Settling back into life in the states was… well, let’s just say it was anything but settling. Our hearts had completely changed (thank goodness!). We couldn’t shake the fact that for eight months we’d lived out of suitcases and learned so much about ourselves. 

We started to ask some hard questions: 

What if Matt didn’t go back to traveling for his job? 

What if we didn’t stay in the house in the suburbs? 

Where would we go? What would we do? 

We’d originally thought we would simply come home, slip back into our old patterns, and go on living in our big house.

But something nagged at us. You see, one of our favorite parts of traveling was being in such close quarters and living on just what we had. It was so freeing. There were no cleaning days. There was no indecision as you rifled through the closet. It was just simple… and we didn’t want to let that lifestyle go. 

So we sold our house and everything in it. We definitely anticipated the great things ahead but we also couldn’t help but wonder if we would regret leaving this place behind. 

You see, living in the Ken Caryl Valley of Colorado was a lot like living in the Garden of Eden. Picture the beautiful red rocks at every turn while deer and elk munch on bushes and flowers outside your living room window. It felt like a fairytale and we caught ourselves telling friends and family that we would never leave this garden. Never say never…

During this unsettling time, we were studying the Spanish Inquisition during homeschool with the boys and one story stuck with us. When Cortes invaded modern-day Mexico and met Montezuma, he ordered his Spanish comrades to “burn the boats.” 

Burn the boats. That’s what we needed to do. 

No choice but to make it work. 

No looking back. 

No fallback or plan B.

We decided we were going to live on less to make room for the “more” that actually mattered to us. We left our home in the suburbs and departed for a simpler life. A 1,300 square foot condo in a small town in the mountains. 

Reprioritizing and going for it…….

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