My husband and I have had more than our fair share of moves through the years (six cities in past four years to be exact). Life has taken us all over the country. Through it all, we have made some dear friends and memories that will last a lifetime. Not to say there haven’t been ups and downs, but life had always seemed relatively ‘easy’. Bouncing from city to city when it was just my husband, our beloved Boston Terrier, (Peaches), and me made for some pretty carefree days. We’ve experienced both coasts, spontaneous weekend getaways and lots of sunshine, but we have always known that the Midwest is ‘home’ and that’s where we wanted to raise our family. When we had the chance to move from Naples, Florida to Des Moines, Iowa in the Fall of 2011 we jumped on the opportunity. I’m sure people thought we were crazy (actually I know they thought we were!). Nine months after moving to Des Moines, we welcomed Ava Mae to the world. Everything was seemingly falling into place, we had a strong support system of family and friends (new and old), a house that we wanted to call home for the long haul and a baby who was our dream come true. Fast forward a couple months and it was time to move again. My husband’s job was taking us to Madison, Wisconsin. It was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up and this would be our last move for a LONG time.
I had a wide range of emotion, admittedly I was devastated to leave Des Moines and the life that we had began to build. Life felt like a whirlwind. I think we can all agree that moving is hard, but moving with a four month old baby, a house to put on the market, and moving to an apartment in a city where we don’t have a network of friends and family during the coldest months of the year? Seemed impossible.
When we found out we would be moving to Madison, I started doing my research. What I found is that year after year Madison is voted one of the top places to live in America. I also found that there are TONS of fun, family friendly activities in Madison (a lot of which are FREE!) There’s good reason that, just last week, Madison was voted one of the most hospitable cities in America. Every person I talked to about Madison (and there were a lot!) raved and told me that ‘Madison is an amazing place to live!’ Did I mention the schools are second to none. (Seriously, they are the best in the country.)
The biggest challenge has been meeting ‘moms’ to connect with. I joined a couple Meetup groups, attended play dates with new friends and began exploring this incredible city that we call home, but I still felt isolated…something was missing. I think so many of the challenges I was experiencing in the first several months after we moved to Madison were less about whether or not I had fully embraced our new city and more about needing meet other moms to connect with.
Madison Moms Blog is part of the City Moms Blog Network which has a presence all across the US (including every city/state I had lived in previously). At Madison Moms Blog, we want moms to connect both online AND offline. We want to embrace our commonality as moms living in Madison, while recognizing that we are more than JUST moms! We look forward to enjoying all of the fun and unique things that Madison has to offer us – as women, and as moms. (I’ll now be one of ‘those’ people telling others that ‘Madison is an amazing place to live!’)
