June is here! We thought we would take this month to pause and tell you a little bit about us, the founders of the blog. If you have read our “About us” page you know that we founded this page with the idea that sharing what we explore and learn will inspire others to get out and explore as well. There are unique challenges in the military lifestyle. Oftentimes the active duty spouse is gone for training, school and deployment. As the Blue Star Family survey showed in 2017, 46% military families report the obstacle to financial health within the family due to the non-service member spouse’s under or unemployment. Oftentimes the combination of lack of funding and stresses of time apart lead to the military families left behind not exploring or going out to adventure and thus not living like a local. We want to change that. We share our tips for saving money while adventuring, and ways to maximize the money you do spend on family adventures – creating resilience and strength among military families!
This is us.
Sarah loves hiking and finding new playgrounds to explore. She works remotely as a CPA during naps and after the kids go to bed at night. Sarah has been incredibly blessed to find amazing friends on this journey through military life, and enjoys hosting friends and feeding them whenever possible. Someday she’ll get through that stack of books on her nightstand, and clean out the 457,287,961 emails sitting in her inbox, but for now she’s enjoying being a mom and exploring where the military sends her family. Her favorite money-saving tip for book lovers is to use the base and area libraries, including their online platforms to read books on Kindle for free!
Heather is our resident Disney expert having traveled to 4 Disney parks around the world – which she credits her ability to do so to the military thanks to moving her around the world ! Professionally, she is trained in healthcare and recognizes that support comes in all forms – including the written word and and getting out of the house for a milmomadventure with the kids and momsquad! While she does love an adventure, she also enjoys finding a good deal and often shares the coupon/app deals with friends to make sure they get it too. She enjoys reading – currently reading about 10 children books a day with her littles- and is a fan of any work-out she can fit in between meal planning, laundry, naps and well, life!
Ashley loves museums, yoga, and trying local foods. Anytime there is a new location due to military moves or self motivated travel, Ashley can be found searching the regional museums listings while cross referencing on the map where the good ice cream parlors are. Like many military spouses she wears a lot of hats: mom, nurse, Netflix addict, foodie, nap time workout enthusiast, and most recently blogger. My favorite tip for adventurous spouses is check your local community college listings for free or low cost classes to meet locals in the community and learn new skills.
We are women, learning and adjusting our expectations for the reality of life during this stage of life. We are mothers. We have been up all night with cranky babies, juggled the workouts with nap times and persevered through what sometimes feels like Groundhog Day. We are military spouses. We have dealt with underemployment, unemployment, training schedules, late nights, deployments and changes in PCS orders. And there is still a lot more learning and adventuring to do and share!
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