It all started with a trickle of an idea 13 years ago while Bryan and I were dating. I was working in the schools at the time, teaching 5th grade Spanish and after school classes on a variety of subjects at an elementary school. I remember walking along a snowy mountain path and talking about how we wanted to be very involved in our future children’s education. Volunteering in the schools and making sure we knew what was going on in their classrooms.
Another idea started to grow as we went on our honeymoon to Guatemala. We packed up our backpacks after our wedding and caught a bus to the airport in Salt Lake City with lots of well wishes, pleas to be safe, and an idea that you have to enjoy it now because once you have a house and children then no longer will you have the time or luxury to travel.
I was a bit stubborn and didn’t want to believe that this was it as we settle into married life but most of the people I knew and looked up to had taken that path, finish school, start a career, have a baby, get a house, survive. Not necessarily in that order. That isn’t a bad life, in fact it can be really wonderful and joy filled but it didn’t sit right with me.
We traveled through Guatemala for a month. There were lots of ups and downs. Moments that we wanted to go home, scared of what we had gotten ourselves into, and moments filled with beauty and wonder. We only had each other when it got hard and we worked together to make through to the best parts. Then we could enjoy them together.
We had a moment that changed our lives, one among many, but the one that’s important here. We were taking a taxi boat down the river to get our next location. Exhausted and dirty, with our large backpacks sitting on our laps, we saw family get on the boat at one of the stops. The parents had big pack bags on their backs and smaller school backpacks on the front and following them with their own smaller version of the pack bags were two children about 10 and 7. They confidently hopped on the boat with the bags and followed their parents to sit down. We were amazed. We had never seen anything like that before. The people we knew took trips to camp, go visit family, once a year vacation to Lagoon, and the particularly adventurous ones might make it to Disneyland.
Bryan and I were uncomfortable in Guatemala for as long as we had booked to be there. We felt a bit lost. Everything that we did was with wide eyes and a little bit of shock. We felt a bit crazy. Honeymoons were spent at resorts or on cruises where things were clean and taken care of for you. There was not suppose to moments of discomfort but we were uncomfortable. Those two kids and their parents were comfortable. We wanted that for our family. For our children. We desperately wanted that for ourselves. After that our evenings in the hostels were filled with conversations about where we could go. What kind of things did we want to see with our future family. Where would we go.
Shortly after we had our son, Oliver, we moved away from family. Away from the only place that we had known as home. We moved across the country with a three week old, a new job, and everything that we owned squeezed into a Toyota Camry.
That first Christmas in Connecticut we met a family that was homeschooling their children. They had fallen into homeschool by accident but loved it. They shared their story of wanting to take their daughter on a European art trip. She was taking a class in high school about European art history and wanted to pursue the interest into college. The family wanted to support her so they planned an amazing 3 week trip to Europe to see the original pieces that she was studying. When they approached the school to let them know of her absences the school turned them down. They told them that if they took their kids out for that long that they would all fail and have to repeat that year of school because of the number of absences. Instead of giving up the dream to travel they learned that they could homeschool. They pulled their kids from school and hadn’t looked back. They shared many more of the amazing experiences that they had the freedom to pursue. Once they didn’t have to be on the school schedule.
From there our family goals started to grow and take shape. We wanted to shape our family culture around travel and hands on experiences.
