What if the best decision
you ever made was the one
you almost didn't take?

I remember sitting on the living room floor in California. Kyle and I were going back and forth about whether we should actually do this. I grew up there. Kyle was born and raised there. We had never left. And honestly, the fear was real. We were leaving our family, our friends, everything familiar. Even the silly things, like In-N-Out, felt like something we'd be giving up forever.

We had all the spreadsheets. No state income tax. Lower property taxes. Gas prices. The numbers made sense on paper. But numbers don't move you. The question that finally broke it open for us was this: what are our future selves going to miss out on if we don't take the leap? Not what were we losing by going. What were we losing by staying?

The first year was genuinely hard. We didn't have family here. We didn't have friends. We were starting completely from zero. I cried a lot. I missed my mom. I missed the familiarity of home. There were moments where we almost didn't make it through that first year.

But then something happened. The neighbors started showing up. Not in a polite, wave-from-the-driveway way. They actually showed up, checking in because they knew we'd just moved from out of state, bringing food, asking if there was anything they could do. People we had never met became family fast. That's not something you put on a spreadsheet.

I genuinely did not believe a place like this existed anymore. I wanted somewhere with values, where we could raise our kids around people who share the same values that we have. A place with peace in it. I didn't think that was real. And then we got here.

The thing we're most grateful for is what Franklin gave our kids. They got to go back in time a little. A little more innocence. A little more of the best part of childhood, for a bit longer. That gift is worth more than any tax savings in the world.