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.    

The Long Story Behind What's Next for Us

We've had many people jokingly ask us if we're ready to return to "real life". Frankly, that's annoying. We are currently living real life. Our sabbatical is not a fake life; it is part of our ongoing real life. Doing something different than the norm does not make it unreal or less life-like. Okay, rant over. Don't worry. Even if you've used that phrase, we still love you. 


Understandably we've also been getting a lot of sincere questions about what's next for us after our sabbatical ends. Figuring all that out hasn't been as smooth a transition as we expected. We did a lot of intensive planning for many parts of our sabbatical year, but it didn't occur to us to have a real plan in place for finishing the sabbatical. I guess over a year ago when we were first beginning this sabbatical, we kind of thought the end would just naturally fall into place. That has not happened. And, we are not very easy-going when it comes to transition and change. Would having an exit plan helped? Can you really plan for such a thing? Maybe. Maybe not. 


Regardless, we now have some direction that we're going to share with you. When I lay it out, I'm sure it'll sound fairly simple and logical. But, it's undeniable that to get to this place it's taken a lot of time, frustration, stress, communication, decision-making, sleeplessness, and tears. That's not fun to have to admit and write. We wanted our sabbatical to end peacefully, happily, and restfully. But, we want to remember these tough times. Maybe we'll do a sabbatical of sorts again sometime, and we'll want to look back on this to think about what we could do differently. 


I'll start with Brandon's job, because if I remember correctly that's what we figured out first. Whether or not Brandon went back to TechSmith and whether or not he could work remote would affect our next decisions. This put a bit of pressure on him, and he took some time and very thoughtfully made his decision. We're happy to say that Brandon is returning to TechSmith. We're so thankful for their support of this sabbatical year, and it's a blessing that Brandon will still be able to work remotely. 


With Brandon being able to work remote, we had to decide where to live. I can get a job pretty much anywhere, so that didn't help narrow things down at all. Throughout this sabbatical, we've definitely learned the value of community. As this has been a recurring theme, we decided we needed to invest in our Grand Rapids community for at least the next year. We've definitely felt that pull to move to another state or do something more exotic. But, we've more strongly felt the pull of community and, quite honestly, stability and routine. We believe that God has placed in our hearts to be in Grand Rapids for the time-being, and we'll see what happens. 


I have been yearning for a place to call our own for some time. I've also been wanting to return to the physical therapy world. Brandon can work from home, but I need to go into work. So, we wanted to live close to where I worked. That meant finding a job in the Grand Rapids area before finding a place to live. 


I have been conflicted about whether to look for more permanent work or a travel physical therapy job. Coming off all of the travel in the past year tipped the scales a bit more towards a permanent position. I started my search by finding private practices online and judging the quality of the potential workplace by the information on their website. These places didn't list job openings, but I've learned that isn't always important. I sent my resume to six different places, and then decided to contact one more clinic before being done for the week and waiting it out. One responded back with interest, and as it turned out, it was that one final clinic I had sent my resume to. They were interested in hiring someone part-time to start, which is exactly what I was looking for, and I ended up doing a phone interview on the spot. I've said for the past year that I'd like to find a part-time position to see how I could beneficially use that extra time outside of work and seek more work-life balance. The whole thing seemed providential. 


The job still didn't come to us perfectly easy. The company and I had a few communication issues, and there was some negotiating to do. But, I am pleased to announce that I have a job at Owens Physical Therapy in Grand Rapids. I begin working 20 hours a week in October. I am so excited to join a team that is passionate about quality patient care with a commitment to one-on-one, 45+ minute sessions. I'm going to be able to continue to learn there, and I'll be able to teach my co-workers a few things as well. 


Now onto a place to live. First, I have to profusely thank our friends again for kindly hosting us in our homelessness. It especially hasn't been easy for me to not have a place of our own. I feel bad asking for favors all the time and having to make our stays dependent on others. But, our friends have been so wonderfully gracious. And, it's actually turned into a joy staying with them. It's certainly great to see each other on a daily basis and spend more time together, and I'm now saddened to leave these times together behind. 


Finding a place to live was more difficult than we anticipated. We knew that we were spoiled with our rental and landlord in Holland, but I guess we didn't fully realize the extent of our spoiling. Being spoiled by this previous experience made every rental in Grand Rapids feel like we had to settle in some way. On top of that, rental prices in Grand Rapids have spiked in the last year. We had wanted to rent a single family home for ourselves, but with the spiked pricing we began to see that would not be an option. We would prefer live below our means and use that extra rent money in other ways. 


When we were both looking for rentals together, we began to feed on each other's negativity and stress about the situation. To put an end to that, we decided that just one of us would have carry out the house search and report back only on rentals with high potential. I took over that role, and I think it worked; our negativity and stress did decrease. I wish I could say that I also was able to find our ideal place to live, but I cannot. In the end, we did just have to choose a place and settle. 


So, we now have a place to live. The major negatives are that the place is on a second floor (our couch won't fit up there), and that it's kind of in a dead spot in terms of easy access to highways. It's also in the city limits, so we have to pay city income tax. But, rather than dwelling on the negatives, I'd like to focus on the positives. One positive is that the space is pretty large, so we should be able to entertain and host parties. In addition, we have two bedrooms, which should make it much easier to host people. We love having visitors, so please come! We're also located in Eastown, which has a lot of good food and hip culture for visitors to come and appreciate. It should be a fun area for us to live in and explore. We're also happy that we're renting from an actual couple rather than a property agency. Our landlords seem like good people to work with, and they kindly lowered our rent $50 a month when we asked if the price was negotiable. Another plus is that we have a carport, so snow will be less of hassle for me when leaving for work in the winter. And, a final positive is that our lease is less than a year. Our landlords requested that the renewal or end date be August 1, since it's a better time for them to move tenants in and out. This works for us. We'll take advantage of our time in Eastown, but if we want to buy or look for something better/different we aren't locked into a full year. 


So, those are the details. We're now doing all the time-consuming, menial adulting stuff of setting up gas, electric, trash, and internet, and ironing out job details. It's kind of an anti-climatic way for our sabbatical to finish. But, how is a sabbatical supposed to finish? Whether on sabbatical or not, we're just living our real life. Thanks for following along. 

What's Next for Us

As you can imagine, we've had a lot of people asking what's next for us. We're ready to answer a few of your questions. 

When are you returning to work? 
Brandon starts Monday, October 3. I start Tuesday, October 4. 


Where are you working? 
Brandon will be returning to TechSmith full-time and working remote. I will be beginning a part-time physical therapy position at Owens Physical Therapy in Grand Rapids. 


Where will you be living? 
We will be living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We have found an upper apartment in a house in Eastown. It's not our ideal in many ways, but we're going to make the most of it. And, most importantly, we have space for visitors! 


I think that covers the life basics, so we'll leave it at that for now. More details/lengthy explanation of the process to come... 

It's Been a Year

Well, it's been a year now since I left my job and began this sabbatical. I've been asked several questions, and I've been asking myself some as well. 

1. Does it feel like it's been a year? 

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that Brandon and I have fit so many travels and activities into this year. No, in the sense that time just has a tendency to fly by. 


2. Where was my favorite place to travel this past year? 

Melbourne, Australia. Hands down. 


3. Where else would I like to travel? 

Pretty much anywhere, but after pictures of Tasmania from a fellow traveler, I think that's pretty high on the list. Not for awhile though. I'd like to put international travel and the planning and effort it involves aside for a bit. I didn't think I would ever get to a place where I'd be tired of traveling, but I'm there. 


4. Am I ready to go back to work? 

Yes. I enjoy being a physical therapist. I miss helping people, being productive, and feeling like I'm actually relatively good at something. I also really miss daily routine, which work is a large part of. But, we've decided to have our sabbatical continue through the summer, and I'm still going to enjoy taking advantage of that. 


5. Where will you work/settle/etc.?

We don't know yet. We'll have to tackle that question this summer. 


6. What have you learned? 

• The value of a being near to a close-knit community of friends and family
• The perks of visiting a destination for a longer period of time to explore it more in depth and be able to live life there
• The appreciation of being hosted and the enjoyment of hosting. We've been hosted by so many wonderful people and miss being hosts ourselves. We hope to have a spare bedroom wherever we end up to encourage visitors. 
• I'm not a true world nomad like you read about in travel blogs. I cannot constantly roam. At some point, I need stability, normalcy, comfort, and a place to call my own.  

7. What haven't you learned that you hoped you would? 

I guess I kind of hoped to find a secret to balance in life. How to fit in all the things I want to do without being overloaded. I still don't know what that looks like. 


8. What is your biggest fear? 

I don't want life to go back to exactly the way it was before the sabbatical, and I'm afraid that will happen because it's the easy, comfortable option. We'll have to be intentional about trying to be different, and I'm not sure how we'll be different. One idea I have is to try to work part-time so that I can more easily fit in time for some other goals or volunteering into my week. 


9. What has the sabbatical done for your marriage? 

It's been good. When you're around each other more you run out of things to talk about and little annoyances can become bigger. But, we've learned the value of silence and just being in each other's company. And, we've become a stronger team overall. We've been able to experience a lot together, good and bad, and we have a lot of shared memories to look back on. 


10. What has the sabbatical done for your faith? 

While failing at times, I've tried to be more intentional about Bible reading. I'd like to make it a habit so that it's easier to continue when we return to work. Without a home of our own, we've had to rely on God's provision and we've seen that at work. I do feel the disconnection of not being able to regularly attend a church. Brandon and I have listened to and discussed sermons on the road and visited friends' churches, but I am looking forward to finding a place to consistently attend and connect with wherever we end up. 


11. Is there anything you wish you had done during your sabbatical that you didn't get to? 

Yes. I wish we had volunteered more. We have been able to be around to help out some friends and family, but with traveling a lot we weren't able to do regular volunteer work. When we've settled somewhere, that's definitely something I want to pursue. 


12. Would you do a sabbatical again? 

Yes. It might look different, but we'd definitely consider doing another one. Maybe we'd do a local sabbatical, or do a more volunteer focused sabbatical, or only take off a few months instead of a year, or work in another country for a year. There's so many ways to take a sabbatical. 


13. Would you encourage others to do a sabbatical? 

Yes. And, as I sort of indicated in my answer to the previous question, it doesn't have to be a full year, travel-intense endeavor. It could just be an extended stay-cation, or working remote for a few months in new surroundings, or taking a summer off, or allowing yourself a longer break when transitioning between two jobs. Regardless, I think there's value in taking a sabbatical and seeing what you might learn about yourself and the world around you. 

FAQ - What Have We Learned?

We've already gotten a good number of questions about our travels so far, but the question of "What have we learned...?" has been the most frequent and hardest to answer due to the number of different ways you can come at it. We'll cover the other questions too in a different post, but I thought we'd spend some time just on this one question for this post. 

• Overall
• The biggest take away of the trip was importance of our friends, family, and community. We missed them more than we thought we would, especially near the end of the trip.
• The importance of hospitality and generosity. Some of the best experiences we had were due to others' generous hospitality. It's something that we want continue to model and improve on in the years ahead.
• Personal
• We learned less about ourselves and each other then you might think. We did reaffirm some things we were pretty certain of from before, but for the most part, maybe due to our age, we've reached a stage where we know and are comfortable with who we are
• We still sometimes need our own "me" time
• We still still need to work on being less selfish 
• We still prefer staying places longer because we get exhausted and stressed very easily when we're jumping around too much. We don't like change, and there are just too many details to figure out when you're constantly on the move.
• We liked blogging more than we thought we would. Katie especially found it fun and even therapeutic. 
• We developed more of a taste for wine given that the beer selection in Australia and Thailand was either poor or very expensive.
• Katie has grown more fond of cats thanks to some recent positive experiences. 
• We really liked having a grocery store or two that was within a quick 10 minutes or less walking distance. We may look for such a luxury in the future.
• Skills
• How to drive on the opposite side of the road 
• How to drive with two people on one motorbike 
• How to cook Thai food 
• Katie can use her physical therapy skills to help with my occasional dental problems 
• How to surf on fake waves
• How to better surf on real waves too
• We got pretty good at playing Hanabi 
• Travel
• How to navigate the Melbourne and Sydney public transit system
• Finding a budget airline like JetStar can be extremely helpful when piecing together a multi-flight trip on a budget. 
• Don't sit near the bathrooms on an airplane if you can help it
• If people are being obnoxious on your flight, it is better to do something about it, like politely asking them to stop, instead of holding it in and being bitter/annoyed all flight.
• Having a working map/gps on your phone that works offline is extremely helpful when traveling.
• Finding a church to temporarily plug into is a great way to make some valuable connections in the areas you're visiting.
• Always double check your directions/address/contact information. We learned that lesson the hard way.
• Airbnb is awesome (thus far)
• Wool clothing really does work well for traveling light.
• General
• Australia's craft beer scene is really young
• Australia doesn't have pumpkin puree
• Australian footy is really fun to watch
• The Melbourne/Sydney public transit is great 
• Deep water solo rock climbing is awesome!!!
• It's definitely cheaper to eat out in Thailand than to make your own food. And it's super delicious too
• Thai massages are quality
• Medical/dental stuff really is quite cheap in Thailand. We can see why medial tourism is so big there.
• Hawaii doesn't have sand flies... yet. They used to not have mosquitoes either, but they were accidentally brought over in the 1800's. But even so, they weren't as bad as we're used to.
• Chromebooks are just okay. They work well for doing stuff on the internet. But they do not work that well offline. So even though that situation of being offline is really rare these days (probably even less than 5% of the time) I would still not consider them a good replacement for a normal laptop, at least not for our needs.
• Things we wished we would have learned or are still working on
• The secret to work/life balance
• The secret to never being stressed
• The secret to always being happy/content in all circumstances 

I'm sure there is more I could add, but that's already a pretty decent list. Apparently we learned a lot. So I'll just leave it at that for now. If you have any questions and/or want to learn more from our experiences, feel free to let us know. We'll be happy to give any advice that we can.

Cheers!

The Price Is Right Australia

In honor of my brother's Price is Right post from his Alaska Arctic Researcher blog, I have decided to do a Price is Right Australia version. See if you can guess the price of the following items. Then scroll all the way down the post to see the answers. No cheating! 

Organic shampoo (400 ml or 14.1 oz) 

Sundried tomato strips (280 g or 9.9 oz)

Basil pesto (190 g or 6.7 oz)

Hazelnut spread (generic Nutella) (750 g or 26.5 oz)

Peanut butter (500 g or 17.6 oz)

White long grain rice (2 kg or 4.4 lb)

Watermelon (1.18 kg or 2.6 lb)

Strawberries (250 g or 8.8 oz)

Skim milk (1 L or 0.26 gallon)

Greek yogurt (1 kg or 2.2 lb)

Shredded cheese (700 g or 24.7 oz)

Chicken breasts (1.133 kg or 2.5 lb) with prices hidden by receipts

 

Eggs (dozen)

Scroll down to see how your guesses compare to the real prices! 
____________________________________________________________________










It's hard to accurately determine the USD prices of these items as ratio of cost of living to salary plays a huge role in economy. In addition, exchange rates are always fluctuating. We are fortunate to be traveling at a time when USD is stronger than AUD, but a short time ago that would not have been the case. I listed AUD and USD prices for each item with exchange rate of $1.00 AUD = $0.70 USD. 


Organic shampoo: $3.50 AUD = $2.46 USD
-interestingly, organic was cheaper than non-organic in this case

Sundried tomato strips: $3.53 AUD = $2.48 USD

Basil pesto: $2.70 AUD = $1.90 USD

Hazelnut spread: $6.93 AUD = $4.87 USD

Peanut butter: $4.00 AUD on sale = $2.81 USD

White long grain rice: $3.00 AUD = $2.11 USD 

Watermelon: $1.50/kg AUD = $0.48/lb USD

Strawberries: $1.70 AUD = $1.19 USD
-smaller than the quart sized package I'm used to

Skim milk: $0.90 AUD = $0.63 USD

Greek yogurt: $5.50 AUD = $3.86 USD
-eating Tasmanian yogurt feels exotic to me

Shredded cheese: $6.50 AUD = $4.57 USD

Chicken breasts: $9.00/kg AUD = $2.88/lb USD

Eggs: $2.99 AUD = $2.10 USD

How to pack for a 3 month trip abroad...we think

We've had quite a few people ask us how we're going to pack for our nearly three month long trip to Hawaii, Australia, and Thailand. With packing there's always a fine line between want and need. And, of course, it's important to reduce weight as much as possible for both travel comfort and airline restrictions. After much debate we've settled on the following, and we hope we're happy with the result: 

Our climbing gear: quickdraws, route cleaning gear, chalk bag, belay device, climbing shoes (and Brandon's chucks), harnesses

We struggled to choose a bag for our climbing gear until Brandon had the ingenious idea of using our rope bag and attaching our climbing helmet to the outside. We're not bringing our rope, because it's heavy and we can buy one in Thailand. The bag is small enough that we're hoping the airline will consider it to be a free "personal item". 

Brandon's items. Row 1: bathroom bag, tooth brush, medications, travel first aid kit
Row 2: 9 socks (3 thick Smartwool, 3 sport Smartwool, 3 light & thin ), 10 boxers, 1 sweatshirt, 2 long sleeve shirts, more toiletries
Row 3: hand towel, washcloth, 2 athletic shorts, 7 shirts (1 Icebreaker wool) , hat, sunglasses, wallet
Row 4: day pack bag, 2 shorts, swimsuit, climbing pants, jeans, Keen sandals, laptop + cord

All of Brandon's items fit in this backpack!

Katie's items. Row 1: running shoes, Chacos.
Row 2: 2 bras, 3 sports bras, swimsuit, 10 pairs underwear, 4 pairs socks, dirty laundry bag, ubiquitous blind date scarf.
Row 3: 6 t-shirts, 3 sleeveless shirts, 2 climbing pants, 2 running shorts, 2 workout shirts, 1 Icebreaker wool dress, 1 undress
Row 4: lock, diva cup, toiletries, spare glasses, 2 life straws
Row 5: 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair jeans, 1 pullover, 1 sweatshirt, 1 raincoat, 1 multi-use headband
Left side: large empty duffel/backpack for re-distributing items as needed for weight-based flights

All of Katie's items including the empty bag fit in here! 

Day pack: water bottle, plug adapters, headlamps, wallet, passports, international drivers license, phone, power cords, toilet paper, rain poncho

Everything we think we need for about three months of travel! 

Sabbatical FAQ - Part 2

We get a lot of questions about our sabbatical. Here are some of our answers.... (part 2)

What's going on with your beard? Are you growing it out for your sabbatical?
As many of you know I love having any reason to grow out my beard. For example, I grew my beard out in honor of the first major release of software I was a part of. It's fun having those goals of "I will not shave until X happens or X gets done." So to answer your question, yes I have indeed been growing it out in anticipation of the sabbatical. In a couple weeks I plan on doing something crazy with it while it's this long. Then after my last day of work I plan on doing some kind of crazy/fun shave so that I can start my time off "from scratch" so to speak. And then I get to grow it out all over again.

What's going on with both of your jobs?
Katie is quitting her job with her last day being at the end of May. She gave them about 7 weeks notice with the hope she could minimize the impact on her fellow physical therapists, assistants, and on the clinic in general.

For me, back in March I broached the subject of quitting to take a sabbatical with my managers at TechSmith. Everyone agreed we'd like our paths to cross again after all this is done, so steps were taken to make that as easy as possible for both TechSmith and myself. So the current plan is to return to the employment of TechSmith when I am finished. My last day of work will be mid June. The exact date of my return has not yet been set.

Are you doing this because you hate your jobs?
Hate is too strong a word, but seeking a break from our jobs has definitely motivated our decision to pursue this sooner rather than later. Don't get me wrong, we have both been blessed with great jobs, and there are many aspects we love and will miss. But over this past year both of our jobs have had their stresses. Katie especially has been feeling very overworked, and it has been a struggle for her to find the motivation to go in each day. For me, I have been struggling off and on with motivation to work on my current projects and with software development in general. We are both hopeful that this break will be rejuvenating and plan to continue to pursue our careers in some form or another when we are done.

How long have you been thinking about this?
We don't remember the exact date we got serious about it, but it has been well over a year. We sat down with our financial advisor in the summer of 2014 to see if it was even feasible and what kind of time frame we'd be looking at. So that was probably our first, "let's make this idea real" moment. But the ground work was being set well before that. Even while we were still dating we'd joke and dream about what early retirement would look like and how cool that'd be.

I thought you weren't going to start until 2016?
We were, but then we changed our minds. Once we started bouncing the idea around with other people, pretty much everyone said don't wait. Also the 2016 mark was a little arbitrary in the first place. We thought it sounded good for Katie to work a whole five years first, but four is really just as good. So with that being our only real reason to wait, and us realizing that planning over a year out was risky since a lot can change in a year, we decided to move it up to summer of 2015.

------

Interested in more FAQ? See our first FAQ post

Sabbatical FAQ - Part 1

We get a lot of questions about our sabbatical. Here are some of our answers.... (part 1)

What do you mean by sabbatical? Are you going to be studying or researching something?
Sigh... Words are hard. We've called this thing we're doing many different things: early retirement, primary retirement, gap year, year off, quarter life crisis, etc, but sabbatical seems to resonate the best with most people we've talked to. We are essentially just taking a year+ long break from our jobs. We are not taking a sabbatical in the same sense a professor or pastor would. We are not doing any research or anything.

Why are you doing this? 
Why not?... That's the short answer anyway. The long answer we will spread out over several blog posts. But we have definitely thought about this a lot.

What are your goals?
Lots of them, like...

• Use our time differently
• Try to feel less busy and over scheduled
• Explore what it means to live life day to day without a job.
• Use more of our time to invest in our friends, family, and community around us
• Take time to explore the world around us
• Do things that we can't do with the usual limited time off of work
• Do things now that we might not be able to do later in life

See, we have lots of goals. We do realize that some of those goals conflict with each other. Wanting to do ALL THE THINGS has made making specific plans for the year quite difficult, but we think we've struck a decent balance with our current general plan.

Where are you going on your travels?
What we know for sure is that we are spending this first summer off right where we are at now in Holland, MI. It's a lovely place, especially in the summers. We definitely plan to take full advantage of being near Lake Michigan beaches. Hopefully being here will also give us ample time to spend with the friends and family around West Michigan as well as maybe try to entice a few of our friends out of state to finally come visit us while we're still here.

In the fall we plan to do our first international adventure out to the Asia Pacific area with a couple months split between Australia and Thailand. And the plan is to visit some friends in Hawaii both on the way out there and on the way back. This helps break up the long travels as well as has the added benefit of getting to live life and catch up a few weeks with some pretty cool people that happen to live there.

The winter will be spent back here in the States. We realize most people would be trying to escape the cold and do their tropical international travels then, but we like the winter season and the adventures it brings. We'll most likely spend the first chunk of it doing Christmas stuff with family and friends in both Michigan and Illinois. And the rest of the winter will be dedicated to visiting some friends out West with extended stops in California, Utah, and Colorado. We're hopeful that there will be some rock climbing and snowboarding during those visits.

The rest of the year is bit too far out to have nailed down now. We have lots of ideas. Most of them involve honing in on that goal of spending time with friends and family. So there will be lots of crashing at peoples houses and living life with them for a short while. But we are hoping to mix it up a bit with them too. For example, we think that the Spring will involve time dedicated to the types of travel that our travel enthusiast friends and family would want to do. We've told lots of groups that if they'd like travel buddies, we're available for whatever adventure they like, assuming we can afford it. Sounds like at least a couple people are wanting to take us up on that offer. From the ideas we've heard about so far it sounds like we might be bouncing around Europe a bit. And if we do make it over there, we'll hopefully get a chance to see some friends that live out that way as well.

But wait, what about New Zealand? You should go there...
We know... we know... Believe us, it's on our list. We just don't have enough time to do it justice. Plus if we went to New Zealand, we would want to travel all over and that's just not the type of traveling we're looking to do this trip. We'll get there someday.

Are you keeping the place where you currently live in Holland?
We will keep it through the summer, but plan on giving it up when we start our travels.

What are you going to do with all your stuff? 
We see this as a great opportunity to pare down and clean house. So we will be getting rid of as much stuff as possible either by selling it or giving it away. The few things we decide to keep we'll put in storage.

Will you move back Michigan after you are done?
Not going to lie, a lot can happen in a year. But at the same time we have a great community in Michigan that would be really hard to leave behind. It definitely seems most likely we'll come back and live somewhere in Michigan, but we're not making any promises.


That's all for now... check back again later for Sabbatical FAQ - Part 2