It's not a vacation. It's just not. Adapting to life in a new country is not easy. You have to learn a whole new way of life. Even if it's little adjustments you still have to make little adjustments in every aspect of life. That's not to say that it hasn't been great. It has. But that's life: there are ups and downs. There are unexpected surprises both good and bad. However, we are learning to trust the process and trust God through it. It seems so easy but it's very challenging. Life is crazy. 

We've been having a lot of conversation about marriage lately so we decided to continue that conversation in front of you. We recently went to a marriage retreat so it has sparked a lot of interesting conversation between us. Why do marriages fail or succeed? What are the little details of the relationship that add up to a lot over time? This is a direction we are thinking of taking a more focused approach with. We want to speak with other couples about how they successfully navigate marriage and life. Marriage is not something anyone tries to teach you how to do. You get married and everyone just says good luck. Maybe we can change all that.

Jenna had a bout with depression a few years ago which led her to the doctor which, in turn, led to a Hashimoto's diagnosis. Unknowingly, many, many women suffer from Hashimoto's disease. It's a thyroid disorder. We talk about how it all happened. It affected our family which we'll discuss. Jenna is thankfully on the other side of it now and she will talk about handling that as well. 

About 15 months ago our daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia. We started noticing she had difficulty reading in kindergarten and as she went into first grade things still weren't clicking. We wanted to help her and she wanted answers to why she was having trouble. Her diagnosis was actually a relief to her because she wanted to read and now she had a reason why she was having difficulties. She's made a TON of progress since her diagnosis. We've made adjustments in our homeschooling to accommodate her dyslexia and that's made a huge difference. 

Anxiety and stress are inescapable in life. But don't feel hopeless. There are many things you can do to reduce it right from your own home. In this episode we will give you our top ways to reduce anxiety. We bet if you just adopt one of the ways it'll make a difference.

Don't let the topic fool you. This isn't a trivial thing. Having people feel welcomed into your home can be a tricky thing, especially when it's adults and kids. No one teaches you this stuff. You have to figure it out on your own. It's one of those "adulting" things that just happens to you. The reason all of this is important to us is because we want people to feel better after they leave our house. We don't know what people are going through when they walk into our home and we want to create an environment where they feel loved. A little bit of love goes a long way. If they feel loved they might even open up to us if necessary. You can't touch people's lives if they don't feel loved so having them feel welcome in your home is a great place to start. 

It's exactly what the title says. These four food groups are ones we try to avoid on a regular basis. It's not to say that we never eat them, but we try to limit them as much as we can. I'll bet you know at least two but maybe not the why in great detail. Jenna lives for this stuff so she's going to spell it all out for you. Plus, look for the doTERRA product spotlight in the middle of the episode for the oil blend to help ward off sugar cravings.   

Valentine's Day episode! At least it's our version of a Valentine's Day episode. What says Valentine's Day more than why we work together? We open the show by talking about what I did for Jenna for Valentine's Day and our busy weekend with Emmy's birthday party. Then we get into why we work together. We believe that we can enhance each other's abilities by working together, accomplishing more. When adversity hits, who has your back more than your spouse? Plus, building/creating something together is a beautiful thing. It's not all rainbows and unicorns though. We've had some issues working together along the way. BUT we're still doing it all these years later! Enjoy the show! 

We're still on the experimental rocket ship! We open the with me hoping that catches on. Maybe the feral cat is around? We switch gears to talking about how a major life occurrence takes place in our lives about every year or so. We share a quote that speaks to a very broad philosophy on how we can better get along with each other. Then we take you on a little ride of why we homeschool and how we go about doing it.

Take 2! After a disastrous technical go-around recording this episode a first time, we settle in a second time to do it. We start off the episode talking about using two different types of non-mechanical coffee makers. We've just got a new one! A little bit of simplicity in life goes a long way.

The main focus of the episode is how we got started working together and got started with our dōTERRA network marketing business. We get into some of our philosophy surrounding creating a life you want. We also touch on how to know when and who to accept advice from. If you're getting ready to start something new or even just thinking about it, you'll want to check this one out!