My wife and I were both born and raised in Sri Lanka but have lived for most of our lives in the USA. I moved to the US for my graduate education and following my doctoral training at the University of Illinois I also served as a member of the faculty and lived in the Chicago suburbs for the past ...MORE

I was completely unfamiliar with West Michigan -- to me "Michigan" meant Detroit, because I heard about Detroit in the news all the time with rampant unemployment, a lot of crime, a place people were fleeing. But when I got to West Michigan, people were very quick to tell me this isn't...MORE

I'm originally from Puerto Rico and have been in the United States for the past 23 years. Before coming here, I lived all over -- I went to school in Boston, then moved to New York, and then Texas while I worked in Mexico. I also lived in Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.I came to We...MORE

I never wanted to move from Chicago because our families are there and we have no one here in West Michigan, but my husband, Acy, got a promotion he couldn't afford to pass up, so we moved here. It's very different than Chicago because it's quiet. That was a big adjustment because we w...MORE

My husband, Rick, and I love skiing, so when we were thinking about moving to West Michigan the first thing we did was look up the annual snowfall -- we wanted to be in a place where it's snowy in the winter and beautiful in the summer. Hands down, the summers in West Michigan are unbeatable. It ...MORE

My husband and I are both Michigan natives but we moved to Baltimore, Maryland and then Hawaii for my job with the federal government. After having two children and being so far from family, we really wanted to move back so our kids could get to know their extended family. Both my husband and I...MORE

When my husband said, "What do you think about living in Grand Rapids, Michigan?" I said, "Michigan? Why would I want to go to Michigan? It's really, really cold up there." My husband is a cancer researcher who was recruited by the Michigan State University College of Human M...MORE

When I was told I'd be interviewing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, my original thought was it was a suburb of Detroit. I had to check it out on the map. I remember telling my wife that I liked the company, but I wasn't sure of the area because it sounded rather small. She convinced me to continue w...MORE

My husband, Paul, and I were living in a Chicago suburb -- I was working for a large advertising firm, was pregnant for our second child and Paul was being promoted in his company -- and we realized that he was going to miss the critical years with our kids due to the commute time and long work...MORE

I live in Grand Haven on the lakeshore, but grew up on the east side of Detroit. I first lived in West Michigan while attending Grand Valley State University and after graduation, and then I moved back to Detroit for 12 years. But I always had a kind of yearning to get back to West Michigan.&nbs...MORE