Together Outdoors

Hi! We are glad you are here! We are a family of four in southern California trying to love each other well as we live into the hard, the good and the everything in between of life.

After a year plus of analyzing and planning, we purchased a Mercedes 4x4 Sprinter Van in May 2023. Over the previous year we had been sensing the desire to resist the hustle. Even with kids not in school yet, we felt the pace was too fast and too much. We wanted to slow down, to wonder, to explore, and our girls (ages 4 and 2 at the time) happened to be the most excellent teachers in this area. And the van quite literally became an excellent vehicle by which to do this.

As soon as we purchased the van, we enter the summer season. For our first summer with the van, we explored four national parks (Hot Springs, Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton, & Yosemite), spent extended time with dear friends in Salt Lake City, Utah, attended a family reunion in Telluride, Colorado, and enjoyed 40 days in Northwest Arkansas with more extended family. After those initial three months on the road, we knew exploring with our van was something we wanted to make a priority.

With our girls the ages they are, we have the benefit of not yet competing with all the school, social, & sports commitments. We have their undivided attention for a few VERY short years and want to make the most of them. While thinking about how we wanted to experience these years, the van and where we could go explore with our girls got us the most excited.

In our year+ of analyzing all our van options, it was actually another person’s blog post about how they sleep in a van with their 2 children that was my turning point for saying “yes” to the van purchase. Before seeing that post, I was hung up on where our girls would sleep night after night—and this truly was my main roadblock in moving forward with the van purchase. I needed to see what it looked like on a practical level—not the posed/photoshopped images of a dream-van setup. I needed someone else a few steps ahead to provide a vision for the possibilities. This experience of seeing that helpful post was a prime motivator for starting my own blog. My hope is that some tip or experience will spark your own vision for the outdoors with your loved ones. My husband (Kyle) and I are learning (and unlearning and relearning, and unlearning and relearning again and again) as we go. While a beautifully curated van blog is so dreamy, this is not our reality. We are in a season of exploring with two young children. We make it work in the van, but it is not always pretty (the amount of dirt and sand we track into our van alone negates our ability to produce swoon-worthy photos). Our desire is to show the highlights, lowlights and everything in between while traveling as a family of four in a 19ft van.

We feel most at home outdoors together, and are thrilled to (hopefully) pass this love of and tethering to the outdoors onto our girls, Monet and Indy. Wherever you are—may you find inspiration and perhaps some motivation to get into the wild outdoors with those who mean the most to you.