How did you tell the girls?

Luckily, I guess, a couple of weeks before the big news fell - if you don't know what I'm talking about, you might want to read my previous post - we had played the Powerball. The jackpot was evaluated to several hundreds of millions. We didn't win. But we had time to dream about what we would do if we would win. As a family, including the girls in the process, we had decided that we would have them drop school and we would leave for a trip around the world. A couple of years. The girls were pretty excited about that. We would keep the house so we could come back in two, three years. (And then we would build a slide from the 2nd floor of the house leading into our swimming pool...but that's a whole other story...)

So as I said, we didn't win. But. But. When came the time to break the big news to the girls, we came back to this:

"Remember we had said, if we won the Powerball, we would quit school and leave for a trip around the world? Two, maybe 3 years? How does that sound?" 

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" 

"Mom? Are we really going to do that?"

"I don't know yet. We have to discuss it with daddy. He has to tell his company that he wants to leave..." 

Ho boy. What did I put myself in?

So that evening we told them that yes, we were leaving. That we would find a school for them in Europe, in the middle of all the beautiful countries we were planning to visit. They agreed. It took like 5 minutes and it was done. No tears. Just excitement. Until it was time to go to bed... 

I got a couple of worried questions from Maya first. But she quickly fell asleep.

And then I got questions + tears from Arielle. It lasted, what, maybe 1 hour?! Poor little girl. She wasn't sure anymore that she was willing to leave her house behind. And her friends!!! What would they do without her when she would be ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD? She fell asleep, exhausted!

We told them not to tell their friends just yet. I know, it was a bit much to ask. 

Arielle did tell her friends but somehow they didn't seem to realize anything and didn't bring the news any further. 

We told the teachers. We started applying for our new school. An International School following the American curriculum. Perfect to keep the girls on track because yes, it's the goal to come back to the US. 

No more tears were shed. 

And a couple days later, as we were driving to school, Arielle asked me:

"Mom, dad got transferred didn't he?" 

She knew...

1.5 months later, that would be now, we are not crying anymore. Or at least they are not. ;) We are trying to get everything together and ready, while finishing our things here and continuing to live normally, as much as possible. 

The worst part is being separated from daddy whose already working and living in Prague.

I asked the girls what they wanted for their birthday. Maya said she wanted to be standing next to Daddy, Mommy and Arielle. That's all. 

We'll do that little girl. We'll do that.