Married in 1998 each with our own 4 year-olds at the time and adding another one a year later, our lives were all about the family until everyone started growing up... us included. Our awakening occurred around 2009 when we realized that five trips to the gym per week was doing nothing other than boring us to death. A short mountain bike ride on Petersen Ridge in Sisters OR really started it and that has grown into our fully realized adventure ideology. As soon as we started hiking we dropped 70 pounds between us and started feeling better. Health, wealth, happiness and success are things that are packaged and sold to us by corporations with the guarantee that they will fail so we will have to come back and keep paying for more. Good old capitalism... So we checked out of the big bank, the corporate jobs, the need for everything to be bigger and shinier and started living with balance and appreciation. It's not easy but it really is simple. Do what makes sense for you (there are no Jones-es to live up to), eat healthy, make your own food when you can, reduce red meat and carbs (and fake sugar), get out and do something active in nature as often as you can, be open and honest, find positive things you really love to do and do those things, that's pretty much it. But most of all make it sustainable, change your life in a way that you can keep up forever. Dramatic short-term goals just lead to dramatic bounce-back failures. Take it easy and learn to accept a new way of thinking and acting.
What do WE love? Beyond the obvious answer of "each other" we enjoy seeing new things and places, exploring magical beautiful hard-to-get-to locations, playing ukulele, singing, taking pictures, reading, listening to music, finding (and eating) really good inexpensive food, and just being together to experience these things through each others eyes,... oh and did I mention the mochas and cappuccinos, lucky we live where we live, huh?
Our weekly adventuring only started in 2011 but in 2012 the "Annadventuversary" was born. A multi-day adventure on or around our anniversary when we go explore someplace we have never been or to dig deeper into a location we want to go back to. We have done Central Oregon, Mt Hood, Oregon Coast to the Redwoods, the San Juan Islands, Oregon's deep southeast and the Wallowas. Each year gets more elaborate and longer (fingers crossed for the Big Island someday), We have some crazy plans for 2021, and can't wait!
For now I'm still playing music where I can with more success than I ever imagined but I am beginning to phase that out a bit and we are finding more room for our adventures. Life has it's cycles and what goes around comes around, it'll be back...
What do WE love? Beyond the obvious answer of "each other" we enjoy seeing new things and places, exploring magical beautiful hard-to-get-to locations, playing ukulele, singing, taking pictures, reading, listening to music, finding (and eating) really good inexpensive food, and just being together to experience these things through each others eyes,... oh and did I mention the mochas and cappuccinos, lucky we live where we live, huh?
Our weekly adventuring only started in 2011 but in 2012 the "Annadventuversary" was born. A multi-day adventure on or around our anniversary when we go explore someplace we have never been or to dig deeper into a location we want to go back to. We have done Central Oregon, Mt Hood, Oregon Coast to the Redwoods, the San Juan Islands, Oregon's deep southeast and the Wallowas. Each year gets more elaborate and longer (fingers crossed for the Big Island someday), We have some crazy plans for 2021, and can't wait!
For now I'm still playing music where I can with more success than I ever imagined but I am beginning to phase that out a bit and we are finding more room for our adventures. Life has it's cycles and what goes around comes around, it'll be back...