Our Story

Life is our all-you-can-experience buffet and we are gluttons for great adventure!

We are an American family of seven, lovers of spicy food and the great outdoors, challengers of the status quo, and seekers of a meaningful, authentic lifestyle. Together we’ve lived in Utah, China, California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and now Malaysia. Though we’re fiercely loyal to our native land, the rest of the world has been calling to us for quite some time.

Our Story

All the degrees we’ve earned and jobs we’ve worked for the past 15 years were pursued with the hope and goal of moving our family abroad (China was a one-year stint before the kids stored long-term memories—doesn’t count, ha!). However, no international assignments ever panned out, despite our best efforts.

In autumn 2016, quite out-of-the-blue (and while feeling considerably blue that day), an epiphany struck that it was time to carpe some diem—no more excuses. We can make this happen on our own! It was time for us to quit our jobs, leave behind our very comfortable suburban lives, and take a massive leap of faith to relocate our family abroad. 

We'd dreamed of doing this for so long, loving all that new horizons can teach us and our children. We want to show them how valuable it is to learn from people with completely different and equally valid life experiences as ours (eg religion, culture, language, lifestyle, etc.). We realized that as our kids grow and develop more of their own opinions, it won't get any easier to persuade them to forsake their current lives for the unknown. There would never be a better time to go than now.

After some minimal brainstorming, we selected Penang, Malaysia, as our new home. The local food, natural environment, English-speakers, cultural diversity, proximity to other awesome places, and balance between cost-of-living and standard-of-living solidified Penang as our top choice. We plan to live here for a year (March 2017-2018) and then re-evaluate.

Our Year-long Experiment

This year will be an experiment of varied forms. We’re testing our long-held hypothesis that international living is exciting, stimulating, educational, and fulfilling enough to justify the frustration and discouragement of living outside our comfort zones. We’re also testing our theory that our lives here will be more simple and minimal, both in terms of material goods and scheduling, and that we’ll be happier for it. And of course, moving here with no job or job prospect is a grand experiment testing our determination (among other things) to build our dream job from scratch.

Worst case scenario, we return home with empty pocketbooks but lots of wild and delightful stories to tell (and lessons learned, of course). The best case scenario could take many forms, so let’s just say that this year we plan to do everything in our power to create the life we were born to live, then hope and pray for the very best!

Read our short family bios.