We choose hard. But the truth is that when you choose hard, you have a bigger reward! And in our family it has been proven again and again. Our marriage started out with infertility struggles from the start. With just one pregnancy and loss in 2.5 years of fertility treatments we chose the adoption road. Within two weeks of our adoption profile going live we were talking to four expectant moms. It was so unexpected, it was just WILD! Two chose us and when we asked if they were ok with us saying yes to both of them, to our surprise, they said YES! So our oldest two kids, Ruby and Augie are just 10 weeks apart in age with incredible open adoptions. We aim to see their birth parents at least once a year on our travels!
We then decided that we should then give the natural stuff a try after 2.5 years of western medicine (figuring it might take a while) and got pregnant with our daughter Alice when Augie was just 6 months old! So ya, we had three kids in eighteen months enter our family and while difficult, it was SO worth while.
Our Big Move
When Alice turned 3 the fog of those early years of little sleep and lots of emotions lifted and I thought.. Why do we still live here (in Utah) when Grandparents are so far away? I miss the trees, let’s move back to NH where I’m from! But as it goes with me, nothing is ever that simple and we launched into a full home renovation of a 3,200 sqft house that I decided to DIY, and don’t worry.. We had never done anything like this before, but WHY NOT?? It was humbling, but we pushed through!! We had friends and family help and after 4 months learning everything from sheetrock, mudding, tiling and cabinet install, it was completed in 4 months and by 6 months post-move-decision we were on our way to NH! We set out on an incredible road trip covering 5,000 miles and 7 national parks with two five year old’s and a three yr old and we had the time of our lives! We had no idea then that this trip was a foreshadow of what was to come. We landed in NH with big plans for our new home.. but it was 2019.
Things Start To Get Crazy
Six months after landing in NH covid hit and by 2021 our family was falling apart. Naomi was sick and Dr.’s had no answers. Exhaustion, wild anger, rashes, migraines, food allergies, memory loss, asthma, Lyme Disease, Shingles, joint pain…it’s a long list. It almost broke our marriage but we didn’t give up on each other. We knew we needed something drastic to recalibrate our family and marriage.
I had dabbled in full-time RV life info a couple years before with that big move and now wanted tiny living as a reset but it was a hard sell for Barry. The memory of our family roadtrip a couple years prior though gave us hope. If our family was that happy once, we knew we could be again. In the end we bought a TINY trailer that was 120 sqft that we could tow with our Ford Flex 4500 lb towing capacity to keep our costs low and we made plans to hit the road!
But I was still getting sicker and packing our house and getting ready to launch was an exhausting effort. If I picked up and moved a box I would have to nap to recover before starting on another, so I started just taping boxes and leaving them for Barry and kept going, determined to achieve our family goal. After renovating a 3,200 sqft house and packing a house in four months just 2 years before, It took me six months just to pack at this pace. By now I had tried two Dr’s, one was even a functional medicine practitioner with no answers. So being the stubborn person that I am I sought treatment with no diagnosis. I knew of Ozone to help ones immune system and mine was tanked. So I found a local office that offered it..
Mold – Naomi’s story
The office clerk said “instead of meeting with one of our nurses for a script I really think you should meet with one of our Dr.’s I think they can help you with this list of symptoms.. “Yeah, sure”.. doubt it.. Going into the appointment I had zero confidence in anyone finding any answers for me but figured I mine as well try.
The young Dr that came online was practically giddy when he got on the call and he opened with: “I’m pretty sure I know what’s wrong with you but I want to hear you entire life health history before I tell you.” He patiently waited to hear all the little and big challenges I’d had with my health over my then 35 years and as soon as I was finished he said. “Mold. There’s mold in your house and you need to hire someone to find it. We can start treating you today and run the tests we need to but I’m 95% sure this is what’s going on.”
That young Dr. saved my life. No exaggeration. In that moment I couldn’t believe what I was hearing(mold does this to people??) but I was SO hoping he was right because that meant we could FIX IT!
Well, he was right. It was a whirlwind couple months after that of packing and scheduling and we were going to be renting our house while we did our epic 1 year trip! We got lucky. That happens to us a lot. Luck, and good hearted people. The inspector we wanted, the best around, had a cancellation or it was going to be 2 months, but instead it was just a couple weeks! The remediation company had guys come do our job on a Saturday since they didn’t have room in their schedule and we had a tenant waiting to move in! We were very fortunate that our mold issue was actually a pretty easy one. It was in our basement in a utility room and though I slept two stories up and almost never went in the basement, it didn’t matter. The spores carry all through the house and if you can’t make antibodies to mold, like me, you just get sicker and sicker while your body continually shoves it in a corner hoping it will just go away. While it doesn’t just go away, the good news is there is treatment to go find mycotoxin in its dark corners, and as we set out on the road in our tiny RV, our healing journey really truly began. That of my physical healing and the emotional healing now needed for our family that was nearly torn apart.
So.. What next?
As you could guess by our family’s passion for travel and in sharing our story, our epic one year trip is ongoing! At the time of this writing we are starting our 4th year of full-time travel with no plans to stop.
Our reality now is that 85% of buildings in the USA contain mold. Grocery stores, museums, homes, hotels and we were presented with a choice: Live in our remediated house and order our groceries in, be afraid to be in any building or friend’s house for too long, and absolutely forget ever traveling again..
Or: Choose Adventure.
I am sure you can guess which we chose. Is it the safer option? Maybe not. But option one sounds like a living death to me and life isn’t worth living if you can’t enjoy this incredible world and all it has to offer, not to mention a childhood for our children. So, we travel, but not without some concessions.
We mostly travel the USA in our motorhome that we diligently keep mold free. We spend as much time outdoors as possible and pick and choose our exposures. So yes, we will travel abroad for a period and risk exposure. But we will come home and detox if needed and recover. We hope that won’t always be the case and are always thinking of creative ways to travel and testing new avenues for safe travel (self built van tour of EU anyone??)!
We share our lifestyle on Social Media to encourage mold affected families to keep living and to encourage all families to choose adventure and togetherness over fear, and live life on their terms. And we are here to tell you that if something looks really great but it also might be really hard.. you just might have something truly magical waiting on the other side.. so maybe consider it..jump in.. And Choose Adventure..
Thank you for supporting our family by being here and we look forward to seeing YOUR adventures! Tag us in your adventures, big and small so we can cheer you on, and maybe we will see you out there!!
-Naomi and Fam
@alittlewildalotfree
(Questions? DM us anytime!)