Day 1 (on day 28)

4/9/2020- Well folks, here I go again, blogging! I usually do this when we (our family) starts new adventures, and that is the case! It’s day 28 of the Coronavirus Quarantine…can you believe it? Almost a whole month of staying at home. Luckily, we don’t have the virus, and we are doing our best to follow all of the Governor’s orders: stay at home unless it’s essential to leave. Some outside recreation is allowed so we take walks with the dogs, clean up the back yard, and work on all of the house projects that have been on the “to-do” list for years! But, I digress…our Coronavirs cabin fever stories could have their own blog…there’s so much to it! Alright, on to the main reason I’m back here blogging… About day 23 into the quarantine, Steve and I started just randomly reminiscing on our recent trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands a few months ago. I was creating a slide show of photos and videos and that got us wondering if prices were lower for homes because of this virus shutting down the economy. Not at all. The prices were hardly affected. So…we knew we still couldn’t buy or even rent a house down there. That didn’t dissuade Steve though! He had always wanted a sailboat, and talked about it a lot after our trip. He started looking at a lot of boats for sale in USVI and Florida and got really excited. Boats (certain ones) are affordable, especially monohulls (the “original” sailboat with one hull…the main body of the boat). We also looked into catamarans (multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size). Luckily we have good friends who are wrapping up their THREE year adventure with their THREE kids on a catamaran so their advice has helped us so much, even in just 5 days. So far we’ve logged about 15 hours of YouTube sailing videos, 5 hours of craigslist boat searching, and about 5 days worth of drooling over catamarans we can’t afford! Steve did some additional research and found out that as a medically retired Iraq War Veteran, he qualifies for the G.I. Bill which helps pay for lots of education, including sailing. They have already helped pay for his Scuba Certification classes and he’s really been loving his new hobby/job! He has found two schools in Florida that will take the G.I. Bill and teach him everything he needs to know about how to sail! Thanks to COVID, we were already spring cleaning the house, backyard, and garage by selling lots of stuff we don’t use anymore, or need. It’s like people are bored at home and don’t have anything better to do than to surf Facebook Marketplace haha! Lucky for us! Now, that has inspired us to create a bigger plan for some serious lifestyle changes. Steve’s family lives in Florida which is perfect for sailing school and boat shopping. Plus, Cody, our 12 year old son, gets to hang out with his grandparents, aunts & uncles and cousins on that side of the family (most of my family is in Colorado). We have two plans at the moment, they include: A) Florida B) St. John, USVI. In plan A, we hope to get the house rented, sell all major possessions and vehicles, move items that are needed later into storage, figure out how to hand off my current job position (Executive Director at a non-profit we started) to someone else, then get ‘outta “Dodge” by driving our van down to Florida (it’s made that trip 6 times already!) Plan B is put into place if I get a job in the USVIs. That will change things drastically. In Florida, we have a less-expensive place to live so no job is needed right away. If I am accepted for another nonprofit related job in the USVIs, then I will have to move down around May. Steve, Cody, and the dogs would join me later after they handle the house and other things here in town. We’d most likely look for a boat again, because that’s the most affordable option at this time, and Steve would still travel to Florida for sailing school.We are beyond excited as a family to begin our new journey, and we hope you join us!