If you’ve been following along here for a while, you may have noticed a few hints scattered throughout recent posts. A Florida travel guide here. A Southwest Florida farmers market post there. A Weekly Edit mention of a big life change coming in summer. I’ve been holding this close for a while now, and I’m so glad to finally be able to sit down and tell you the whole story.

We’re moving to Southwest Florida.

A Dream We’ve Carried for Nearly Twenty Years

Ben and I have wanted to move to Florida for as long as we’ve been together. When we first started dating in college, our dream was simple: become teachers who lived in Florida during the school year and spent summers in Wisconsin, close to family.

Life took us on a different path. Ben’s career has always determined where we’ve lived — from our early moves around Wisconsin, to our move from Wisconsin to Minnesota, and now this one. Along the way, there have been a handful of opportunities to move somewhere warmer, but none of them ever felt quite right. Five years ago almost exactly, we had this same opportunity arise. We said no, because it just didn’t feel like the right time. (Below are a couple of photos from when we visited five years ago!)

This year, a similar opportunity came up again — a chance for Ben to teach in Southwest Florida. And before we even sat down to talk through the details, we had already made an agreement: no matter what, we would say yes.

The Real Reason We Said Yes

Moving as parents is a completely different experience than moving before you had children. You’re thinking about so many things at once — schools, activities, community, the kind of life your child will have. If I’m being honest about what ultimately drove this decision, it came down to one thing: Ollie.

She loves being outside. She comes alive outside. From the time she could walk, she has been the kind of child who is most herself when she’s in fresh air — running around, exploring, getting her hands dirty, and being free to roam around. She is happiest outside, and we have always known that about her.

This past winter was genuinely hard. We did everything we could — indoor playgrounds, new activities, new toys, creative projects — but we had cabin fever so often. Our busy, energetic toddler bounced around the house with all the enthusiasm of someone who just wanted to be let loose outside, and we kept having to say, “Not yet. Let’s wait for summer.”

And then summer came. And we couldn’t go outside then either.

There’s been significant research into Minnesota’s air quality in recent years, and a study that came out recently confirmed what we had started to fear: children’s long-term lung health is genuinely at risk due to poor summer air quality in Minnesota. We had spent all winter waiting for summer, and then summer arrived and we were stuck inside again — this time because of dangerous air quality rather than dangerous cold. We realized we were living for a season that wasn’t actually livable when it came.

That was the moment the decision became clear for us. We didn’t want to keep saying, “I’m sorry, we can’t go outside today.” (Poor air quality has become so normal, Ollie has even used her pretend phone to “check the AQI” herself. 😅) We didn’t want to keep waiting for a window of weather that kept closing before we could step through it. We wanted to live somewhere that let us actually live — where even on the hottest summer days, the morning and evening hours are still beautiful, accessible, and ours.

Southwest Florida gives us that. So, we said yes.

The Home We’re Leaving Behind

We love our Minnesota home. We built it. Every corner of it has something of us in it — the light fixtures we spent hours researching and choosing, the family photo collage that climbs the staircase wall, the hydrangeas out front that I have watched bloom every spring with so much joy. It’s the home where Ben and I have grown more than anywhere else we’ve ever lived. It’s the home where I told Ben I was pregnant, standing right at our kitchen island. It’s the home where Ollie has taken every first step of her life — where she crawled down that hallway, then walked down it, then ran down it. Where she learned to say mama and dada and an ever-growing list of words that fill every room with her particular kind of magic.

It’s the only home she has ever known.

Leaving it is genuinely bittersweet in a way that I didn’t fully anticipate until the move became real. Home is so central to everything I write about and everything I believe in. The idea that the spaces we live in shape who we become… that belief runs through everything on this blog. And so leaving the home that shaped the first three years of Ollie’s life, and the most significant years of our lives, carries a weight that I want to honor rather than minimize.

I love Minnesota. I love the people — our sweet neighbors who have become treasured friends, the community we’ve built over years of living here. I love the restaurants, the farmers markets, the particular way a Minnesota summer feels when it finally arrives. I love the sound of wind through the trees and watching storms roll in from our patio. I love that we built something here that was completely ours.

We will carry all of it with us. But most of all, we’ll carry the realization that wherever we are together as a family is home.

The Home We’re Moving Into

And now for the part that has me genuinely, completely excited.

We bought a new build in Southwest Florida, sight unseen, with the help of an incredible real estate team. A brand new home, all white, completely blank — the most perfect canvas for a fresh start I could have imagined. Here’s a rendering of our new home:

My favorite detail is the L-shaped sliding door that removes the entire wall between the living room and the lanai. The inside and outside become one continuous space. For a family that has spent years wishing they could just go outside, I cannot overstate how meaningful that detail feels. Ollie and I plan to grow lemons on our lanai, and that’s something I’m wholeheartedly looking forward to.

The home also features something we fell in love with immediately: a completely separate suite within the house — its own living room, kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom. Ben’s parents are planning to spend winters with us, and we’ve already invited family to come for extended stays. Having a space that’s entirely theirs within our home means we get to be close to the people we love without anyone feeling like a guest. That is such a gift.

We will live in a large, vibrant community with a resort-style pool, pickleball courts, a fitness center, a restaurant, a coffee shop, a smoothie bar, and on-site activities for children. There are dance classes Ollie can take right in our community. The ability to incorporate fitness, activity, and community into our daily life — not as a special occasion but just as a Tuesday — is something I’ve dreamed about for a very long time.

How the Move Is Actually Happening

We’re doing U-Pack relocubes for our belongings and shipping our cars ahead of us. Then we’re flying to Southwest Florida, staying in an Airbnb while we wait for everything to arrive, and getting the house ready alongside that. We have a few things being done before we move in — curtains to hang, maybe a room or two to paint, the beginning of turning a beautiful blank canvas into something that feels like us. It’s a lot of logistics, and yet, we’re totally at peace.

What I’m Looking Forward To Most

Sanibel Island is one of my favorite places in the entire world. We spent a month there when Ollie was four months old during Ben’s paternity leave, and I have thought about it almost every day since. The shells, the water, the unhurried beauty of that island. The idea that we’ll be able to go there not as a once-in-a-while expensive vacation but just as a day out — a casual Saturday morning of finding shells and watching Ollie discover the ocean — makes me emotional in the best possible way.

I’m looking forward to mornings at the farmers market. To the beach at sunrise. To outdoor dinners on warm evenings in November. To Ollie being outside in December. To finally, genuinely living in the season we’re in rather than waiting for the next one.

I’ll miss the Minnesota seasons. There’s a particular magic to a Minnesota spring that I will always love — the way the world comes back to life after a long winter, the first warm day when everyone emerges so happily. I’ll carry that with me too.

But at this stage of our lives, with a little girl who comes alive outside, I want to give her a life where outside is always available. Where we don’t have to wait. Where every ordinary day has the potential to be a beach day or a farmers market morning or an evening walk in warm air.

That’s what we’re moving toward. And we moved from anxious to genuinely, completely excited.

To Minnesota, With Love

Thank you to everyone who has followed along, noticed the hints, and cheered us on through a life chapter we’ve been carrying quietly for months. Your warmth and support mean everything to this little corner of the internet. Southwest Florida, we’re on our way!