The Blank Space
Someone asked me recently what the hardest emotional moment of our emigration had been. I thought I should have a big answer. Something dramatic. A crisis, a breaking point, something you could point to and say- that was it. But it wasn’t anything like that. We’d been in the U.S. a few days. Everything still […]
Homesick Over Chicken Schnitzels… Yes, Really
When you emigrate, you miss the big things. Family. Friends. Home. All the time. What you don’t expect is how much the small things can get to you. For me, it’s Woolworths food. And more specifically… Woolies chicken schnitzels. I know how ridiculous that sounds. We live in the USA, where you can get just […]
Emigration doesn’t just test you. It tests your marriage.
Nobody really talks about this. We obsess over the visas, the schools, the shipping containers, the logistics of it all. But underneath everything is something far more fragile… your relationship. Marriage is already a lot. Add kids, careers, the daily weight of keeping life together- it’s full before you even start. Then layer emigration on […]
Watching Your Children Become Something New 🇿🇦 🇺🇸
It caught me off guard the first time it happened. I said a word the way I’ve said it my whole life, and one of my kids corrected me. Not in a cheeky way, not even in a funny way. Just naturally. Instinctively. “That’s not how you say it.” I laughed it off at the […]
Vegas, Volume, and Why We Choose Experiences
A few weeks ago, we landed in Las Vegas. I had seen it in movies. I had heard the stories. Nothing prepares you.You walk out of your hotel during the day and it feels like a busy city, almost ordinary. Heat rising off the pavement. Tourists with coffees. Traffic humming along. Then night falls… and […]
When You Can’t Change the Circumstance, Change the Lens
Yesterday I had a conversation with my 11-year-old son that made me think. He’s been thriving since joining his middle school football team here in the U.S. – training hard, earning his place in the starting lineup, loving every minute. And then, two weeks ago… injury. After X-rays and MRIs, he was diagnosed with a […]
Building a Life — One Allen Key at a Time 🇿🇦 🛠️ 🇺🇸
When we arrived in the U.S. with 10 suitcases, we didn’t just leave behind our home, we left behind every couch, coffee table, and bookshelf too. And so began the era of flat-pack furniture. If you know, you know. The endless cardboard boxes, the instructions that seem to be written in riddles, the missing screws […]
Two Hemispheres, One Heart 🇿🇦 🎄 🇺🇸
Back home in South Africa, summer is in full swing. Schools have wrapped up, “Dezemba” is in the air, and the rhythm slows into long, sunny days, braais, beach holidays, and that familiar end-of-year exhale. Meanwhile here in the U.S., school is still in session until just before Christmas. The air is cold, the evenings […]
The American Holiday That Stole My Heart 🦃 ❤️ 🇺🇸
Of all the American holidays we’ve come to know, Thanksgiving is by far my favorite. It’s the least commercial (except for the sheer number of turkeys involved), and possibly the most meaningful. There are no gifts, no pressure to spend. Just families gathering from near and far around the country to pause, reflect, and just […]
🎶🌍 “It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you,
There’s nothin’ that a hundred men or more could ever do,I bless the rains down in Africa,Gonna take some time to do the things we never had” Not long after arriving in the U.S., we booked our first big concert: Journey. An 80s kid’s dream. We were super excited, nostalgic and all those things. The […]
What I Learned About Setting Up a U.S. Business from Afar 🌍 ➡️ 🇺🇸
When we decided to pursue the L1 visa and make the move to the U.S., we knew we had a business to build, but we didn’t fully grasp the implications of meeting L1 visa requirements at the same time. Looking back now, there are a few lessons I wish I had fully understood from the […]
When the Visa Clock Starts Ticking ✈️ ⏰
When we landed in the U.S. in August 2022, we didn’t just arrive with suitcases and dreams — we arrived with a mission: To start a new life, get settled into a new country, and build a U.S. division of a South African business from the ground up — all within our first 8–9 months. […]