have learned so far from living in Mexico:

• The people of San Miguel de Allende love a celebration! They shoot fireworks here for weddings, celebrations, reunions, everything lol! Easter is coming soon, and I’ve heard that the city goes all out with parades, festivals, music fests, and more. I cannot wait to see it all!
• Many of the buildings in downtown San Miguel de Allende are still the original buildings from the 1700s. The architecture style of the historic city is refereed to as baroque-Spanish style, and beautiful murals adorn the side of many of the buildings, making it such a treat for casual strolls and jogs around the city:

• Many of the neighborhood streets are made of cobblestone, preserved from hundreds of years ago.  Also, the city is built on hills and mountains, so mixing the rocky streets with hills everywhere makes jogging outside a slight more of a challenge, but I still love it nonetheless. And walking on cobblestoned streets just makes me feel so cultured and a part of history lol!

 

How long will we live in Mexico? Who knows! But for now, Mexico is home. And whenever we do return to the States (or the next country?), you better believe the whole family’s Spanish will be excelente! Zé and Vito are in love with the new house, and have been having a ball exploring their new surroundings. They are on quite the adventure already in their young lives lol.

In my bio for this blog, I say that “I want to taste, feel, and explore everything…”   And years later, I am continuing to do just that. 😉

Que tengas un buen fin de semana! (Have a good weekend!)

xoxo