Stop Press! It happened, we did it! We just celebrated our first anniversary in LA. WHOO HOOOOOOO!!! And what a year it’s been! This is a very nostalgic post to write and I’m struggling with the tone. It’s been monumental and I don’t know how I can possibly put it into words that might suffice.

This past year has been the biggest adventure of our lives. We re-routed, took a radically different path and changed the story of our lives forever. We have created an American side of the family, potentially affected our family tree for generations to come and – shock horror – experienced a very different school system. People – we went “progressive!”

How can I laugh without belittling? How can I cry without seeming sad? It’s only now, a year later, that I can look back with some perspective and just about appreciate the enormity of what we did. In that time, Tamsin has developed an American accent, Jessica has developed a love of surfing and Harry has developed a passion for parties in Malibu.

The American people have embraced us with a warmth, hospitality, generosity and openness for which I will be forever grateful. When you move country and people include you and your children, invite you to things, connect you in places that you need (business, school, medical, you name it) it makes your transition so much easier.

You all know who you are if you are reading this and you know how eternally thankful we are to each and every one of you.

Both schools, Harvard-Westlake and The Willows have taken my “foreign, international children” in to their care and given them wings to fly. The teachers and the Deans have held their hands tight enough so they don’t fall and loose enough so they can find their own, individual paths. As we “go back to school” this September, it’s with an excitement, confidence, sense of self and strength that we certainly didn’t have this time last year.

They say New York makes you hard, LA makes you soft – and I hear that London makes you reserved! Ha ha! I’ve definitely had to overcome the “reserved” reputation – every single day for an entire year I have had to put myself out there in every single situation imaginable. If I hadn’t, I would have no clue where to go, what to do, how it all works and I’d have no friends – LAME!

To celebrate our first LA Anniversary, we had a pool party. At one point during the evening, Daniel and I took a moment, looked around and really absorbed how far we’d come in a year. We’d created a home, a life. All three of our kids had a group of friends there and to see them hanging out, laughing and happy filled us both with a sense of enormous relief, pride and happiness. PHEW!

I couldn’t think of a more appropriate place to sign off for today.

Until the next post….

Love AC xxx