Why Tennessee?

So here we go…..Why Tennessee?! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think for one second that I would live anywhere but California. Chad and I were born and raised here in Napa and always planned to raise our boys in the same place where we grew up, close to family and friends in the hometown that holds such a special place in our hearts. About five years ago Chad went on a business trip to Maryville, Tn. and he came home very excited about his experience. I remember him pulling up houses on Zillow and showing me how much house we could buy for very little money. I waved it off and told him that while that was great, I would never leave my family. NEVER. Throughout the years Chad visited a handful of times and each time he returned he kept talking about how great it was out there, the people, the weather, the homes, the beautiful scenery. I would entertain his ideas about moving for a while, but always ended the conversation with “yeah, but I couldn’t leave our family…” Well things changed. In February of 2020 Chad had another business trip and this time we decided to make it an “early Valentines Day getaway” for the two of us. Chad was in Memphis for a couple of days and I flew out late Friday night to join him. We woke up early Saturday morning and hit the road for 3 hours to Nashville. I remember thinking how beautiful the countryside was. I was expecting a lot of farmland and flat boring roads, boy was I wrong! We did pass a lot of farmland, but everything was green, lush, lined with trees, lots of hills, beautiful rock formations ( Everyone knows I am a rock nerd) and so many rivers and lakes. As we got into Nashville I also took notice with how clean everything was. The roads were not littered with trash as it is in California, no graffiti on road signs or overpasses and not a homeless population like you see everywhere in the big cities (or even Napa for that matter) . Tennesseans take pride in their state and it shows. We had the best time in Nashville over the weekend (more on that later) and Sunday afternoon we got in the car and drove 3 hours east toward Maryville so Chad could get to a class on Monday. As we approached the Knoxville area I saw some mountains in the distance with a blue haze hovering all around and I remember asking Chad if he knew what mountain range they were. After a quick google search we realized that we were looking at the Great Smoky Mountains (right at sunset I might add) which were breathtakingly beautiful. I was definitely falling in love with Tennessee’s beauty. After checking into our hotel we did a drive through the town of Maryville. It reminded me a lot of old time Napa. The brick buildings downtown with small shops and a river flowing down the middle was reminiscent of the Napa I remembered as a kid. It was the perfect balance between small town charm and current day amenities (Target, Hobby Lobby, Walmart etc. as you drove out of downtown) I had this feeling come over me, this punch to the gut, feel it deep in your soul kind of feeling… This is HOME. I spent the next day at the hotel researching about life in Tennessee while Chad was in class. I looked at schools, houses, cost of living, weather, crime rate, basically everything I could think of. Tennessee checked almost every single box of what I would want for my kids. The possibility of moving was the only thing that Chad and I talked about after that, we were sold. Before we headed out to the airport on Tuesday morning we did another quick drive through town and headed toward the Smoky Mountain National Park which is only a 20 minute drive from Maryville. We didn’t get very far due to time, but what we did see was absolutely gorgeous. We were both one hundred percent on the same page that we wanted to call Tennessee home one day, but we still had a lot of things to figure out. Number one thing being our kids. This had to be a family decision and we had a feeling that getting the kids on board would be the hardest part of all…