The Jump

Keoni and I decided we were going to take the jump and go all in with my coaching business. He was feeling done with Intel and wanted to move on and focus on supporting Beautifully Changed. After talking about it for months, we decided, now or never.

We started by figuring out our finances and how long we could go without income coming in and where we would go. We wanted to try living somewhere outside of the USA on a budget. A taste of vagabonding without full-on vagabonding. Full of excitement we continued to make our plans, even though few were sharing in our joy.

One of the huge tasks we had to complete before we left was going through our stuff, selling and giving away most of it and keeping a few things in a small storage unit. Only bringing with us what we thought we would need and then planned on buying whatever we needed once we got to Mexico.

That’s right. Mexico.

Our Plans

After much consideration, we decided we would go to Mexico for three months and then come back to Portland, pick up my friend, and then head to Banff for a week. At that time the plan was to assess where would go from there. Get a place in Oregon or continue on the road. To be more specific we were going to Puerto Vallarta and then spread out from there checking out the surf towns.

We would drive down the Oregon coast, hit some fun things on the road and fly out of Las Vegas. Keoni’s brother offered to keep our vehicle in his garage while we were gone. So we took him up on the offer because we wanted to meet his baby anyway.

March 27th was the day we left Portland. We had a wonderful time with my closest friend and her guy and then we hit the road. Our journey starting off bittersweet yet vibrating with excitement. We all love going on adventures and we were about to hit a big one.

The trip started off amazing. Smiles and laughter and Makaio saying, “awesome” to so many things.

We stopped at the world’s largest Sea Lion cave. Smelly, but incredibly beautiful and the barking of the sea lions was fantastic. We could see them swimming in the ocean and then relaxing on the rocks. It was pretty great. Well done.

 

And we got to see a fun Prehistoric Gardens Walk with a few different dinosaurs. Since we are also planning to home school/unschool, we took advantage of the educational information at our finger tips and interest of our newly turned 5-year-old. The dinosaurs were fascinating and life size.

And the views of the coast… so good for my mind, body, and soul.

Good food was also a treat along the way.

We had the good fortune of getting to play on Mount Shasta, the root chakra of the world. It was beyond beautiful and we got to play in the snow until our feet were cold. Then we hit the road again.

We spent a day at California Adventure Disney so that we could see Car’s Land and of course that was so much fun. It was how we celebrated Makaio’s 5th birthday since he declined a birthday party.

And then we were off to Vegas to see Keoni’s family…. who we hadn’t seen in 8 years besides his brother. The tension was high. It turned out fine though. They were nice and we were nice. Everyone was so happy to meet Makaio and see Keoni.

We stayed at the Venetian and had a blast. And then with our passports in hand, smiles on our faces, we were off to Mexico. It was Makaio’s first flight. It was a great day.

Not all of our luggage made it, but we thought, no biggy (it ended up being lost for a week and was a big hassle). Once we got settled into our hotel, we went for a wonderful walk, found vegan tacos, enjoyed the heck out of them, enjoyed our walk back, stopped to taste some tequila, and found a connection to rent a place north of Puerto Vallarta. Whoot whoot!!! Life was feeling AMAZING!!!

And then later that night…

Keoni got really sick. Throwing up a ton… bones hurting sick. (No we didn’t drink the water). And he felt so sick he wanted to go to the hospital and then changed his mind when they wanted to charge 1200 us dollars. He thought he would tough it out. He rested and Makaio and I played. We had so much fun.

Then the next day Makaio and I also got extremely sick. Worse than I can remember ever feeling. Makaio was saying that it felt like his bones were broken. And we laid in bed snuggling and trying to find some relief. That night, I woke up to Keoni falling face first onto the floor. The thud woke me. I ran over to help him up. He had blood running out of his mouth and said he thinks he broke his tooth. Turned out he broke several. I was scared and he felt scared.

Friday morning he decided that he wanted to come back to the US to see if we still had medical insurance to fix his teeth and in case we didn’t start feeling better, he wanted to make sure we could get medical care. Plus, he wanted to have access to the homeopathic medications we usually use, which were in the luggage that did not arrive. I agreed. So we decided to cancel our amazing trip to Mexico we had planned on our tight budget and head back to Vegas. Thinking we would eventually make our way to Austin, TX to check it out.

Turned out that our insurance ran out a couple days before. What a bummer. And it is several thousand to fix his teeth. Mind you… it’s his front teeth. One is broken in half and the other cracked all the way across. Our budget got severally messed up so he will have to wait to fix his teeth and our dream of traveling will have to wait as well.  We have been blessed to be able to stay with Keoni’s brother and his adorable family for the last month as we figure out what we will do next.

Oh, and then Keoni’s brother accidentally hit our car while parked in his driveway. We just got it back from the shop today.

Keoni is now searching for a new job as we both continue to focus efforts on Beautifully Changed. And enjoy the sun and new experiences we are having here in Vegas.

My Point

My point is this… things can go terribly wrong in the midst of chasing a dream. And things did go terribly wrong. However, we are spending our focus on what is going well, though we did spend a few days feeling pissed and super disappointed. How does everyone make traveling look so easy? Especially on a budget? We did our research. We didn’t go in blind.

I didn’t get to and I still have yet to be able to spend the time focusing on my business the way I had intended. However, I am still doing things. I am still able to meet with the people I work with. We are still going on adventures and having new experiences.

Fortunately, Keoni’s brother has let us stay with him and is happily eating the vegan meals I make us all for dinner. Makaio is still learning, I mean, do kids really ever stop learning? No, they don’t. And Keoni is getting a chance to refocus.

Is it an ideal situation? No. Is it what I envisioned in my dreams? Heck no. I do know that it is up to me to make the best of this situation and that is what I am now doing. Adapting to what life is asking out of me.

And we are all still smiling.