Written by Mia on March 3rd:

Exactly a year ago, Troll drove us to the airport in Oslo with six bags full of things that survived the sorting/prioritizing process we completed leading to the move. We drank bubbles in the car with Troll taking video and on the flight to Palma we finally had a chance to exhale. A few hours later we were standing onboard Itchy Foot surrounded by our stuff. We have had ups and downs and lots of adventures and we have met incredible people and built wonderful friendships. We have pushed ourselves and learned new things and spent lots of time as a family. We have taken chances and have been rewarded. We crossed the Atlantic and we are just getting warmed up!

Yesterday, March 2nd which is the real anniversary, we spent the day sailing from Barbuda to Nevis. It was very windy and we had high seas, and we spent most of the day on deck chatting (albeit chatting and holding on). We summed up our year and discussed our future plans. Teo says he loves Itchy Foot especially the climbing and swinging opportunities as well as swimming off the back, adventures ashore and meeting all the other kids around living on boats but still doesn’t like beach landings and boat school isn’t always popular either. Jon loves living onboard and doesn’t feel done with the adventure yet, he especially likes spending time with the family and waking up next to Teo, but feels we waste too much time being frustrated with situations and should be better about seizing our opportunities, plus the boat maintenance takes so much time and he secretly hates fishing. Mia also loves Itchy Foot and the lifestyle and exploring new places especially when we spend time with our new friends, but wishes she was more competent at the sailing part of the adventures and struggles how much time the menial tasks take like dishes and packing and unpacking a day bag. We all agree we would like to grumble less and laugh more and we chalk that up to some good old fashioned expectation management. We miss our home and wonder what future homes might look like and we miss our friends, communicating with dodgy internet is a lot harder than we anticipated. At the moment we are borrowing some wifi from the Four Seasons in Nevis. We will use this time and this internet to post a few things we started writing a year ago. Please indulge us as we get a bit nostalgic. We can laugh about it now, hope you can, too! This morning we revisited photos from when we first arrived on a Itchy Foot, Teo exclaimed, “we have different faces!” I wonder what our observant one sees and what it means to him.

Since we were busy sailing all day on our boativersary, we have plans to celebrate our year aboard with our good friends on Sta Vast. They caught a tuna yesterday and we have some bubbles chilling in the fridge and the boys made a pineapple upside down cake that is in the oven.