Starting the Sabbatical is not a Sabbatical

Dear Family and Friends,

So all of you know that we suffered a great lost on May 7, 2024 when our eldest son, Nathaniel, died in a terrible accident. Since then our world has been rocked and priorities have completely shifted. So many things that we were focusing on just didn't matter. Things that were really important to us, we just no longer had the heart to do. We decided to take this time before Atlas begins school to see the US and maybe the world. The biggest question we keep getting is "where do you live?" Brett likes to tell people that we are homeless and moving nowhere, but I like to call it a sabbatical.

Brothers on the Road

We are stopping at major cites throughout the USA. Now, in order for the city to make the list it had to meet the following criteria: 1) Have a true international airport with direct flights to other countries not including Mexico and Canada 2) Have good elementary public school rating 3) High walkability 4) Not be Florida or Texas (you can ask Brett about that one). At the end of this post I have listed all the cities we intend to visit. If you have recommendations of areas to stay in, must see sights, or must do activities please let us know. If we are coming to a city near you, we would love to meet up once we get there and if we are going to a city that you also want to visit, we would love for you to come join us. Then you won't have to read about it here.

Now before we could start on this great sabbatical there were a lot of things to be done. We had to sell the business, rent our home, and combine our 2 vehicles into one larger vehicle.

We started the process of selling our business even before we really knew we were going to be going on a sabbatical. We just knew that we did not have the drive or focus to continue to serve our employees and community the way that they needed us to. We started by reaching out to some local business owners as we wanted to keep the practice local. We had a lot of interest but ultimately sold our practice to our longest standing employee, Dr. Josh Stricklen PT, DPT, FDN. We are very pleased with this choice as this continues to keep our vision of one on one physical therapy and the clinic, we worked so hard to provide the panhandle of Florida, flourishing. With Dr, Stricklen our dream lives on and we could not be more pleased.

Emerald Coast PT Team Running Together

We then were able to rent our house to some friends in our small group, which was just such an excellent fit. Now getting the house ready to rent was an absolute nightmare. Even after 2 yard sells, 4 trips to donation centers and a trip to the dump, I still couldn't believe how much stuff I had left in my house. And here I thought I was living a minimalistic life style, haha, yea right! We were suppose to move out of our house by 3pm on Friday and didn't pull out of the driveway till 3 am on Saturday. I must give a shoutout to Liz and her cleaning team (highly recommended for those of you in the panhandle) for being so gracious with us and our very tardy schedule. But we got out of the house and headed to Alabama to spend the holidays and store all the stuff that we still had with us.

Atlas Playing as We Empty the Home

Once we finished Christmas holidays, which included a car trip to North Carolina with my side of the family and a train trip to Maine with my mother-in-love, it was time to sell the vehicles and buy a new one for our cross country road trip. By the way both North Carolina and the train were absolutely stellar adventures and so many wonderful memories! Now, as far as the new vehicle, if you know Brett you know how much he likes his gadgets and you know how he likes to have things that don't really exist yet. Which means the vehicle he wanted was being unloaded off of trucks the day that he bought it. This also means that he had to go to Indianapolis, Indiana from Birmingham, Alabama to get this vehicle. It was on the show room floor with a bow on it, because they didn't expect anybody to buy this car so soon after they got it. Even the sales team asked Brett why he wanted this particular model and he said because he had elderly parents. Meaning this vehicle is just doing the most. I refer to the car as Brett's computer on wheels. This is another thing you can ask Brett all about.

Really Really Big Family Christmas

High Noon Tea in Boston, MA

Sold the business, check, moved the remainder of our items into storage, check, combined two cars into one, check. We are ready to start our sabbatical, not check. No we are not! When I asked Brett why are we having to delay starting our trip he replied with, "Danielle, who knew it took so much time to restart your life?" So after a 2 week delay we are finally able to start our sabbatical. But hey, I'm learning that our schedule is still flexible. And honestly those 2 weeks staying with my family in Bham were just gifts. I got to see my son, Atlas, really make connections with his family and just be a part of the everyday life of the family and not just the holiday times. My mom said that my siblings spending the night at her house was not normal and that they did that for me and for that I say thank you. I so enjoyed our time together!

Thus begins our journey...

Coming to a city near you:

• Atlanta, GA

• Charlotte, NC

• Raleigh, NC

• Cary, NC

• Durham, NC

• Arlington, VA

• Alexandria, VA

• Washington, DC

• Bethesda, MD

• Baltimore, MD

• Philadelphia, PA

• Jersey City, NJ

• New York, NY (all five boroughs)

• Boston, MA

• Detroit, MI

• Chicago, IL

• Minneapolis, MN

• Denver, CO

• Provo, UT

• Salt Lake City, UT

• Las Vegas, NV

• Phoenix, AZ

• San Diego, CA

• Los Angeles, CA

• San Jose, CA

• San Francisco, CA

• Portland, OR

• Seattle, WA