Hello everyone. I've been poking around this forum for a week or so since my (Brazilian) husband and I have decided to consider moving back to his state of Para. I have been there only once-we stayed for 3 months during the process of his immigration to the U.S.

We live in a small town in rural NC and generally enjoy a slower style of life, although we both commute in Raleigh for work.

Our main issue is we both feel like our quality of life is declining here. We both work full time and get home at about 6 in the evening. We have a 5 year old son who just started kindergarten. Arriving at 6, I cook dinner, give him a bath, and maybe get to spend about an hour with him before he goes to bed. Household chores pile up and then we consume our weekends trying to catch up. I don't see this changing anytime soon. My husband has a Physics degree and taught high school Physics here for about a year. Things were more stressful then as he took much of his work home with him. He owns a remodeling company now and enjoys the work.


So anyhow, I'm really just reading up and researching our options and trying to put a plan together. Many of you in larger cities lead drastically different lifestyles but I'd be interested in advice or opinions from those of you living in more rural areas.

We still have a large ranch in Para that we are in the process of selling, so we would likely move to a smaller farm in Para once that is done.

Other details-I have a decent grasp of Portuguese and we are in our early 30's. My husband has a large family there. I have my parents here in NC, but not much extended family that I am close to.

A little. In this case, though, I've seen first hand that the limited number of private schools seems to be of the same (or lesser quality) than the public ones. I only know this because I visited both extensively when I was there and my husband has taught in both (and probably will on return)..I can only speak for those in his city, though. Thanks for your input! Should we move over, I will definitely look into both options wherever we go.

Thanks so much for the replies.

hpeak13, I got your message, but I cannot reply-it says your inbox is full.