My family and I are thinking about relocating to the Pacific Northwest.
We want to get out of suburbia and into some space
we both kinda grew up in country setting and want the same freedom of space for our kids as well.
plus we could afford a place with a separate shop for all my stuff. - hopefully
looking around the outer Portland Vancouver area
any words of wisdom ? thoughts, input, warnings, possible career opportunities ?
well, I have never lived in this area but from a career point of view you have the “big” guys like Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, Nike, (…) - Had several meetings up there and loved the music scene, the culture in general is different.
Vancouver is a cool city!
What kind of schools would you need?
Go work for Kershaw Knives, get an employee discount, then hook a raccoon up! 
Kershaw will have to check them out, I see Gerber has openings as does Leathermen
Well my wife homeschools our kids so not worried about schools until college age and I have some time for that yet. 9,7,4,2
You lucky son of a gun.
Your SIG is your kid?
We moved to rural France little over two years ago, coming from Amsterdam.
Our yard there was smaller then our porch is now. Heck our pool is 50m2 and our yard used to be 32m2 and we have a 5m diameter trampoline on a little garden patch the same size as our old yard.
Neither of us grew up on a farm so it is a big change but we love every minute of it.
On of the reasons was the fact that we could buy so much more house and land here then in Holland.
Another one of the reasons is a little preparing for changing world. Hence a watermill, with river running through our land and when high even through the house. Be aware of this, there is a subtle change going on, more dry in summer and more water dropping down when it rains. Friends of us live in an old place without river and the last two years trees starting to die because of too little rain in summer.
Also when looking we noticed some areas had a lot for sale and discovered the plan was to build wind mill parks nearby thus lowering the value of properties since the views were about to change big time.
Or (don’t know if this is an issue with your area) villages reach a tipping point, no influx, aging population, young people move away. At this point it may seem nice, low prices and people around. But when the last shop and cafe closes the place starts to be less attractive so people will try to sell just before that and as stranger it is easy to miss the signs.
But for us it worked out, we have fun live more outdoors and enjoy it
If you don’t like rain and fishing, it might be a bit of an adjustment for you. Moving from Santa Rosa to PNW is a bit of a change but not too bad. My wife and I have thought about moving up there too, to Washington. I work for a CA state department, so moving after putting a bit of time into government retirement isn’t ideal. However, if I find a way, I might just follow you up there!