Happy Thanksgiving Small Living, Big Life family! 2019 has been a whirlwind year and we can’t hardly believe it’s Thanksgiving already! We wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on the past year and give thanks for the blessings that we’ve experienced. We hope that you have a holiday filled with love, laughter and a quiet moment to reflect and give thanks for your own blessings.
1: Moxie. We’re beyond thankful for finding and being in a position to purchase our boat in 2019. Years of planning, scheming and dreaming became reality for us this year when we bought Moxie and we’re thankful that we’ve accomplished this goal a bit earlier than we anticipated.
2: Our house is FINALLY done! After 7 long years of demolition, planning, purchasing and renovating, our house is finally completely done. It’s been a long, expensive road rehabbing our home, but, we are very proud of the work we’ve done and absolutely love our home. Even if we won’t be staying too much longer…
3: Our supportive families. We are blessed to have the most supportive, loving, encouraging families ever! No matter what goals we set out to accomplish, they are behind us, cheering us on and offering any help they can.
4: Alexis’s new job. What a difference a year makes! While we’ve always been thankful for having steady, well-paying employment, Alexis’s transition from being on call 24/7 and working in an extremely high-stress environment to a less stressful, more “normal” job this year has been nothing short of a blessing. Transitioning into a new job this year allowed us to spend nearly every weekend somewhere other than at home, doing things we enjoyed this summer instead of being tied to a incessantly ringing cell phone.
5: Scuba diving. Immersing ourselves in this new hobby has provided us with opportunities to meet new friends, experience new adventures and, for Josh, begin developing a new “professional” path. We’ve been blessed by incredible mentors and some of the most incredible, breath-taking views we could have ever imagined.
6: Our health. 2019 has been another relatively healthy year for us and, for that, we are incredibly thankful.
7: Our soon-to-end careers. There’s no way that we would be in the position we’re in, preparing to retire before either of us are 40 years old without having been as successful in our careers as we have been. Our employers have been nothing but supportive of our “crazy plan” and we are thankful that our employers feel more like family than they do corporate entities.
8: Opportunities to travel. The change in our mindset about not spending money on “stuff” and on experiences instead has continued to provide us opportunities that we wouldn’t have had a few years ago. One of the biggest opportunities is being able to travel. In 2019, we were able to fund trips to Bonaire, Tortuga, a ton of weekend vacations throughout the summer and a two-week long trip to the Keys for Christmas and New Years. A few years ago, when we were still spending all our money acquiring “stuff,” we would have been home-bound most weekends, giving thanks for a few Saturday night trips to the bar. Spending money on traveling and the associated experiences has been SO rewarding!
9: Each other. We are so blessed to have found such incredible partners in each other! It’s comforting and encouraging to know that we’re traveling together, always, on whatever adventure we choose next. We’ve come up with some crazy dreams and aspirations in the 9 years we’ve known each other and it’s been really cool to watch our dreams take shape together.
10: Our teamwork. There’s no way that we would be as successful in achieving our goals if we didn’t work so well together as a team. From planning, to timelines, to making shit happen, we balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses and somehow always manage to get it right.
11: Our friends. We are blessed beyond belief with some of the most amazing friends! Some of them, we’ve known for years. Others, we just met recently but absolutely adore. No matter how long the friendship, we couldn’t imagine not sharing our adventures or lives with our friends.
12: Technology. It’s frustrating as all hell when it doesn’t work. But, man, when it works, it’s INCREDIBLE! We became boat owners from another state, thanks to technology. We’ve met some super people that have inspired our adventures, again, thanks to technology. We’ve go access to information about our boat, our future lifestyle, scuba diving and everything and anything we could ever want to know, all at our finger tips. We can’t really remember how people learned things before YouTube tutorials or online forums, but, we’re thankful that it’s all available to us now.
13: Josh is pretty damn handy! It’s no secret that Josh’s ability to figure out how shit works and fix it when it breaks has been invaluable in both our homeownership experiences and our boat ownership experience. He’s able to save us money, time and a bunch of bullshit by being able to handle things without having to call “a guy.” We’re thankful we can save the money by DIYing things instead of paying exorbitant bills to watch someone else fix our stuff.
14: Finding Kent Island. What started out as a cool place to fish and party, turned into a great place to keep our first big boat and cut our teeth on all-things-boat. Hungover breakfast at The Jetty. Striper fishing in the Chesapeake Bay. Amish Outlaws at Red Eyes. Making memories with our family and friends that will last forever. We’re thankful we found this place.
15: Sunsets in the cockpit of our boat. There’s nothing quite like watching the sun go down with a cocktail in the cockpit of our boat. Listening to the osprey call out, hearing the small splashes of fish jumping in the marina’s shallow waters and feeling the chill in the air after the warm sun falls below the horizon. It’s beautiful, and peaceful, and our favorite way to end our days.
16: Cockpit coffee. There’s no more relaxing way to start the day than a cup of coffee in the cockpit as the sun’s coming up.
17: Central Pennsylvania. While we’re chomping at the bit to get out of Central PA, we are infinitely thankful for what Central PA has afforded us. It’s been a place that both of our careers have flourished, surrounded by plentiful work and opportunities in both of our industries. It’s been a place that has afforded us incredible opportunities to experience the wildness and beauty of nature both outside our front door and just a few hours away at camp. It’s been a place that has supported our commute to the Chesapeake Bay every weekend all summer long to get acquainted with our new boat and safely learn about the new adventure that we’re about to embark on. We can’t wait for the next chapter, but, will always be thankful that our hailing port proudly displays our Central PA roots.
18: Our experiences. We’ve had some successes. We’ve had some failures. We’ve had some incredible up’s and some really difficult lows. But, all of it has molded and shaped us into the people (and couple) that we are today. Our experiences have given us the strength, confidence and ambition to shake up our “norm” and go after something different. We’re thankful for the positive’s and the negative’s that have taught us about ourselves and what we want from life.
19: Dreaming big dreams. It’s not just about the boat or sailing off on some unplanned adventure. It’s more about being thankful for never settling. We’ve encouraged each other to always dream big dreams, to always be ambitiously pursuing some type of new goal. And it has paid off, time after time. In life, in careers and in our plan for the next chapter of our lives. It’s kind of like the Lord Huron song “Ends of the Earth…”What good is living this life we’ve been given if all we do is stand in one place?
Small Living, Big Life 