¶ Trading Land Life for Adventure
How far would you go to give your family an unforgettable experience , one that challenges everything you thought you knew about comfort and routine ? Would you be willing to sell your home , let go of the familiar and completely change your way of life ? That's exactly what Brandon and Amber Morris did .
They sold nearly everything and moved their family of six onto a sailboat to chase a life of freedom and adventure onto a sailboat to chase a life of freedom and adventure . Get ready to set sail on an inspiring journey with Brandon and Amber as we dive into what it really means to live life like every day is Saturday . Welcome to Journey with Jake .
This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way . While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way .
My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you'll be entertained and inspired to overcome your day-to-day challenges . After all , it's not all about the destination as it is to the show . I'm Jake Bushman , the host of Journey with Jake , and I'm so glad that you're here .
You're really going to enjoy this episode with Amber and Brandon as we dive into their bold adventure raising a family while living full-time on a boat in the Caribbean .
It was an incredible conversation and I'm excited to share it with you Before we jump in , if you'd like to get to know me a little better or catch clips from past , present and upcoming episodes , be sure to follow me on Instagram at journeywithjakepodcast . While you're there , drop me a message or say hi . I love hearing from you .
I also want to give a quick shout out to the Podmatch Podcast Network , which Journey with Jake is proud to be part of . If you're looking for other great shows across all kinds of topics , head over to podmatchcom forward slash network , and if you prefer to watch your podcast , you can find Journey with Jake on YouTube .
I've been posting full episodes there for about a year now , so check it out , subscribe to the channel and go ahead and hit that like button . Brandon and Amber Morris are living the life they once thought was impossible Sailing through the Caribbean with their four kids aboard a boat they now call home home .
If you love this episode , you might also want to check out episode 46 with lauren landers , who's navigating the solo sailing life . All right , let's get to my conversation with brandon and amber . All right , I'm excited today because I have brandon and amber . It's amber right , did I get it right ?
Yeah , yeah , brandon and amber morris from everyday saturday , which is an awesome channel to follow on Instagram , on YouTube . They're a ton of fun to see what their family's up to , the journey , the adventure they're on . Welcome to Journey with Jake .
Thank you , thank you .
Thanks for having us , man . Yeah , I'm excited to have you both . Seeing what you guys are up to with your family living on a boat is amazing . We'll get to that in a minute .
Before we dive into how that all happened , how about a little background on both Brandon and Amber , where you're from , where you grew up , that sort of thing , and then we'll dive into your journey ?
I grew up in a small farm town , Weezer , Idaho .
Weezer Idaho .
You would never know where it is or what it is . It's just a tiny town and she grew up in the . I guess we could call it the city .
Yeah , meridian Idaho . So yeah , idaho native too .
Obviously not near the ocean . Nope , we are . We are from landlocked Idaho , so we've got four kids and , yeah , we're just that's who we are from . A from a small standpoint .
So the kids tell me kind of the ages . I have four kids as well . So kind of give me the breakdown of the kids .
Yeah Well , so we've got our oldest daughter . She's 19 . She actually graduated last year and she moved off the boat and she's doing her own adventures . But then after that we have boy , girl twins who are 14 . And then we have our little caboose who's eight now eight year old boy .
Wow , okay . So I know it started with , like I think in 2020 , you guys went off like on an rv for a while . Okay , how did this all come about ? Because you guys are living in idaho . How did you decide ?
okay , let's drop everything and let's go travel the united states in rv yeah , yeah , this was all in 2020 , so covid was just had just kind of hit .
But previous to that you know if we're getting a little bit personal about it we were just like me specifically , I wasn't in a good place , I wasn't being a good husband , good dad , you know , I was coming home from work pretty , pretty spent and not having much left to offer the family and so kind of .
As that led into COVID , covid kind of gave us an opportunity to say , well , what the heck are we doing , right , like ? And our kids had to be out of school . So it put us in a position to try and figure out what our plan B was during that time .
And so that was around the time that all of this accumulation of a long story put us around a campfire in McCall , idaho , up in the mountains , and we were just sitting there and we were talking like just dreaming . We actually it was so cool .
It was the first time we've ever been at a place where we had like this pause of time where we could just sit and kind of say , what if out of that came ? Well , what if we could RV around the country for a year ? And so we kind of came out of there . We crunched the numbers . We were like , okay , I think we can make this happen .
And then we went and we did . We rented out our house , we sold a lot of our stuff . My son and I went to Texas and picked up an RV that we found and we set off on a what we thought was a one year adventure . One year , and now we're what ? Four , four and a half years later .
And you went from the RV to a boat too , which is a whole nother thing . Amber , I wanted to ask you he mentioned you know he was Brandy you said you weren't in a good place . You didn't feel like you're in a good place . You weren't giving it your all , I guess , as like a husband , father .
What was it like for you , amber , as the mother of this household ? What was your kind of thoughts and feelings ? Did you notice that too ? What was kind of your thoughts on that ?
Well , a hundred percent , and I actually was working as a nurse in the hospital at the time , so we all know like what the environment was just when COVID happened and all of that . So there was a lot of stress in my own life too .
Yeah , he was coming home just totally fried and spent and I just felt like the writing was on the wall that we needed to do something Like we had to make a change . We had to do something that prioritized our family , these relationships , our marriage . I think it was just a dream .
Honestly , the dream , the practical dream , was could we just , for a year , go , take some time and travel as a family and kind of like get away from all the stress and anxiety that was happening on in our society ? That was like trickling into our marriage .
I'm right there with you . I feel like a lot of people had that experience . I think a lot of people felt overwhelmed , not sure what to do . I love how you guys sat around a campfire and kind of had this discussion how much influence did your kids have in this decision to get in the RV ?
Our younger kids . I mean , our twins were like 10 at the time . You know , the younger three really didn't have much influence at all , but our other daughter , our oldest daughter , was 15 at the time and so we really kind of leaned into her a little bit and wanted her to be part of the decision-making process .
One of the things we say is that our kids have a voice but not a vote . So and that comes up a lot out here even like where are we going with the boat and you know , what are we doing during hurricane season ? All that kind of stuff .
So , yeah , we brought her into it and we actually kind of planted the seed and then or maybe you could say planted a grenade and then walked away . And she kind of came back to us within a few days and she's after lots of conversations with friends and people that , like , had influence in her life .
She came back to us and she was like I think we should do it , we should totally do it . I think this is an opportunity that we need to take . So it was . It was pretty cool .
I think that's big Cause . A 15, . I have a 15 year old daughter right now . The baby of my family is 15 and I know it'd be tough to pull her away from friends and you know what you got going on , so I can see that being I'm glad you kind of involved her , and I'm glad she she said , yeah , let's do it .
Yeah , we knew she needed to be bought into it . Yeah , absolutely , and because they are tied to so many things like she was tied to traveling dance , and that's what we were spending six out of our seven days a week doing was taking her to dance , and so it was a huge win for us to have her buy in and her encouragement of this traveling adventure .
Yeah , and I would say too , just a big piece of the whole picture of why we're out here and why we left . To begin with , it wasn't just about my personal , the space I was in , it wasn't just about COVID , it was just we were feeling like spent .
You know , we were just the busyness she was living the minivan life , running all over town picking kids up , and we , just we really felt like we were missing out on a lot of time with our kids . Town , picking kids up , and we , just we really felt like we were missing out on a lot of time with our kids .
You know , one of the things that we say is that we were kissing our kids to bed that night , you know , only to all of a sudden , the next day fast forwards by so fast that we see ourselves kissing them again , you know , to bed with not having spent any time in between , and so that was weighing pretty heavy on us and we felt like we had to kind of
take time back a little bit .
Isn't it amazing when you think about that , all the stuff you do for your kids and you're involved in everything , but then you're like where did it go and what happened ? Because you turn around a week's gone by . Yeah , I kind of sense , I kind of get the same feeling . I feel like we're relating a lot here , cause I'm like , wow , what's going on ?
And my daughter's in dance right now and competitive dance and it's just man , you turn around and it's over and like wait , what happened ?
yeah , it feels like our culture , american culture , western culture , whatever you would call it is just set up to take time away , right like steal time , and even even just you know , in the public school system or just the regular school system , it's like the day is set up for them to be gone all day so that parents can work , and and so , yeah , we just
I mean , we've spent the last few years now trying to figure out how can we beat the system you know in a way yeah , absolutely .
Okay , I got to ask a little bit about this because I'm a little bit risk averse . I guess you could say so I'm . You know , as you're planning this and you're you know , you sold some stuff . You rented out your house . Was there any fear going into it before you actually stepped into that RV and started traveling ?
I think once we took off in the RV it felt , we felt good . But yes , it's the logistical process , you know , between saying let's do this and let's drive out the driveway with the RV , All of that in between , yeah , Lots of fears ,
¶ Why They Left Everything Behind
Lots of like . Are we making the right decision ?
And we both resigned from our careers . So like that's big huge , huge decisions , like for me , that's what would you know . I would kind of have these like mini panic attacks , because you do feel like , oh my gosh , this is like there's no going back , I mean , once we resign and we're going for it , like we have to go for this , we have to do it .
So every step felt like a huge , you know , gigantic milestone . But it was like we got there and it was crazy . So , yeah , when we pulled away from the driveway , I mean it was there was , so there were so many emotions . You know , like I can't believe we're doing this , like we're really doing this .
You know , all of our kids packed in the truck and all of that .
But what I would say to what leads us into the next phase of our story is doing that , it almost worked that muscle you know what I'm saying . Like doing the RV thing , leaving normal life first , to do that , it worked that like fear muscle of okay , we can do this , like we got this , you know .
And then that's what led to us dreaming again Like well , what are we going to do next ? We don't want to go back . We all the work it was to leave and get out of the kind of the normal lifestyle grind about halfway through .
Rving is when we started talking about boat life and sailing and we were watching YouTube videos of other families that were doing it and it was just blowing our minds . You know , we never thought we could do it , but it'll we . We had taught ourselves that we can dream at least now you know .
So that's that's kind of where it all began and you went . You went right into my next question , because I kind of want to ask that . I said what point you know and you said about halfway point you're kind of like , hey , we wanted to keep doing this , we want more of this .
Was there a certain , was there any pivotal moment , or did you just gradually kind of work up to that ?
I remember we had these conversations about like , what is it going to look like after this year ? And I think there was this taste of like , freedom and adventure with our family that we were like what ? Because courage begets courage . So it's like once you take one small step of courage , that opens the door for you to walk to another courageous step .
And so I think it was like we did this . Like why couldn't we learn how to sail ? Why couldn't we become a sailing family ? Like , even though we don't have any sailing experience and we've never even owned a boat before .
We've never owned a boat before . You should see the size of this boat .
That's amazing , that that's kind of where it where it led to . Next , Tell me a couple of things . When you're just from the RV perspective , what were maybe a couple of experiences that you had as a family that you were like ? This is why we love doing this . Was there a particular place you went to ? I know you went to what 30 ?
Some odd country states 37 states yeah 37 states . Yeah , Was there . I mean one or two , just examples .
Yeah , I think . I mean there's a couple of places that blew our minds Like number one .
we had never been to New Orleans before and we got to stay in this really cool RV resort that was like right in the midst in the heart of New Orleans , right in the what is it called French quarters , like right there , like you could walk out of the RV park and then you're like on the street that you don't want your kids walking down Bourbon street right
Bourbon street .
But that that experience for us was very , a very culturally immersive experience for us . But then we could take all the national parks that we got to visit and , you know , going , going all the way south from the Florida Keys which was really epic all the way up to Maine and the Acadia National Park . Those experience with our kids .
I think like wrote the story of . Like we don't just want to save for retirement and try to travel later , like we want to do this with our kids , we want to adventure with our kids .
Yeah , it was kind of we kind of started talking about like what if we could kind of retire now , Like you like plan to spend some of that time and money now with our kids , you know , rather than wait until they're all gone and we have no influence on them , you know .
Good point . Take advantage of it while you have the chance . And I think we kind of look at retirement and it's kind of like it's always just way up in the future . You know , it's just way off . How old will I be at that point ? Will I be able to move around as easy Will I ? You know , my kids will be grown by then .
What's what's it going to be like ? So I love the fact that you said hey , let you're at now . You're sitting on this boat right now . Okay , no experience , you've never owned a boat .
How on earth do you decide to do this then without having because I get you know , an RV is one thing , you know how to drive , I mean , you kind of figure that out , but sailing is a whole different thing , a whole different thing , and it's not even just sailing it , weather and learning how to deal with the ocean , and you know , I mean just the systems
and things that are on this boat are , you know , an RV times , a hundred thousand non-steroids . You know like it's insane . But once we decided we were going to do this , while we were in Florida during that winter , um , I took a week long sailing course , which you know if we thought would be like this , I really needed this thing .
It was it's called ASA , american Sailing Academy , like training association . And it turns out that after now , like looking back , that was so , so basic and the time spent on it was like did not prepare me for this life at all .
But then we actually did some networking and , through some people that we knew , they bought a boat in Long Island , new York , and it needed to be moved from there down to Florida and it was a similar catamaran , kind of like what we have . And so as soon as I found out that was happening , I was like you guys , I got , I want to be crew on that boat .
Like I want to help , I'll pay my way , I'll buy my food , like I just need to get the experience . So I ended up doing that and I was on their boat for , I think , a total of 13 days . That was like the real world experience that I that I needed . You know as far as that all went , so still wasn't ready .
Well , and for you , for you , amber , what he's doing this ? He's getting you know some experience , you know learning some things . What are you ? Are you doing anything to prepare for , what are you kind of doing ?
I mean I think I was inside . I was freaking out Like part of me was inside . I was freaking out Like part of me was , you know , was excited . The other part of me was absolutely freaking out , just because I'm not like . The ocean was a very unfamiliar place for me . I hadn't grown up around it .
I'm I would have said I'm a mountain girl , not an ocean girl . So there wasn't this like internal thing inside me that was like oh , I want to sail someday or I want to own a sailboat . I mean some people that that is their dream . That was never my dream .
I would say that wasn't either of our dream . Yeah , and we would still say that it's not like we aspired to own a boat and be sailors . It was more that the boat became the mode through which we adventured and traveled .
It was something where I think , for me , the draw became . I loved what I saw when we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone . I love what I see in our kids when they have a new challenge to face , and so for us , none of us had had any experience with this before , so it was like we were just diving in all together .
I think that was the excitement for me in all of it together . I think that was the excitement for me in all of it . But I know , like I remember the moment when he called me and I think when he was moving that boat , there were dolphins at the bow and he was like we have to do this , like we're going to do this .
You know , he was just so hyped up and I think that I just I really had to glean on that because I didn't . I just felt freaked out and we were going to have to sell a house that we had just bought , you know , less than a year previous . It was kind of our you know , our home that we saw ourselves in for years and years .
All the kids had a bedroom . It was the largest house we'd ever owned . It was beautiful , and so it kind of just felt like wow , like to go all in . We basically have to sell everything .
Yeah , let's keep talking about the logistics of it , because you sold your house . Double tap on that . Yeah , yeah , you sold your house . I'm
¶ Transitioning from RV to Sailboat Life
guessing you sold cars . I mean probably sold . I mean you can't fit everything in a catamaran like you would have in a nice big house .
Yeah .
What was that all about ? How did you get and how did you get the boat ?
Yeah , we finished out our RV tour of the country , we did a full circle around and then we went back to Idaho and , instead of moving back into our house , the renter's lease was over and they moved out and we sold the house and I mean that was emotional , amber we've got video of her walking out , crying saying bye , you know all that .
Yeah , after the , after the house was sold , I just went into find the boat mode and I was scouring the web , scouring Facebook groups , like yeah , I mean I basically found it on a on a Facebook group of of sailing families , where this family was .
They were cleaning it out and she wrote this big sappy post just saying you know , she remembers the girl she's cleaning up the girl's bedrooms and all of this and it just it tugged on my heartstrings one and two .
I was like whoa , they're getting this boat ready to sell and that's the exact kind of boat we're looking for , yeah , so I got in touch with them and we ended up buying the boat by owner and I flew to Virginia where it was in the Chesapeake , went and looked at it and had a really emotional , awesome time with this .
This couple just became really great friends with them and we kind of did a handshake Idaho type of deal , farm boy style deal right there and came back to . I went back to Idaho and I wired him a deposit , you know .
And just let me preface like I hadn't ever stepped foot on the boat before he bought the boat .
Yeah , I was going to ask . I was like were you sending videos ? Were you doing something for Amber ? Because that's a big thing . This is your home , you're buying .
We've been watching a lot of like walkthrough videos of other boats , and so she .
Yeah , we had a really good idea , yeah he and he had me on facetime and he like did a walkthrough , although , like I had no concept because I'd never been on our type of boat before and so it was really hard to like conceptualize like the size of it and all of that . I think that , inside , though , I just felt like I needed to trust .
You know , I needed , I needed to trust him and I obey is better , the better .
She was having a lot of trust and faith in you .
Yeah , 100% , and trust that . You know , we knew that God had us in this journey , that his faithfulness was with us , and I just felt , I just knew that it felt right , even though it was like the scariest thing that we had ever done , you know .
For sure , yeah , it's been a . It's been a thing , man , it's been a challenge .
So yeah , so did you go to Virginia and then take it from there ? Is that kind of where your adventure started on the boat ?
I went back to Idaho . We had Christmas Well , actually , no . So what I did was I , we agreed on the price and all that stuff . I went back to Idaho .
But then I flew back again and that couple helped me sail the boat around the outside of Virginia , north Carolina , there which is called Cape Hatteras , and bring it a little bit further South because I needed . I needed it further South for my family to move onto it . And so then we left it in North Carolina and I went back to Idaho .
And then we , we bought a , a sweet minivan . I put a , I put a hitch on it so that we could tow a U-Haul . I taped off a square in her parents' garage of what , what we could fit in that little tiny U-Haul , you know , of all the things we were bringing with us , and we started stacking everything up and then we took a .
We drove yeah , we drove that minivan across the country , toona , you all . But what you had originally asked too was just getting rid of everything . We sold everything . The only thing we kept is I still have a gun safe at her parents' house with some of my guns .
We have a one Costco-sized shelf in her parents' RV garage with some of our bins of just keepsakes on it . Yeah , we haven't owned a car for .
So we don't own furniture .
We don't own beds .
We just we own some clothes and some keepsakes .
Like that's really what it came down to which I think is important for your , your listeners just to hear is a lot of time . You know this type of adventure it's . It's a lot more possible than people think because we don't have a lot of things weighing us down .
You know what I mean , like bills , cars , insurance , you know all the things that Jaden's dance I mean . People often say how do you guys afford to do this ? And I'm like how do you afford to live on land , like you got to work just to survive , you know , and so yeah , so I just thought I would throw that out there .
No , it's a great point because you know I'm sitting there thinking about your home in Idaho and I'm just all that went into that , and just how much money you're spending on maintaining a home and furnishing it and having cars to run the whole minivan life and running your kids all over the place , and just how much the expenses of that and it's hard for people
to imagine not doing that . That's just what we're used to .
That's what we're wired to do , for sure .
Yeah , and you guys were able to do that , just like hey . Clothes , our boat , our family .
Yeah , we had . We had one last big garage sale at her parents' house and I remember being kind of angry seeing all of our stuff laid out on tables and knowing what we had spent on it over the years and just the amount of money that that was invested in all that stuff .
But yet how in a garage sale it's worth $2 here , a dollar there , $3 here , and just it just was a picture to me of like just how wasteful materialism is , you know , and just how we just threw all that money at this stuff .
So I look back at that and I think we've changed a lot now , obviously , living like this kind of living , simple and small , over the years , I don't think that I think we're forever changed and I think we'll .
We won't ever go back to the life that we did have , not that we won't live on land , but I think we'll always maintain some sort of level of simplicity so that we aren't so stuck .
Yeah .
It's great , it's a great lesson , great lesson that you've learned . I'm sure you've got all kinds of other lessons . I want to tap into some of those .
But I want to ask , especially that first moment like especially for you , amber , because he's already been on the boat , he got it down to Florida when you guys all get there in your minivan with the U-Haul and you get it all loaded up and you first go out to sea for the first time , what was that like ?
Well , I remember . So it was in Georgia , actually , where we went on the boat and it was cold and it was like gray skies .
We'll send them a picture for that so you can put that picture right here on the video .
Yeah , and I remember like being exciting , like it was . I was excited . I remember when I stepped onto the boat and like the first moment I like I walked into it , I was like like I smelled it and I was like , oh , it smells like a boat .
Like I remember that's like the first thing that I said , because boats can smell like boats and so I was kind of a musky , you know . Yeah that . And so it wasn't like it wasn't this , like oh my gosh , like this is our dream and like I'm stepping onto our dream .
It was just very like there was part excitement and there was part like , oh my gosh , here we go , like we're actually doing it .
Yeah , the boat . I mean it's important to say the boat wasn't the dream . The dream was getting to the Bahamas and getting to places that we've never have , you know , islands and things that we would never have gone to before .
Right , but yeah , the boat especially compared to RV life , the way I say it is it felt like a mansion in a way for us , because you know we're used to this RV where our kids shared a bunk room in the back and you can only make so big an RV for a family of six . Right , the catamaran .
You know the way that it's laid out the outdoor living space , the indoor living space , the flybridge . Up top it's just the kid . We have four bedrooms , four bathrooms , like the kids have mostly their own . Everybody had their own space for the most part . So yeah , it was a .
It was felt like an upgrade as far as space went so the goal was then to get , because it was kind of dreary and cold , and so was the goal kind of like , let's get to some warmer waters . Was that kind of where you were wanting to get ?
to , for sure , but we were . We spent what ? Three weeks a month , yeah , a month , on the dock in georgia , I mean .
And we had no heat on the boat and it was like in 30 degree temperatures there was just this cold front on the East coast and so we didn't have heat . We could see our breath in the holes . I remember our oldest was crying . She like had plugged in a curling iron , was like trying to hold onto a curling iron Cause like our kids were so cold .
And I remember thinking like what are we doing ?
Well , we didn't know what we were doing . That was the problem . And looking back now , we had no business buying a boat like this . Yeah , I mean , here we are freezing , like knowing what I know , now I could have put heat on like that , like I could have got our our . We have heat pump .
You know air conditioning units that have heat pumps in it and they weren't working . But now I know how easy of a fix it was . But it was so overwhelming to move on to a boat and then have to learn all the systems .
All of a sudden you're going from you know driving a minivan to now you're living on this thing and you've got stuff everywhere and like the toilets started leaking like immediately , like all , like , as soon as we moved on the boat .
it was like we didn't have heat , then just boat problems started happening like one after the other .
Yeah , the boat had sat for , I think , about a year because of COVID in the Bahamas . So the previous owners moved it up to the US to sell it . But when a boat sits it's like we stay out here you use it or lose it . So if you're not using stuff , that's when you're going to be fixing things . So the learning curve was just unbelievable .
It's really like the learning cliff .
Yeah , it's not just a slight curve .
It was intense . It was intense for sure .
Well , plus on top of all this , I mean your kids are school age . I mean they got to do schoolwork . I mean , was it just homeschool ? I mean they got to do schoolwork . They got you know that . I mean , was it just homeschooling type stuff they had to do ?
Yeah , I was homeschooling . But then I was like hopeful that we could do kind of an online program for our oldest and she was in high school and we knew that we wanted to kind of keep her in a track that she could graduate with a diploma . But I was but yes , homeschooling , moving onto a boat , everyone adjusting to boat life . It was a hot mess really .
Yeah , the first month and a half ish , until we sailed to the Bahamas and we saw that turquoise water . Like that's when we've got a little video of me talking to the camera right when we dropped anchor in this incredibly beautiful anchorage .
Just saying like this is why we did this , like this is why it's all worth it , because our boat is taking us places where nobody else is . It was like the aha moment .
So when you got to that point , when you dropped that anchor there for you , brandon , I mean you kind of you said it a little bit , but yeah , what was that like for you ? I mean , what was the feelings ? And then , amber , if you jump into like kind of , what was that like to finally see , oh my goodness , yeah , it was just I mean just overwhelmed .
I mean , the kids , everybody was excited to jump in the water . It's like we are 15 year old at that time , jade , and she was miserable . She had just left all her friends , like you said your daughter would be . She was miserable and there was nothing about our boat life for a month that was making it fun .
Or it's like , why are we doing this to ourselves ? But once we got to the Bahamas , like it all changed . That's when the adventure really began .
And , yeah , we started seeing , you know , sharks for the very first time of our lives and at the back
¶ First Taste of Bahamas and Turquoise Water
of our boat and all types of sea creatures that are so foreign , we're foreign to us . Yeah , absolutely , and just the sunrises and the sunsets and like fishing off the back of our boat and family dinners at our table . Yeah , just the amount of time I spent at our back table .
Think that that's like that's what fulfills my heart so much as a mom is when I feel like like we're redeeming so much of the time that I spent doing carpools and driving . It's like driving my kids to activities instead of this intentional time with our kids or adventuring with our kids .
It's like our kids were either off with their friends and doing stuff , off with activities , and we're just driving them there . There were so many aha moments for me and so like , so proud of ourselves . You know that I'm like it's not . It just takes a little bit of courage , really , um and and to to fear regret more than fear itself .
I think that we say that one of our big sayings is fear , fear , regret more than fear itself , because fear is a feeling that we can , we can get over . Right , we do it all the time . But once you get to that point where you let your fear lead to regret , it can often be too late to do anything about it that's a good point .
Yeah , the fear kind of leads to . Sometimes you're paralyzed and won't do anything because of the fear and then nothing happens and hey , might as well have a little courage and go for it , and that's why I love , love talking to people like the both of you . It's inspiring to me because it's just amazing what you're doing .
I want to hear some fun stories , maybe some good experiences that you've had as a family . Yeah , tell me a few . You talked about sharks and things like that . I'm sure you've seen some amazing wildlife . But yeah , what are a story or two you could share with me ?
The standout from our first season . For me it was just us learning how to spearfish and Jaden , our oldest daughter , got super into it and became an incredible spearfisher girl . And we were in the water one time and we were with a couple of friends and she wanted to see how far down she could dive .
We'd been really practicing our free diving and breath holds and all of that and she went down to 71 , 81 feet or 71 feet .
Yeah .
Yeah , somewhere in there . Anyway , she went down so far that you're just like what just happened , and so that was really special . And then just overall , you know , we've been to , I think , 21 or 20 different countries , you know now countries , territories combined stamps on our passport .
You know , throughout the Caribbean and as far down south as Trinidad , I mean , our kids have just experienced so many different cultures and diversity and different people and languages . And , yeah , it's just , you can't put a price tag on that .
And I think for me too , seeing , you know , for our oldest , like she sounds like your daughter , like she was in competitive dance and she had worked so hard to be at this level of traveling , which meant we were buying plane tickets and we were competing in other States and I remember the moment where I thought , like , is this all that ?
This is going to be for the rest of her high school ? Like , is this all the travel that we're going to do ? Is I'm traveling with her , he's back at home with the other kids . So I remember there was that moment that I reflected back on , and then we're always scared that you know what's it going to look like if something's taken away from our kids ?
Or for us it was looking at like , well , what is ? Jaden loved dance and she worked so hard at dance , but like , what is this going to look like for her to have it go away ? And what we saw was that she was able to be resilient and turn it into something else .
So turn her athleticism into this drive of like spear , like free diving , you know young woman , where we saw the things that she did in her athleticism just be turned and pivoted towards something else . And I think that's what's like our minds , you know , want to play it safe and we want to like it's .
It's really hard to think outside the box and but to see our daughter do these things , like she's just a natural in the ocean , and it was like , oh my gosh , like yeah , we loved watching her dance but we love seeing what she's been able to do in the ocean .
And I think the thing is like when you go out as a family and you go on spearfishing adventures and you spear the fish and then you bring the fish back , or the lobster back , and you cook it and you sit down and you , you know , say grace and you break bread together at the table of something that you caught as a family , I don't it's hard to top that .
Yeah , I mean . Here's two quick little like ocean stories that just are mind blowers . One this was just a couple months ago . We dropped anchor in this beautiful anchorage and I see these dolphins swimming around and they started getting closer and closer to our boat and Amber and Cohen our youngest jump in and these dolphins come right up to them .
Like I'm standing on the deck of the boat looking down , she's in the water and this thing's like coming right right up to her , and that was a unique experience that doesn't happen very often . You know , the dolphin was curious enough to want to come check them out .
And then the other one to highlight for me was we were in the US Virgin Islands and we were diving actually by St Thomas , where people listening might know exactly where that's at , and they've maybe flown in on the airport right there into the beautiful water . We were actually diving right next to the St Thomas airport because
¶ Spearfishing and Incredible Ocean Encounters
it drops off really deep , maybe 40 feet . I'm down underwater and my buddy's all the way on the bottom and I'm about maybe halfway down and I turn around and look up and there's this huge black shadow coming over the top of us and it takes me a second . I turn around and I realize it's this huge manta ray . I've never seen a manta ray before .
I start making all this noise in the water and I'm like I'm trying to get my buddy's attention down there , cause his has his head's turned to it . So finally he hears me and he turns around . Both of our eyes you can see through our masks . We're just like so .
We've had lots of experiences like that , where you know it's just under the water is like the last frontier man . It's crazy that just a whole different world underneath there , without even having to sing the song .
And it's like you have these really epic moments . But then you have really hard moments , and I remember first season our friend ended up getting bit by a shark and we were on a remote island .
We were a 24-hour sail from like if you would call it a hospital type of place .
Any medical care and just my background being a nurse and stuff and that's not the type of nursing like being a first responder was not something that I did . I was a labor and delivery nurse , so this is quite different , very different anatomy .
Yeah , and I remember being just so freaked out and I just knew that he needed sutures , I mean the , the row , you know , the row of teeth marks , and just how dire the situation was . And I just remember thinking like scared , like I can't do this .
But then it was like , but I have to do this and you know , a few other friends helped and it took us about three hours but ended , you know . But I ended up helping suture all of those layers back together in his arm and we were able to give him antibiotics and he was able to live to tell about it , and now he's got the sickest scar .
So stuff like that is just kind of mind blowing , just wild .
You don't have enough time for all our stories .
This is great and I love this . And that's one of the questions I had too , because I , you know , you're out there on your own , out in these places where , yeah , maybe you don't , there's not doctors available , things like that . What do you ? I mean , what do you ? How do you prepare for that ? You just kind of prepare as best you can , and that's about .
I mean , luckily you're a nurse . I think that's a huge advantage , even though , yeah , labor delivery but still full medical like run of things .
We've got an IV on board , we have yeah , like all types of stuff .
I mean , yeah , I mean I think that that's . But that's part of preparing , that's part of , you know , trying to be as prepared as you can be , and I think everyone probably should take first aid if you're going to be out here and CPR and stuff like that .
But I've personally just encountered a lot of wild things and been at the scene of things where it's like a lady went to cliff jump in one of the remote islands in the Bahamas into a blue hole and she ended up falling wrong . She shattered her hip .
I was the only medical person you know on the island for about six hours until they could get medical care to her , and so I've had to like be forced into these situations that um she's like can someone just have a baby ?
Yeah so make things a lot easier if I can just deliver a baby , yeah , but the goal I mean the whole goal of this is to be in those remote locations you know to be places where we wouldn't normally be able to go .
And so , yeah , I mean , as far as what you asked like being prepared like our boat is like we have , we live fully off solar , we live , you know , we have a whole a thousand amp hour battery bank that runs our everything , like we're everything's ran off solar and batteries , and we use very little diesel with our generator . We don't hardly run our generator .
The goal is to not have to use diesel so we can go months without needing diesel . We sail when we want to go somewhere so that we don't have to use our engines . You know what I mean . So it's like these boats are really set up for off-grid living and you realize how self-sufficient you have to be . Do you have ?
any sort of set plan of where you go , or is it just kind of ?
let's just see if we like a certain place , we'll stay here a while , what's kind of ? How do you have a plan , or do you not ? Yeah , now that we've we're we're in our fourth season , you know , almost pushing four years .
We've done it both ways , like we had a plan that the year when we went down South through all the islands , the plan was to get to Grenada , and so we just hit every Island on the way down . But then we've kind of done some flying by the seat of our pants too , you know , and just kind of figuring out where we want to be .
Sometimes we stop and we just need a break from moving a lot , and so sometimes it's just nice to live . So you kind of post up somewhere where there's access to like trash on land , you know , and good access to a grocery store and just where some of those conveniences can be around .
So yeah , we've of done it both ways , but it is difficult to plan ahead with a boat like this . It is so difficult and frustrating .
Ultimately , the weather dictates our life .
And .
I don't think I ever would have realized that as much as the reality is like the weather dictates our life . So if the wind is blowing from a certain direction , we're trying to find protection and that really dictates like where we go with our boat so that we can have the calmest anchorage living experience possible .
But a lot of times sometimes that's not the case and we have a miserable night of sleep , or miserable night of no sleep , because the boat's moving so much , and all of that .
I've had to learn a little bit more about weather than I knew in Idaho .
So my question for you now is what was the reaction from family ? Because you know , I'm sure grandparents , or you know uncles , aunts are , you know , missing their grandkids , that sort of thing . What's kind of their reaction ? Do you get to visit with them ? Do they come see you ? Sometimes Like how does this work ?
Yeah , we've had lots of visitors , of visitors . Our family , all our family has come and visited on the boat . What's so cool is when we get to share this lifestyle with them , especially the first time that they would come , like just seeing how mind blown they were by the water , by the lifestyle , by , you know , by all of it .
Obviously they get to leave and they don't have to fix anything , but that's beside the point . But yeah they , they thought I would say the rv thing kind of primed everybody a little bit for this adventure because they weren't near as surprised after we did the RV . I think that they were very freaked out freaked out and scared , I think .
I think for both of our parents . I think it was like what are you doing with your grandkids ? And I remember we even had some friends that were like are you guys just trying to do this ? Because you're trying to like chase ?
It's like you want to chase adrenaline , or you know , like did somehow we fall into this trap of like wanting to be an adrenaline junkie . And so it was like we did this and now we have to like up it and we have to do something bigger and grander . And it was like no , that wasn't it either for us . So a lot of people just didn't understand .
And then , of course , people would ask us have you ever sailed before ? Have you like ? There was a lot of negativity and questioning and fair enough , like fair enough that they asked all those questions , because when I look back I'm like , oh my gosh , like we were crazy .
Yeah , we were crazy .
Yeah .
Yeah , I think you know you look at people from the outside , looking in , and yeah , they're thinking these things and that's why I think it took that courage , because you had to have the courage to overcome that too of all the naysayers , so to speak , and well-intentioned too at times .
You know your parents , they , you know they love their grandkids , they love you guys . So they're in their minds , are probably thinking what are they doing ?
They don't know how to sail , that's going to work and that's a pain point to your point is the fact that yesterday I mean for Easter it's like we spent it with some good friends of ours and we're so thankful that we weren't all by ourselves but we weren't with family , and that's always a it's always a reminder that there is a pain point in choosing to do
this , that we do miss our family . We love when they come to visit us , but we are thousands of miles away from them .
So you've got four kids . I kind of want to know of the four kids . Yeah , let's see , you said two girls , two boys right , and twin boy and girl kind of in the middle . Was there any of them ? Because the amazing part and I have four kids as well and the amazing part is they're all different .
You know everyone's got a different personality , they all you know they're different . Was there anyone ? And it sounds like your , your daughter , really took to it your oldest daughter ? Was there one particular kid that was just like took to this adventure lifestyle ?
Well , no , it's not , it's just our , our sort of Britain . Our daughter she's , she's just a , she's an introvert , like she's very happy to just be chilling , she's happy in her room hanging out , but she really misses like land and she really likes being around her cousins and things like that .
And the idea of like going to school for her is she would love that yes . Like so . So we knew that it it's , that it's hard because you have kids , that yeah , like you said , differing personalities and so not all kids love this lifestyle however , kids love the water yeah all of that .
But we've seen her to go from when we moved onto the boat , like she was too scared to ever jump into the water and all of that , and then now to see her she's incredible at water sports . She cliff jumps , she does all these things . Now that we're like , oh my gosh , like look at how much you've grown , it's forced her to grow out of her comfort zone .
The other three are just fish Like they're .
They love the water , they love doing water sports and things , and our son , hudson , has gotten into wing foiling , you know with like a foil board , and then he holds a big wing and catches the wind , and he'll go for hours and hours , and so it's been cool to watch our kids adapt to just a completely different way of life , and I think it's taught us that
kids are way more resilient than we all give them credit to be . You know like we are all so concerned about taking them out of what we think is comfortable for them and what's the best , and really , all they really need is a couple of loving parents and a good household environment and they can deal with anything else .
And and and a community Cause we all know I think a lot of people think that you know people that take their kids and on sailboats and stuff that you're choosing kind of an isolated lifestyle and although there's isolating moments and stuff , there's just a beautiful community of families that live out here on the ocean and we find each other and we just and you
connect because you skip .
you skip a lot of the fluff . You know it's like we're not , it's not like there's no questions like what do you do ? You know , and what do you do .
You're like you're not defined by your identity , your , your identity is not defined by a lot of the things that define it on land , and so you connect really quickly with people out here and people and obviously we're like minded with a lot of people right If we're out here doing this some really great friends .
That's awesome . That's great . They have that experience . What about the close quarters , though ? Because I know , you know it's . It's great . You're all there together as a family . You're experiencing things as a family . Does it ever get too tight ? Do you ever get sick of each other ?
Are you trying to ask how we have sex ?
Okay , that's one
¶ Kids' Resilience and Growth at Sea
way to we have a door .
With a lock . So there you go . But , yeah , to your point .
Yes , living in a smaller space will magnify any issue and any relational issue that you have , either between a husband and a wife , between kids , all of that , and so , yeah , it can sometimes like , especially when the weather is really bad and we can't enjoy the ocean and we're kind of just like stuck on the boat yeah , the boat can feel really small .
However , everyone has their rooms and I think the thing is is like we just adapt and for all the hard moments that there are and kids fighting and all of that it's , there's a thousand amazing moments .
Yeah , yeah , we say the highs are high out here and the lows are low . So that's kind of how , how it seems to go yeah .
Yeah , my question was going to be more like what do you guys do for date night ? You know when you're tight there on the boat , but you kind of worded it .
Well , I wish , let me tell you Jake like .
I wish we could have more date nights , like the fact that the effort that it takes sometimes for us to get off the boat .
Actually yeah .
Get away from the boat . Actually , yeah , get away from the kids . Now they're old enough that we feel like especially our older ones like we feel like we can leave the boat . But when we first started we weren't just leaving our kids on on the boat . So in a lot of ways it was a .
It was a , it was like a boiling pot of water for our marriage , because and the RV life was like that too , where it's like all right , you just squish everyone together and a lot , a lot is exposed , you know , in that type of an environment and stuff .
But I think that that's where we've , I think that's where we've really learned to we're best friends , we're on the same team and we're all each other's got , so it's like there's no point in not not having a good relationship .
right Like , why make it miserable ? Right , I mean we're still , we're still working that out , we still live that out every day . But now that we've been doing this for a while .
Now we actually do some training with people who want to live the lifestyle , and one of the things that we tell them is that kind of have a section of things that we talk about called managing expectations and inside of that I say , if your marriage sucks on land , it's going to suck even worse on the water , because now you're adding in a sprinkle of fear
and like sudden near death situations and , like you know , and it adds a lot of extra stress .
Yeah , but then you . But then it's like a reflection , it's a , it's a mirror of , like , who you really are as a person , this whole , this whole experience .
It's like you take away all the fluff of securities that we often like there are masks and you know on land , life and stuff and you take all of that away and you strip it all down and then it's like we're out here together and I think I've been able to see myself more clearly , and then it's like we see each other and then we have a choice of leaning
in and making that relationship stronger , or choosing humility or forgiveness all the time .
You know , because we out on the boat and you think back to your life in Idaho . What do you think it's done for that relationship with your kids and with each other ?
Man so much Like that would be a whole other episode . I mean even just we just had Jaden here . She just came and visited . You know , when you messaged me she was here with us and then she had just left the other day .
And you just see these little sprinkles all the time of what our kids have learned out here , and just one of those is just the love for their family . So that's definitely one thing and then I think too , like just a practical one is they can talk to anyone .
They've been in so many uncomfortable situations and had to talk to new people and they meet friends and people are transient and some , you know you might meet a great friend and they have to leave and so they have to get to know people really fast . Even our shy , introverted daughter , like she , can talk to anyone .
Our eight year old son will literally talk to anyone . It doesn't matter what color they are , it doesn't matter if they speak English or not . Like we've met people from all over the world and we've seen strongly like how that's impacted them .
Yeah , and how they . That courage leads them too , and I think that that's what we've seen in our 19 year old daughter and the fact that she flew to Europe to do some like solo adventuring on her own at 18 .
It was like like we were super freaked out about that whole idea of it , and yet we knew that it was like okay , she's doing the same thing Like she's , she's going to kick fear and she's going to lean into courage .
And it just so happened that she met people that we had met up with , people in Switzerland and Italy and France , from people that she had met on the water here . And so it's like we have we now have a network of friendships all over the world , and we've really seen how that surrounded our kids too .
Well , and me looking at it from the outside in here , I think that helped living on the boat as a family . I think that probably helped her for this . It helped prepare her to do these adventures that she's doing .
Yeah for sure , Because I mean , our kids have seen an experience that we can do hard things . They've seen us be uncomfortable , They've seen us be frustrated . They've seen us like especially me , having to learn how to be a plumber and electrician and a captain and every other thing that's on this boat .
They've seen that we can do whatever we set our minds to . And so , yeah , it is . It's cool , it's really cool to see the and we're seeing it a lot more now that we've been out here for almost four years . We're really seeing the fruits of some of the hard stuff pay off . It's amazing .
So I know we've been chatting for a while here and we'll kind of wrap it up here pretty soon to get you guys back to your , your family there . What does the future hold ? What do you ? You want to keep doing this for so many years , do you ? What's any other plans , any other ventures ? What's your thoughts ?
We were hoping you would tell us what we're going to do next . Yeah , no , we're in an interesting spot right now because we we gave ourselves three years out here , Like that was the goal . We
¶ Looking to the Future, Helping Others
wanted to be able to do it for three years and and ironically , there's a lot of people that can't make it past like a year out here because it's not easy , Like it's really hard . Yes , the highs are really high , but those lows can be so challenging that it can just wear you down .
And so here we are , pushing into our fourth year and we're trying to figure out like , are we , are we keeping the boat ? Are we selling the boat ?
What's next and we're kind of all signs are pointing right now is we're we're really wanting to help other families do this , do it , you know , do it differently than we did it at the beginning to where it's much smoother , safer , that we wanna help people find the right boat to help save them a lot of money and time and stress and tears and all of that .
And so we're kind of taking what we've built with Everyday Saturday and we're gonna start using some of that following and things that we have to start kind of an arm of training and coaching , potentially move into being a boat broker and help people , you know , find their boats and and help them buy them and all that stuff too .
So that's kind of where we're heading , but we don't know where the boat fits in all that .
Well , it's just amazing that you're going to be able to do that because of what you've experienced and what you've learned . Who would have ever thought you know , like , how did you start ? How do you do this ?
Like how do you afford this ? You know all the questions that kind of stack up and it's and we're realizing that that we've , we have enough experience now that we can kind of give back and help people do it . You know what I mean .
We're passionate about the ocean and the Marine industry now like I don't want to put this last three , four years to waste , and so that's kind of what it's looking like is we're going to stay in it somehow .
Good for you . That's fantastic . This has been awesome . You guys have great content . I love watching your stories and your reels and things , so tell everybody where they can follow along , where they can follow your journey .
Yeah , I mean , our biggest following is on Instagram , right ? So Instagram is just underscore everyday Saturday . If you just search everyday Saturday , we'll pop up . We're also on Tik TOK and Facebook .
We've kind of moved away from long , long form YouTube , but we do have a short form YouTube videos up there and stuff like that . And we do have like a boat tour and stuff like that on YouTube , so you can go check that out as well .
Yeah , yep , for sure , wonderful . And my final question . This is a question I like to ask everybody on this show because it's an adventure podcast , so I'll take an answer from each of you . What does adventure mean to you ?
She said you were going to ask that .
Okay , you know what , like what just comes to mind initially is whatever pushes you out of your comfort zone . That's , that's what adventure is to me .
Absolutely . That's not fair . That's really good . That's yeah , I mean , that's that's what I would say too .
Yeah , Whatever takes you into doing something that you would have never done , whatever helps you conquer fear , you know , and things that we just keep you on the couch or keep you in at home , just anything like that's what I tell people too is we don't .
You don't have to buy a sailboat and sell everything to live the everyday Saturday lifestyle , Like the whole thing behind everyday Saturday is that Saturday is that one day of the week that we all look forward to because we have to do the things we love and with the people that we love . And so , yeah , everyday Saturday , man , that's adventuring .
That's adventure we all look forward to Saturday . And that's adventuring , brandon Amber . This was super fun for me . Thank you for what you're doing . Thank you for coming on Journey with Jake .
For sure , we're honored to be asked . Thank you so much .
That was such a fun conversation . A huge thank you to Amber and Brandon for coming on the show , for being vulnerable and for sharing what this incredible journey over the past four to five years has been like for your family Truly inspiring .
If you want to follow along with Brandon and Amber , check them out on Instagram at underscore everyday Saturday , and if you're curious about this lifestyle , they've been offering some great webinars on how to make it happen , so be sure to check out their page for all the details .
Thanks again , brandon and Amber , for sharing your journey with all of us , and thank you to you for tuning in and supporting the show . If you enjoyed this episode , I'd love it if you could share it with someone who might be inspired by their story and if you're feeling generous , leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world .
But honestly , I'm just grateful you're here and I hope this show is sparking a little motivation to step outside your comfort zone and embrace adventure . We've got another great episode coming your way . Next week I'll be joined by Chad Scott , a therapist who explores places with deep historical significance , many of which fall under the category of dark tourism .
It was a fascinating conversation you won't want to miss . Just remember , it's not always about the destination as it is about the journey . Take care everybody .