Disclaimer: There's lots of details and bunny trails so I hope it all makes sense and ties together in the end haha!
What a year we've had! We are currently living in what feels like some alternative reality compared to just a year ago. We felt some shifting coming toward the beginning of last year. We had been praying over what that would mean for our family and wrestled with staying in KC or stepping out and pursuing Rick's career with the company he worked for. We put our KC house on the market not sure if we'd be moving on or if we'd be staying and settling into a long term home. We started looking locally for property and found literally a dream of my heart. It was a real log cabin with a great front porch and huge back deck on 5.5 acres. The property sat at the end of a private road so no neighbors behind or even beside it because of the way it was situated. My heart instantly fell hard and thanks to Pinterest I started dreaming how I'd put "Cabin Rules" prints up and decorate with moose pillows and even a red flannel throw blanket. We'd have a garden, bees, chickens and maybe goats and other animals down the road. It was truly idyllic. At the same time I was dreaming of settling into a long term home Rick was earnestly wanting to work towards a promotion with work and in our case that meant moving away from KC. An opportunity to move to St Louis was presented to us and we had to decide whether to stay and try to buy that cabin or leave and for the first time in our marriage follow a career over ministry.
See when we were in high school we were involved in our youth ministry at church, then when we married we became leaders and He desired to become a youth pastor himself. So every life decision we made after that was ministry minded. We did in fact become youth pastors and decided it wasn't our calling after all. We still wanted to make ministry (of sorts) our life pursuit and made the decision to move to Kansas City and participate in an internship at the International House of Prayer (IHOP). We were going to give it a year or two and decide if we would stay or move back to FL. Once we got there we were sold. It was everything we desired for our family and more. We loved KC and there was so much to do with Jaidyn and I absolutely loved the different geography than what I saw in FL growing up. My heart was always so thankful for the opportunity though it was a huge sacrifice. We sold everything we owned except what fit in a 10ft Uhaul, we even sold one of our paid for vehicles to have money to live on during the internship. We moved into a basement apartment and this born and raised Floridian had never been in a basement. We left our family and moved to a place where we knew not a single person. It was exciting and scary and crazy and radical and something I'd do all over again if given the opportunity. We loved Kansas City and IHOP and the community and wanted to raise our girls in that environment. At the same time I longed to stay my heart wrestled with being so far from family. See 80% of our family including all of our parents and grandparents live in Lakeland, FL. Almost all our aunts/uncles/cousins/etc live there also. We would visit several times a year but travel is expensive and/or long depending if we flew or drove. But for 6.5 years we stayed. We bought a foreclosure and remodeled it and made it home. We had Jolie. Rick stepped out of full time work with IHOP due to needing more income and back into the marketplace where he grew and flourished. He went from being a cell phone Sales Representative in a retail store to a Store Manager to a District Manager over 9 stores within 4 years.
Which brings us to our decision last year. We did take the opportunity and moved to St Louis. While I supported Rick and agreed with taking the promotion it wrecked my heart. I had finally settled into staying in KC (vs. moving back to FL) and had my heart set on my dream home. Moving to STL was harder on my heart than I ever could have imagined. I didn't feel purpose in my life because now our life pursuit was focused more on Rick and his career and I had no personal reason to be in STL, we left our friends who had truly become our family, we left a church and community of believers who had brought so much healing and growth to our hearts, and I left behind my dream home. I honestly didn't like STL from the beginning and knew we wouldn't be there longterm but still thought it was a good opportunity and could lead to another move down the road. We tried to settle in and eventually found a church that we loved, we bought a beautiful house that brought comfort and I had fun decorating, we found a great school for the girls that they loved, but still it wasn't fulfilling enough to stay. Rick went through crazy stress in his new position and some very personal attacks on his integrity and character. There were company wide changes at the beginning of the year that made it difficult for him to have the freedom to be the leader he desired to be. He was constantly glued to his phone or laptop even in the late hours of the night solving problems and putting out fires. We knew this couldn't last long. We both looked at the big picture of our life and asked ourselves what is it that we want from and for our lives? What do we desire for our girls? We talked about going back to KC but realized he'd either have to demote himself to store manager again or start over with a new company. Within the same few months of us moving to STL 5 out of 6 families from our main group of friends had also moved away. We just decided that it wasn't the right move (as much as I missed it) and opened our hearts to coming back to FL.
We've always dreamed of being entrepreneurs and owning our own businesses (I've wanted a salon then a cupcake boutique then a tea room, etc) and Rick also had his own business ideas and now had the experience to feel confident stepping out and doing it. We decided on Tropical Sno for multiple reasons, a few being the lower start up costs, lower overhead and staffing, its a "fun" job, and in Fl we could be open year round. Our goal is to open a handful of these in the area and then use that capital to move on to invest in another few business ideas and build a portfolio. Rick is really good at seeing problems and pain points and fixing them. He would love to become a consultant/investor of sorts like Marcus Lemonis on the show The Profit. I'm still not sure what my goal is long term, I am passionate about so many things that I could have a whole strip mall of businesses lol. But for now I am homeschooling our girls and helping Rick with our current start up. I still would like some property but I really long to travel and see our beautiful world.
We also decided that while we loved our big house in STL it was too much space for us and felt a desire to go small, really small for a season. We had fallen in love with the tiny house movement but since Rick is 6'6" that just didn't make practical sense. We wanted mobility because at that point in this transition we had no idea where we would land. We put our STL house on the market earlier this year and bought a 43ft travel trailer. With so many unknowns we decided that not being tied to a mortgage or lease would be wise and a travel trailer provides that. We could park it in any (nice and safe) RV park or down the road find our dream property and put it there while we either remodel a house or build our own. Although it's brand new I had to make it our home so I painted over the wallpaper and put up curtains and added a Smart Tile backsplash in the kitchen. We switched out the couches for a traditional couch and bought a chair from Ikea to add extra seating in the living room. We took out a queen bed to add floor space in the girls room and installed a cubby storage system. So now here we are back in Lakeland FL selling Hawaiian shaved ice and living in a travel trailer. There were so many times these past several months that we laughed at ourselves because it's completely absurd and ridiculous to sell a home and trade it for a TT, to quit a well paying job in order to sell sno cones, to move back to a place I spent my younger years longing to move away from (I dreamt of New York or California or maybe even another country). Isn't it funny how things work out though? Now we have hope of eventually having enough residual income from our potential business portfolio to take a month or two off at a time to travel. We live in a home on wheels that we can hitch up to the truck and take anywhere we want.
Though at first I wasn't thrilled with moving back my heart has softened and is even beginning to get excited for what this transition holds for us. In this season I have committed my heart to fully embracing our city and area, to rediscover what beauty central Fl and beyond holds, and to rekindle old friendships and find a few new friends to get to know. We are different people than when we left and how we would fit back in worried me but as we've changed and grown so has our family and our wonderful little/big city in so many ways. It's not going to be like it was before but that's ok and actually a really good thing. Here's to new seasons, new beginnings, and new hope for the future!
