From the Beginning.....

Good Morning everyone. I have decided that I am going to go back and start at the beginning. I think it will help you all understand some of the reasoning behind our decision to live off the grid. I would love to answer any questions and read any comments so please feel free to join in  :)

When my husband, John, and I got married in 2002 we combined our families to create one. Newly married we joined our three sons together to be one big happy family.... yeah right! We soon learned that a 16 and an 18 year old had absolutely nothing in common with a 7 year old. So we sat down and had a heart to heart. John and I decided that if we were going to have more children we would make it so that one of us was at home at all times. In doing so we felt that our children would have an easier time adjusting to a larger family. Of course we thought that we would have more time to make that adjustment.... Boy was I wrong!! We welcomed a fourth son in the same year we married and a short 15 months after that our fifth child and only daughter.

During those first two years we struggled with the adjustment of five children, back injury, blood clots, depression and anxiety and of course the idea that in order to stay home with our kids, one of us was going to have to give up our job at the hospital. As it turns out we both gave up our jobs, not because we wanted to, but because we felt the need to steer away from the stress it was putting on our family.

My husband began to do construction again and I became a stay-at-home mom. During these two years we moved several times, in and out of my mother-in-laws house, in and out of rentals. I was sick of all the moving and the drama, so we decided it was time to make the change we had always talked about.

We made our first major purchase as a married couple: 18 acres of land. We put a down payment on the piece of land that John had wanted since boyhood. To me it was nothing but rolling hills of red brush, blackberry brambles and rattle snakes, but to John it was perfect.