The Bucket List Family : Learning to Live with Less
Our little family started when I met Jessica in a flower shop in Vladivostok, Russia where we both were serving as missionaries for our church. I was 19 at the time. We later returned home to the U.S. and eventually got married in our early 20s and now have 2 children, Dorothy and Manilla. Currently, we are living in Provo, Utah where I’m a student athlete at BYU.
As a Freshman back in 2011, I had created an app, Scan, that did very well for us financially. I dropped out after my Sophomore year and moved to San Francisco to focus more on Scan but missed playing with the BYU Soccer team so I dropped back in ;) Now, this August (2015) I will finish my 4th and final year with the soccer team. I’ve decided at that time I’ll continue my education outside of formal schooling and drop out (again).
Now, here we are. We’re a young family trying to figure out the next chapter of our lives. Scan blessed our lives with more money than we imagined and soccer/school is coming to an end. So now what? Time to grow up? Buy a house? Make investments? Join the PTA? Buy a guinea pig?
Right now, most young families around us are happily purchasing homes, settling into careers, and just busy being successful. That doesn’t feel right for us. We feel like there’s still a lot to learn about life before we can grow up properly. We still have too many questions like, where do we want to raise our children? How big or small should our house be? How can we help our children be most happy? Healthy? Religion? Schooling? Personally, I believe our opinions and perspectives are strongly influenced by our surroundings and it seems the best way to expand our perspectives is to expand our surroundings!
As a family, we’re very grateful that Scan has afforded us the financial freedom to introspectively evaluate life. Together, we created a plan that will keep us from getting too comfortable or buying things just because we can. We want to focus more on memories and less on things. We want to expose ourselves to how people in other cultures seek happiness and joy.
So here’s our plan : This Summer, we are going to sell our apartment, cars, and all our belongings and set out for an adventure around the world! (CHECK OUR ONLINE YARD SALE HERE) As a family, we have began listing different destinations, skills, and other adventures that will help us learn more about life and happiness. We’ve began to compile everything into our own special family bucket list : thebucketlistfamily.com
We hope to form healthy habits and create traditions that will help shape us into better people the rest of our lives. We have special goals behind each of our bucket list adventures :
In August we will depart for Tahiti, then Cuba, Hawaii, Tonga, New Zealand and onward.. We’re keeping our plans as flexible and possible as to not restrict any unplanned adventures that come our way. Most every destination will be our first visit, so if you’re familiar with any of these places we’d love you to send recommendations or travel advice our way! Favorite restaurants? Family in need of help or service? Secret beach? Must experience excursion? Best spot to bury treasure? Anything and everything! We’d love to hear from you!! thebucketlistfamily@gmail.com
There’s a crazy amount of unknown in our future. Not too much..just a lot. I’m not really sure what will come of these bucket list adventures, but every time I’ve stepped outside my comfort zone in the past the result has been something remarkable.
So here we go :)
I’ve created a blog, Instagram, and a YouTube channel for anyone to join our adventures and follow along. I’ve always kept a very tedious journal and it’s fun to share special bits and pieces out to the world. At most, this could become a fun way to share our stories with the world. At the least, we will always have these treasured memories for our own personal keepsake.
Here’s our new blog and some other goodness :
Blog : Travel log and bucket list : The Bucket List Family Blog
Instagram : Almost daily posts : The Bucket List Family on Instagram
YouTube : Weekly vlog updates and short videos of our adventures : The Bucket List Family on YouTube
Online Family Yard Sale : https://medium.com/@garrettgee/the-bucket-list-family-dc4672942ae5
Contact information : thebucketlistfamily@gmail.com
Thank you for visiting my blog. If my amatuer writing skills haven’t effectively communicated the amount of incredible the world has to offer to each of our lives through family, travel, and adventure..well..then..you can just watch these 3 movies and they’ll take it from here :)
Sincerely,
