Sabbatical Overview

So...what all did you guys do? 

This has been the number one question we've been getting as of late. Or if not exactly that question, some variation like... Where all did you guys go? Tell me everything about your sabbatical... etc. Well now that our sabbatical is officially done, now seems like as good as time as any to make an overview post about all that we did these past 15 months. Plus hopefully this will serve as a good starting point for people who haven't been following along with us this whole year. 

If you'd like to visualize our travels you can also check out the map section of our blog where we've put pins in all the places we went to. 

Our favorite picture together from our entire sabbatical

A Summer in Holland

Katie finished her job at end of May 2015, and my last day was June 19th. But our first big trip wasn't until the Fall, and we planned it that way on purpose. We knew there was a good chance we wouldn't be moving back to Holland when everything was all done, so we wanted some more time to enjoy the beautiful place we had been living for several years as well as invest time in the community we had in that area. We also used this time to just prepare for the rest of the year by taking care of things like upcoming travel logistics, selling/donating stuff we didn't need or want, and then eventually moving the rest of our stuff at the end of the summer. Looking back this was one of my favorite times of the whole sabbatical because of how truly relaxing it was. Other than the small trips we did, we mostly just got to live our lives with a bit more free time. A stay-cation if you will. It was lovely.

Highlights:
- Rock climbing trip to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky
- Going to the beach as often as we could
- Family vacation in the UP 
- Blind Dates (1 & 2)

Fall Trip to the Asia-Pacific Region

Fall of 2015 was our big solo international adventure. We explored Hawaii, Australia, and Thailand across the span of 2 ½ months! We went to Hawaii first to spend some time with some friends. We then spent a month in Melbourne, Australia, just living life there. After that we spent a month Thailand where we split our time with a week in Southern Thailand rock climbing in Ton Sai and then 2 ½ weeks in Northern Thailand living in Chaing Mai. We then slowly made our way back by retracing our steps. We returned to Australia for a week, spending a few days in Melbourne again and then a couple days in Sydney. We then went back to Hawaii for about 10 days to spend more time with our friends there. And then finally we returned back to Michigan at the beginning of December.

There is basically too much to cover about this trip. We did a lot of cool stuff. But by far Melbourne was our favorite place that we went, not just of this trip, but of our entire sabbatical. It just felt like a very livable city with a lot going on. It felt like a blend of the pace of life and comfort of a city like Lansing or Grand Rapids but the size and amenities of a larger city like Chicago.

Hawaii Highlights:
- Watching and practicing surfing
- Hiking around the island (1 & 2)

Melbourne Highlights:
- Road trip along the Great Ocean Road (1 & 2)
- Watching and learning about Australian football 
- Faux-surfing on a blind date

Ton Sai, Thailand Highlights:
- Lots and lots of rock climbing
- Especially deep water solo climbing!

Chaing Mai, Thailand Highlights:
- Driving around on a moped to explore the city and go climbing (1 & 2)
- Eating all the amazing food and taking a Thai cooking class

Sydney, Australia Highlights:
- Postcard perfect sightseeing 

Holidays Back Home

After being away for almost three months, we definitely started to feel the effects of being away our community. We missed everyone more than we thought. So it was especially nice that for December and the beginning of January we got to spend a lot of time with friends a family over the holiday season. Because we were officially homeless, we were kindly taken in by Katie's sister and used her place as our new home base. 

Winter Road Trip out West

Starting at the end of January we set out in our car and spent just under two months spending time with friends and family in Colorado, California, and Utah. We first drove to Colorado and spent a week with our friend Nate and his family who lives in the Denver area. We got in a few days of snowboarding with him. Next we drove out to Santa Cruz, California, and spent three weeks hanging out and climbing with our friend Becky. After that we spent two weeks with our friend Jill in Park City, Utah. And finally we returned to Colorado again where we got in some more snowboarding with my some of my family on their Spring break and then spent the rest of the week with Katie's good friend Heather in Fort Collins.  

Colorado Highlights:
- Snowboarding with Nate at Copper Mountain
- Snowboarding with my family at Granby Ranch (1 & 2) 

California Highlights:
- We went rock climbing a lot with Becky! (climbing gym, Pinnacles National Park, & Castle Rock State Park)

Utah Highlights:
- Lots of outdoor adventuring with Jill. ( hiking, snowboarding, and snowshoeing)

Europe with Family and Friends

We came up with this kind of crazy idea to tell our friends and family that we would go anywhere that they wanted to go. The idea being that some people just like to travel with others or don't have the incentive to do a trip just by themselves. This eventually led to discovering a handful of people that wanted to do some travels in Europe. So we spent the month of April doing said travels.

We first went to Madrid, Spain, with our friend Pauley for about 10 days. Next Katie and I went to Vienna, Austria, as kind of a 4 day stop-over between meeting up with others. We then continued on to Germany where we did travels with some of Katie's family. We spent a week exploring the cities of Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin. And finally we spent a week in Belgium exploring the cities of Ghent, Bruges, and Brussels with our friend Nate. Our route back to Michigan from Europe also included a quick stop in Washington DC to visit some friends. See this post for a more detailed itinerary.

Spain Highlights:
- Toledo, Spain is wonderful! 
- Katie and Pauley running a 5k in Madrid

Vienna Highlights:
- It is a very beautiful place to see and explore! 

Germany Highlights:
- Visiting the Munich Residenz
- Checking out the Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg
- Visiting Anton in Berlin!
- Attending a Bayern Munich football match in Berlin

Belgium Highlights:
- Eating, drinking, and exploring the beautiful city of Bruges as well as Brussels
- Brewery tour of Cantillon which still brews their beer the old fashioned way

Michigan in May

After our whirlwind European travels we were happy to return to Michigan for the month of May to relax. Though we did fit in a Spring rock climbing trip to Red River Gorge, Kentucky. May/June also marked being a full year into our sabbatical! 

Highlights: 
- A Michigan weekend of ska shows 
- Rock climbing trip to Red River Gorge, KY
- One full year into our sabbatical 

Family Time in Nebraska

We spent the month of June living life with my brother and his family in Lincoln, Nebraska. We really wanted to spend some time with them because we don't get to see them that often, and it had been a very long time since we got to hang out for more than a week. So while we were there we made ourselves useful and filled in a bit of childcare when needed. Most days were low key. We got to eat dinner as a family, watch ninja warrior, attend little league games/practice... you know, just live life with them. But we squeezed in some fun/adventurous stuff too.

Highlights:
- Taking our nephews rock climbing 
- Making my brother watch through all of Firefly 
- Watching my nephews play little league baseball and teaching them how to skateboard (1 & 2)

Michigan Summer

We love a Michigan summer, so it was great to be "home" for the better part of it. Our friends graciously hosted us in their guest rooms, which had the added bonus of allowing us to spend time with them each day. We visited Katie's brother in the UP, met up with friends from Honduras, did a Meijer Gardens concert, visited family in Hillsdale, celebrated our birthdays, climbed at Inside Moves, practiced the ukulele, went to the beach, and hung out with friends at cottages. We also spent time at Founders to make some life decisions about what city to live in and where to work when our sabbatical ended. 

Highlights: 
- A visit to the UP
- Birthday blind dates (1, 2, & 3)
- Taking our niece and nephew climbing in Kalamazoo 

Florida Visit

The last big trip of our sabbatical was at the end of August. We flew down to Florida and spent two weeks with Kirk who is our really good friend and an old mentor of mine. Kirk lives with his dog Basic in a nice three bedroom house in Palmetto. So again the focus was just getting a chance to live the Florida life with him since we don't get to see him very often. 

Highlights:
- Trying out TopGolf which is basically a driving range on steroids
- Helping Kirk achieve his goal of trying out stand up paddle boarding 
- Attempting to make Quad Cities style pizza

Other Summer/End of Summer Trips

We also wanted to include my mom in some of our travels, so we went with her to the Iowa State Fair and Door County, Wisconsin. And, we squeezed in yet another rock climbing trip to Red River Gorge, Kentucky, before returning to work. 

Highlights: 
- The Iowa State Fair 
- Door County, Wisconsin weekend
- Red River Gorge, KY September trip 

Tacos

And, this post would not be complete without mentioning that we ate tons of tacos throughout the entire sabbatical...a highly recommended activity regardless of place or time. Need proof? Check out all the posts with a taco-corner label. 

The Missing Parts

Assuming you made it this far in this long post, the last thing I'll mention is that I'm obviously talking about a lot of great/fun highlights of the year. But it is a bit of an unrealistic picture of the sabbatical as a whole. Not every moment, or every day, or even every week was a fun-filled, time-of-our-lives event. Some times were indeed still boring. Some were stressful. We still had moments of struggle, questions, tears, and regrets. But we learned, grew, and were able to move on. Overall we're happy with and even proud of what we chose to do. Our main goal was to be intentional about how we used our time, and we achieved that. 

When asked "Would you do a sabbatical again?" or "Would you recommend others try one?", our answer is still a resounding yes! It would probably take a different form next time. And we'd recommend to others to make a sabbatical-like-thing their own as well. But with the right expectations, planning, and effort we've found that a sabbatical can be a very beneficial and positive experience that will lead to great memories.