by Michele | Jan 8, 2014 | Preparation Stage
Christmas isn’t about the gifts, it’s about the people giving them. Knowing that this holiday season could be the last we spend at home with family for a while, we made a particularly strong effort this year to try to get to as many events as we could. Although we weren’t able to get everywhere, we did have a great Christmas with both sides of our family.
This is the first year Carter has had a full understanding of Christmas and man was it fun!
I think he likes it!
Snorkeler at our house, Train Conductor at Grandma’s: major score with the little boy!
This year we also had the opportunity to celebrate New Year’s with some new friends of ours, Daler and Marta. They moved to the US only a few years ago from Tajikistan, but they feel like family after only knowing them for a few months. They were able to join us for Thanksgiving and Christmas at the Penning house and then put on a fabulous party for New Year’s in Tajik style!
These were just the appetizers!
We hope you had a great holiday with family and friends. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
by Michele | Jan 2, 2014 | Preparation Stage
Cars, trucks, and motorcycles. What more could a little boy want?
The new year has begun and we are hitting the ground running. We’ve made some huge progress towards our cruising goals in only a few days and the realization has finally sunk in. Things just got serious, folks. All of a sudden Dan and I have become somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of work that must be done in a relatively short time.
Let’s back up a bit. A few weeks ago, we were working on our financial plans trying to figure out what exactly still needed to be done before we could attain our preferred amount of savings (i.e. $10,000 kitty; $3,000 per house rental reserves; and $40-50,000 in total boat purchase/refit allowance.) Our goal was to purchase at least 1 more rental house so our total could be 5 houses producing around $1,500 a month in total profit. To do that, we would either need to buy a 5th house out of our current boat savings (boo!) or sell our owner occupied house for enough to pay for 2 house down payments (yay!)
We decided to talk to the realtor who sold our last house as well as showing our house to a coworker of Dan’s who said she might be interested. The realtor quoted us a very healthy number that would far outweigh the cost of purchasing 2 additional houses, but it turns out that listing it wasn’t even necessary. Dan’s coworker loved our house so much that she made an offer one day after seeing it and our tentative scheduled closing date is February 3rd! Talk about a quick sale from thinking about selling to sold in a week! The only downside is now we have to get another house purchased ASAP or we might be out on the street in a month. Packing and house shopping is on the menu for sure!
In addition to working out our housing issues we also decided now would be a good time to start actively searching for our boat. We want to have plenty of time to find the best boat for us for the right price. I’ll go into more detail on that search in another post coming soon, but the important thing is there has been a major shift in mindset occurring in our plans. We are no longer looking at boats as prototypes or theoretical options, now every boat we look at has the potential to be the one. Serious scrutiny of each boat and the options available takes a lot of time and effort to get right, but it’s crucial that we make good choices in the beginning to allow ourselves to stay on track for cruising this year.
That’s right, I said it: WE’RE CRUISING THIS YEAR! Happy 2014!
by Michele | Dec 24, 2013 | Preparation Stage
Not “Frozen” like the movie, more frozen like tundra. After the last few years of relatively mild winters in the Midwest, it seems like this winter is bearing down with no mercy. Snow, ice, and bitter cold remind us daily of the warmth we are looking forward to when “winter” is no longer a swear word in our family. Last week Dan came up with a particularly good analogy. As we snuggled together with Carter in our bed he said, “Winter is like space: it might be nice to look at, but it is not suitable for human habitation.” I wholeheartedly agree.
On the plus side, we were able to take some slight advantage of the recent ice storm to try out our new Pentax K50. We’ll be talking a lot more about this camera in the future, but for now I’ll just say that we are very impressed with the image quality. I think with some practice we could get (and have already gotten) some really fabulous shots with this camera.
by Michele | Nov 27, 2013 | Preparation Stage
He was definitely more concerned with the cupcake than the candle!
Something about time changes when you have a child. As soon as we started telling people that I was pregnant, other parents began the warnings: “Watch out, he’ll be graduating high school before you know it” and “My baby just had a baby” and “Don’t blink, you might miss it.” While we did believe those people and tried to take their advice to heart, I don’t think that anyone can truly appreciate the speed at which a child changes until you have experienced it for yourself.
Carter turned three years old today and it has taken me somewhat by surprise. Suddenly, I don’t have a baby any more but a little boy with an active imagination, active feet, and a very active opinion. I truly don’t miss the “baby stage” (especially the diapers, yay for potty training!) but I have a much greater appreciation for what a precious commodity his childhood truly is for us. It also gives me a stronger sense of urgency to get out of the daily grind so Dan and I can fully experience this time with Carter. Not many families will have the opportunity to have both parents home full time with their child and it is a privilege we are working very hard toward.
In the next few months we are planning to wrap up our loose ends at home and start the very serious business of finding a boat for our adventure. We are hoping to be ready for full time cruising by the end of next year’s hurricane season and while 11-12 months sounds like a long time to some, we know better. We have a relatively short time to get a lot done, but we are so ready for the challenge. The wait is finally nearing an end and for that we are truly thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and a Happy Birthday to our little boy!
by Michele | Nov 20, 2013 | Preparation Stage
As some of you may have seen on the news, this last Sunday an EF4 tornado swept through Washington, Illinois only a 15 minute drive from our home. Hundreds of houses were severely damaged or destroyed, but miraculously only 1 person was killed. None of our family’s homes sustained any damage or injuries, but we do have friends and coworkers whose lives have been significantly disrupted from the storm.
Dan was teaching an Open Water scuba class at the health center in Washington when the sirens went off. Everyone was quickly directed to the locker room areas where the building was the best fortified for emergencies. As the tornado passed, the power in the building went out and Dan could hear the roaring, screeching sound of the monster storm rushing by. A huge crash resounded through the building, which he later discovered was from a cement block wall being knocked over in the addition that was being built on the center.
Dan didn’t realize how extensive the damage really was until later when he tried to drive home. Everywhere he went, there were downed power lines, trees, and homes with roofs blown off. Eventually, he came to the worst hit area where the homes had been completely demolished, almost as if a bomb had gone off. Where there were once whole neighborhoods, all the remains is a giant trash heap that people somehow have to sift through to try and salvage whatever they can. It took him almost 3 hours to navigate through the traffic and wreckage to get home. The pictures above were taken during that time.
I don’t know if there is anything that can humble a person more quickly than to come face to face with the awesome forces of nature. Tornadoes are no respecters of persons. In an instant they have the power to sweep away everything you own, without a thought. Our lives are fragile and each moment is a gift.
*If you would like to help this community, please consider donating to the Salvation Army or the Red Cross disaster relief funds.
We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.