STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — A Steamboat Springs family’s adventurous move to Chile will be showcased on an upcoming episode of HGTV’s “House Hunters International.”

“Hitting the Slopes in Chile,” features Andy and Sarah Kerrigan’s decision to pull their kids out of school, quit their jobs as nurses and move to Chile to learn Spanish and experience a different culture as a family. The episode will air at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 3 and 2:30 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 4.

A promo for the show describes the Kerrigans as not seeing “eye to eye on a home style or the budget as he wants a rustic cabin and is worried about spending too much, while she wants a home in town and will spend whatever it takes to make the family comfortable.”

“Although we haven’t seen the show yet, we had a lot of fun filming it, and if nothing else, it should be quite entertaining,” Andy wrote in an email.

When asked why the family decided to move abroad, Andy’s first response was “why not?” He then explained that the decision was one the couple had been contemplating for a while.

“Ever since Sarah and I first met, the idea of living abroad and raising kids has always been something we aspired to do,” Andy said. “As the years passed, we realized we wanted to wait until they were old enough to appreciate it yet still young enough to really be able to learn Spanish, which became one of our main goals.”

The couple’s oldest daughter Aidan Rose recently turned 13, and their youngest, Henley, is 8. When the kids return to Steamboat in May after attending a Waldorf School in Chile for 10 months, they’ll be entering the eighth and fourth grades, respectively.

Moving to Pucon, Chile, which is a small town at the base of an active volcano where people love to ski, was also a pretty straightforward choice for the Kerrigans. They said a friend from Steamboat had lived there and recommended it for its school and associated community.

“The area itself is also known as South America’s extreme sports playground with an international client base that would make our presence in such a small little town a little more common and therefore accommodating,” Andy said.

And Chile has just about everything a person from Steamboat could want – from nonpolar deserts to high Andean mountains to lush rainforests.

The opportunity to appear on “House Hunters International” came after Sarah responded to an open casting call looking for people who were going to be moving abroad.

“And that just opened the door,” added Andy.

The Kerrigans, who moved to Steamboat full time in 2005, plan to return to town this spring or summer.

To reach Lisa Schlichtman, call 970-871-4221, email lschlichtman@SteamboatToday.com or follow her on Twitter @LSchlichtman.

To reach Lisa Schlichtman, call 970-871-4221, email lschlichtman@SteamboatPilot.com or follow her on Twitter @lschlichtman.