A Big Exciting Life Update!

Hi friends!

It’s been so long since I last posted here on the blog and so much has changed that I thought I would come back and give a quick life update for those of you who are still out there reading this thing.

The short story : we left California and moved back to Florida (our home state).

One day, I hope to post a more in-depth blog detailing our reasons for leaving CA and the long, winding journey God led us on to bring us home, but here is a short synopsis.

In June 2024, God started speaking clearly to us about moving back to Florida. So we did everything we knew to do through Tim’s job to get back, but all doors kept closing. Finally, in July 2025 (a full year later), Tim connected with an agent overseeing an office in the panhandle area and he pushed hard to make a way for Tim to come work in his office. It hasn’t been smooth by any sense of the word, and some things are still being figured out (lots of red tape in DC), but we’re here!

Here’s a little timeline:

At the very end of August 2025, we put our house on the market and it went under contract immediately. A month later we closed.

In early October, the movers packed up all our belongings and we moved into an Airbnb just down the street from our house. (This Airbnb was also on the same street, just one block over, from the Airbnb that we landed in for a year when we first moved out to San Diego almost 6 years ago. It definitely felt like we had come full circle.) We lived there for six weeks while Tim finished his assignment in San Diego.

In mid-November (the week before Thanksgiving), we loaded an RV and drove across the country. It is still so incredibly heart-breaking to me, but we lost Duke on the drive out here. The stress of the trip and being in the RV was just too much for him and he went into heart failure. We rushed him to a vet in Arizona, but it was too late to save him. He was and will always be incredibly special to me. I have no words to explain how much I loved him and how hard it was to lose him, especially in such a traumatic way. I am still deeply grieved over his loss. He was one of a kind.

Once we got to Florida, we moved into an Airbnb in 30A and waited and prayed about what to do next. I spent many mornings walking the beach and talking to God. While living there, it became so clear that this was the area that we wanted to put down roots and call home.

In mid-December, we fell in love with a little bungalow that’s about a 5 minute walk to the beach. We wrote an offer and it was accepted. Then in mid-January, we closed on our house.

Some of the things I love about this little beach house : the location (it’s in an adorable neighborhood and an easy walk to the beach and nearby shops), it’s one level, so you can walk straight out to the backyard pool, large oak trees throughout the yard creating a cozy sense of privacy, wood planked walls and ceilings adding texture and coastal charm, high ceilings and lots of windows letting in light, and small bathrooms (never want to clean a big bathroom again). It has a garage for Tim and plenty of parking for all our teenagers and their cars. It also still needs some renovations and we’re hoping to do an addition because it’s even smaller than our CA home (which was not intentional). I’ve done renovations, but never an addition, so this will be a (hopefully) fun, learning experience for me.

This house was an Airbnb, so it came with a fully stocked kitchen, all the household furniture, linens, home decor, and a garage full of beach toys (surfboards, paddleboard, skim boards etc), bikes, and even a golf cart! I’ve spent the first few weeks painting everything white, and sorting, selling, and donating all the things we don’t need or want (which is most of it). Our own furniture is getting delivered in a week and there isn’t room for two houses worth of belongings in one tiny house!