Homestead FALLOUT + Plans come to a HAULT

All plans have come to a screeching halt because last night we were visiting some friends. On the way home, Lily got sick in the sense of just a low-grade temperature, not feeling well, grumpy, tired. It was late, so we didn't think much of it. Put her to bed. She woke up still having a low-grade temperature, like 100, but then she was talking crazy. She was talking something about Josiah and it just wasn't making sense, and we asking questions and she wasn't answering right. Though after a few minutes she kind of— she did kind of snap out of that. Mom took her to the urgent care and that's our number one priority. We were gonna make a movie today on BroBrother10, A Better Life Together, uh, actually about how they're struggling to sell their place and establish a homestead. We got an update from Rebecca. Okay, then I told BroBro about it and he actually offered help because I told him we're not going to be able to come and he's like like, we'll go, we'll get you dinner or whatever. We'll bring you stuff to the hospital. So I'm gonna ask them if she can come and sit with Rebecca. Call Rebecca.

Calling Rebecca.

I'm gonna get where she is and text Beau. Just got an update from Rebecca. Got the name of the urgent care. Put in a word to Beau to see if Kelly would go over and sit with her. Rebecca says they're about to be seen She says Lily says she feels better. Got a text from Beau. They are gonna be able to send Kelly over. It's just a little nerve-wracking because one, it's your child. You don't know what's going on and You're in a strange place. I think it's gonna be all right. I'm nervous that there could be something. Most of me thinks there's not gonna be anything. I may be emotional because we are getting some help. We have some community. If Beau came through for us, I'll tell you, I was nervous they wouldn't be able to. Beau reached out and said, is there anything we can do for you? I didn't ask. And I've had people do that before and then you call them on it and nothing, and then it's like, oh, oh, we can't do that. So, I'm proud and I'm happy for that moment and that's what this community has because actually we met Beau through this. He was a vlog fan and now a friend that we haven't even met in person and yet his wife is gonna come sit with my wife at the hospital. The community is real. So I appreciate that. I love you guys for that. I know you're gonna have wonderful, kind comments. And it really helps us. It really does. It's really encouraging.

Thank you.

Rebecca just got the doctor's first thought. Thinks, and first thought, it may be the flu. So, although the flu's bad, it's not serious. Okay, more info from the doctor. Yes!

Fever, confusion could be normal.

She's got like like a kinked neck too, he said. Not concerned. Okay, we're gonna call off Kelly. We know where your heart was, Beau and Kelly. Rebecca's checking out now. I guess they did the flu test. She doesn't have the flu, so— Hey, what do they think it is? They just think it's a viral thing. Just a viral thing.

She's looking better. Like, she was looking really crazy.

Look who's back. Lily, you look a lot better. Yeah. She's starting to move around a little bit.

I guess, I don't know.

Scared me though.

Lily, let's take off your clothes.

Look at her, look at her, Justin. Oh my, she's climbing the bus now. That's a good sign.

I'm making some tea for Lily. She requested it and I'm just feeling really thankful that she's okay. It was just really scary. I feel like every overreacted. I feel like I— made a bigger deal out of it than what it was. But sometimes a mom just needs to take her kid to the doctor to make sure that everything's okay.

Video bomb here. No, you were being a good mom. You were being a good mom. Bless your— bless your heart. And I overreacted too. Oh, you certainly fed off of Mom. But you did good.

You stepped it up.

You helped get everybody ready. You packed the water. Good boy.

It was just, yeah.

I couldn't let you bash yourself like that. I couldn't let you be down on yourself like that.

I just, now that like she's feeling better, I'm like—

You bring her home and she's climbing on the beds.

I know, now she's like, she's fine. She's just in the bed watching iPad. Unfortunately, Josiah has come down with it, which is a big bummer because his birthday is tomorrow. So— Gotta get him better.

I'm working hard at getting him better.

So apparently we just have this little It's not the flu. We just have like a little viral bug that's causing a fever, and I just hope that we can keep Gideon from getting it. Which like, yeah, right, that's gonna happen, but um, I just don't want Josiah's birthday to be remembered as the great Houston sickness.

Alright, come on guys. Come on. Alright, with Lily and Josiah sick but not too crazy sick, you know I have a meetup today. So I'm just gonna go to that with these guys and Rebecca's gonna stay back with the kids. Also, I've asked Beau to go a little bit early, so we are gonna capture Beau's story after all. It's a good one. It's not necessarily a happy one, but it's— the struggle is real.

Hey, how you doing? Okay, good to finally meet you.

Yeah, you too. How are you?

How is she? Is she okay?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, she's okay. Let's get you a spot so I can set this down. Hi, Kelly.

Hey, how's it going?

Hey, good to see you.

I'm so sorry you guys aren't feeling super great.

That's okay. Well, it is all your fault, you know.

You know, it's what we do in Texas.

We just mess you up with barbecue and vinegars.

Yeah, well, Houston will mess you up with barbecue and vinegars.

Okay, so we're sick. In a foreign city. Yes. And that's a little creepy, you know, and we're road weary.

Yes, I know.

And if we were at home, Grandma could come or such-and-such friend, but you guys reached out and you said, you know, we'll do anything. We'll bring you, we'll bring you dinner to the hospital or whatever.

We were in the car.

They were in the car.

We were ready to go.

You had to get dressed. I'm sorry. It's probably one of those days where you're gonna be in the pajamas till you came to the meeting.

She was even, she was like, everything's dirty, so the only thing I can wear is pants that you have to wear heels.

It was.

She like had heels on every day.

No, they're like my style heels. They're like comfy, sensible, probably grandmother heels, but they were good.

Okay, better together life. I had mentioned it earlier, we were wanting to go to your house and tell your sad story. Wipe the smiles off your face, okay? Because— but you're a typical story because what's happening? Tell everybody what's happening with you guys.

Yeah, so we, we started this adventure to be able to get on our homestead about probably, you know, a year ago at least. We bought our property 2 years ago. Y'all ready for a tour of our future homestead? You guys, I've waited so long to be able to do this very simple video, to be able to give you a tour of our 7 acres here. In Texas. I have to thank my beautiful bride for allowing me to do this on a Tuesday, for her to be able to take the kids so that I can come up here and show y'all around. And we, we were like, we're gonna move in May of 2017. Well, uh, we were blessed to have a little baby that was born May of 2017.

Yeah, that vision was before Finn.

Yeah, and then the next thing was Okay, we're gonna do it fall of 2017. Well, we got our house on the market in October and just with, you know, things that you don't know of until you go through the process of trying to sell your house. Yeah, we have some, some extra repairs for, for our suburban house here in the Houston area, and we're having to, because of the holidays, we're having to put it on hold. Until our, you know, having to put it on hold until probably maybe March of 2018 to where we can put it back on the market. Just with, just with all some, some bigger repairs that we did not know that we needed, and then some nitty-gritty repairs of like, hey, we're gonna wait for the big one, might as well let's just get everything ready for that.

So how frustrating is that from a scale, on a scale of 1 to 10?

Gosh, so this is the text. That I get from Beau yesterday. You know, all married couples that are good at marriage have those times where you're like, man, we're just gonna grunt this out and have an argument, and then we're gonna respect the way that each of us needs to mend from that. So yesterday was unusual, and Beau totally took a page from my book, which is I just need to end this and I need some space, and he never does that. So that was frustrating for him in a way that I think isn't normal. I would say in And today's our anniversary, so in 9 years of marriage, Beau has never ended a conversation and just needed space. Wow, that's how frustrating this is, is he needed to just go be alone, and then I get a text that says, I'm feeling so sad and so angry all at once. And that's what it is, it's sad and angry and disappointed and angry. Yeah, so then we trade. You need to be sad and angry and then I need to be hopeful and eager and see what this can still be.

Yeah, and you know, one of the things that's, that's, that's really tough is we've been telling our kids we're moving to the land for, you know, the last like heavy 6 months and saying we're going to be having Christmas on our property. Now that's not happening and they don't they don't fully get it yet, I think they're understanding. And I think that's the biggest thing that we've learned, especially this last, you know, week. And I just, I just clicked to the fact that we have been living for this for the last year. And we really, for the last 6 months definitely, we've been putting everything off in life, just saying, hey, we'll be doing all the homeschool stuff once we're on our property. We'll be having all the family time. When we're on our property. And we've had— in that, we've made sacrifices from our kids and our family of like going out to eat, eating bad food, watching, watching too many shows on the iPad just so that we can clean our house, so that we can have 40 showings in, in like 3 days of not even being able to live in our house. And all that for nothing. And knowing that that we don't have tomorrow, you know, that we need to live life with our kids and just be here with our family now. That, you know, that God has given us just the amazing blessings here right now and that there's no need to put it off for this homestead thing.

Yeah, so to remember that the homestead doesn't define us or hold identity in that is the most powerful thing to regain perspective here. Because if we are only living for the homestead, then this would crash us. This would say, then who am I and what am I doing in life? And I think for about 5 minutes that's how I felt, and then just realized, no, this is still an endgame goal, this is still futuristic vision, but there is also here and now with littles that need love and attention right where they are and need to be able to get paint on their clothes and run around the house and adventure in your neighborhood. And we can be no less of a family here than we can be on the homestead. I think that there's certainly— if everything's arbitrary, then this is super depressing. But if there's, there's reason for staying where we are right now in a Houston suburb for a little bit longer, then I don't want to waste the time that we have here. Yeah, so that would be sad if to live your life other than that.

But it's not over. We're not giving up. We even thought about that, of like, okay, should we just— should we just sell the property and just be done with it and just say, hey, let's just— let's just raise rabbits here in suburbia and just give in? And my response was no.

Yeah, no.

It was like this— Kelly actually said that this moment of— because this is a hard thing. We were ready We had offers, you know, we went into like the closing time of this and it got pulled away from us. So this was a big rug pulled out from underneath our feet that, that it's hit us really hard. And Kelly said exactly this, I'll never forget it, that this moment is going to define us of whether or not we're just gonna quit or whether or not we're going to continue and push through, get the house fixed up and spring of 2018 we'll go ahead and try to get on our property again.

So if people want to follow your journey, where do they go?

Yeah, so we are just, you know, on YouTube as Better Together Life. Better Together Life is— we're both self-employed, so we're able to really homestead and just be at home every single day of our life. So that's why our family is better together.

Okay, good. Yeah, thank you.

You bet. Houston, here we are, and they're very excited.

Are you guys excited? Come on now. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I think Austin was louder. No.