Podcast Drop Date: 10/23/2024
In the latest episode of the Functional Medicine Foundations podcast, host Amber Warren sits down with adventurous couple Brandon and Amber Morse, with Everyday Saturday, who share their inspiring journey from a conventional lifestyle to living on a sailing catamaran with their family. In 2020, they made the bold decision to leave their jobs, sell their possessions, and set off on an incredible voyage that has taken them over 15,000 nautical miles across 20 countries. Their story highlights the importance of prioritizing freedom, family, and enriching experiences over material wealth. Along the way, they faced challenges like learning to sail and nurturing relationships, but these obstacles have led to significant personal and familial growth. The couple encourages listeners to break free from the confines of routine and pursue more intentional and meaningful experiences in their own lives.
Transcript:
Amber Warren, PA-C: Welcome to the Functional Medicine Foundations podcast, where we explore root cause medicine, engage in conversation with functional and integrative medicine experts, and build community with like minded health seekers. I'm your host, Amber Warren. Let's dig deeper. Welcome back everybody. I'm here with Amber and Brandon Morse with everyday. Saturday Brandon and Amber are the adventurous couple behind Everyday Saturday in 2020. They left their conventional jobs, packed up their four kids and set off on a life changing journey after year exploring the US on the road in an RV. They sold everything and transitioned to life on the ocean on their sailing catamaran. Over the last three years, they've sailed over 15,000 nautical miles to 20 different countries. Now they inspire thousands to live life differently. Embracing freedom, family and experiences over things follow their journey on all the social channels at Everyday Saturday. That last sentence almost made me tear up. It's such an emotional grabber like I love it so much.
Brandon Morse : You can blame AI for that.
Amber Warren, PA-C: That's awesome. Um, so we're talking a little bit offline. How this is a first for us. This is our first kind of nontraditional medicine conversation. And I am thrilled about it because I think people are so eager to hear different stories, um, just different experiences, different ways to do things, live life differently. And we'll talk about this, but like, question everything, right?
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So I tell your story, like what inspired you to do this amazing adventure?
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : We started questioning everything I love it. Boom. Do you want to go ahead? Yeah. I mean, we could all.
Amber Morse: You know, name a nasty virus that kind of turned our world upside down, right? And I think that that was just the beginning of I worked in healthcare as a nurse, and, um, he was just feeling like what's next for him? And it just made us have time and space to think, like, what are we doing? And yeah, my days were super busy working, working mom on the days that I was working. And then on the days off, I was in every carpool Imaginable. Yeah. And I was just in the car for hours driving my kids around, and I kind of just started to think like this. Is this all this is going to? It kind of feels like Groundhog Day. Yeah. Right.
Brandon Morse : Yeah. And I was working at a church, a local church, as you know, and I was just in full burnout mode. You know, just when you work with people full time, it's like giving yourself the whole time. And so I was, I was I needed a break. And so we were actually sitting around a campfire up at Ponderosa State Park. We were camping and we just kind of we took it was an extended camping trip. We had this like extended time off, and it was really cool because we got to like, disconnect completely and kind of start dreaming a little bit. And we just asked the question like, what if? Like, what if we just took off in our RV, rented our house out, you know, and.
Amber Morse: We could just travel with our kids? And how old were your kids at the time?
Brandon Morse : Cohen was four, right? Four. So our twins would have been nine. Yeah, and Jaden would have been.
Amber Morse: Actually, Cohen was three. Oh, okay.
Brandon Morse : So you say it.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Mama's got it.
Amber Morse: Yeah. Well, three.
Brandon Morse : Eight.
Amber Morse: Eight.
Brandon Morse : Eight plus five equals 13.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Okay. So. Yeah. So you were, like, in the thick of it. I mean, you had a teenager. You had pretty much a toddler. It was the thick of parenting.
Brandon Morse : Jadyn was just about to go into her freshman year.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Yeah. And you guys just said, let's do it. Like, was it a hard agreement to come to, or was it like, God just totally laid it on?
Brandon Morse : Terrifying agreement to come to.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : Because it just leaving what's comfortable is really hard. You know, like, it is like in on one hand, you want to get out of the routine or rat race or grind or whatever everyone would call it. On the other hand, that is very comfortable, right? Like that's what we.
Amber Warren, PA-C: But are we called to live comfortably?
Brandon Morse : No.
Amber Morse: No, I don't think so. I don't think we are either. No. Yeah.
Brandon Morse : Um. And so. Yeah. So we RV'd around the country for a year. We hit 37 states. Um, and.
Amber Warren, PA-C: You rented the house. You didn't sell. You weren't, like, fully committed.
Brandon Morse : You weren't fully committed. We we thought we would come back. We thought this was just going to be a year.
Amber Warren, PA-C: A year.
Brandon Morse : And I don't know, about halfway through that trip. Um, it was just like, well, what are we going to do next? Like, we got to figure out what's next. And we didn't feel right to say, well, we're going back home.
Amber Morse: It just feels like it takes so much courage to cut ties to normalcy and the grind and ordinary that it's like once you cut the ties, it feels like you. It's like courage begets courage. You just start building these little blocks of courage. And it was like we already took this big, courageous step. And then it was kind of like it allowed us to dream and even, you know, bigger, courageous step, which was, could we could we buy a sailboat? Like, could we sail? Could we take our daughter? Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: But why the water instead of land? Like what was intriguing about the water?
Brandon Morse : Well, the RVing thing felt like it felt temporary. Because, you know, for kids, there's not an RV big enough for for a family of six.
Amber Morse: They were all squeezed into, like, a bunk room.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, that makes sense.Yeah.
Brandon Morse : So that was it. Felt temporary. It was amazing. But it was temporary. And then, um, we had been watching some YouTube channels over the years of just families who were living out on the water, um, and doing this. But we never, ever, at that point thought we would do it. It was just more like, oh, this is really entertaining.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : To see people doing this. Um, but then it was while we were RVing that we were like, well, why couldn't like, we're already so many steps closer. Like, why can't we do it? You know, the only barrier was just something really simple, which is we've never sailed before.
Amber Morse: We'd never own a boat before.
Brandon Morse : We've never owned a boat.
Amber Morse: Never driven a boat.
Brandon Morse : Never owned a boat. Um, driven small boats. But. Yeah. So, um. So, yeah, basically, we came back after the RV trip. We sold our house, we had another big garage sale. We sold everything we owned, um, sold the truck, sold the RV, and, um, and then we went. Once the house sold, we went to work looking for a boat. Found it in Virginia. And then I moved it to Georgia with my cousin, who was a captain. And then the family and I drove back over there and we moved aboard. And yeah, a lot of the first six months was, can we say hell.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yes you can.
Brandon Morse : Okay. A lot of the first six months was pure hell like it was.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Why?
Brandon Morse : Because the transition is ridiculous. Like, the learning curve is insane. I'm sure broken things on the boat and things you've never worked on before. And it was, like, cold out for some. It was like there was cold front that came through Georgia and our kids were kind of miserable. It was freezing. We didn't have heat on the boat.
Amber Morse: Yeah, I mean, we were like, what are we doing? Although but we cut like we sold everything. So it was like we were all in. No going back. Yeah. It wasn't.
Brandon Morse : Don't have a choice.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Mhm.
Brandon Morse : Um so it was like terrifying and overwhelming and all of that.
Amber Warren, PA-C: But you were already homeschooling. So the homeschooling thing was, was that was already kind of set. You had already done that for a year. Yeah. You had your curriculum. The kids were used to that. Did they? I mean, I'm just thinking, like taking kids, my kids are eight and ten. Like, did they struggle at all leaving their friends, socializing, leaving the I mean, how do they play sports? I mean, they left the traditional sports model.
Amber Morse: Yeah. I mean, our daughter was in traveling dance. We were flying places because she was on the highest level of dance team. And so it's like to yeah, we left. We left everything.
Brandon Morse : That was part of why I was like, we can't sustain this crazy. This is $1,200 a month in and then we have three more kids coming up. I'm like, this is crazy. How do we yeah, how do people do this?
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : I'm leaving.
Amber Morse: But I also think that it's okay as a parent when you say, you know, this is what we're doing and the kids just they have to go along.
Amber Warren, PA-C: But there's when it's not about you.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. There's a there's another part of it though is to, to cast a vision for our kids and to be like, we have an opportunity that if we if we say no to this, like we're never going to get that opportunity back. And it was so awesome to see our, you know, 13, 14 year old be like, I want to say yes to this, and I'm willing to lay something that she was really passionate about down.
Brandon Morse : And she made the choice like.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, for travel and adventure.
Brandon Morse : We were pretty much set on doing it. We were we gave her that option to like, say yes to it. And she was a big driver of it. Yeah. Um, yeah. So we moved on the boat. We made it out of the US. We sailed to the Bahamas. We spent six months in the Bahamas. We met like some of the most incredible people that you could ever imagine.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Doing the same thing you guys were...
Brandon Morse : Ended up like sailing around with them for four months.
Amber Morse: We just we experienced incredible community and so everything that was hard was now matched with these like heightened experiences that were the most incredible things that ever. I mean, it's like the first time you see a shark in the water, a big shark, or the first time you, you know, Brandon was spearing the first fish and bringing it back to the boat like my first sourdough loaf, you know, on the boat, it's like.
Brandon Morse : How terrifying the ocean was to us because it's so foreign. Like we're from Idaho. Yeah, I don't even I didn't I mean, I've learned to, but I don't even like seafood in general. Yeah. Um, but we were terrified of sharks. We were terrified of getting in the ocean. And all of us as a family of six. It just with experience, you know, that all changes. And now we love it. Like, we can't wait to see a shark and be swimming in with it and all of that. It's crazy. Um, so. Yeah. And our boat. Another thing about our boat is it's totally off grid, like capable. We have solar, we run off solar. We have a water maker that turns salt water into fresh drinking water. And that's and that's what we shower with and cook with and drink, um, you know, a battery bank. I mean, we live we do not plug in. We live on the anchor for free, you know, and we go wherever we want to go. So, so kind of different.
Amber Warren, PA-C: No, it's it's incredible in so many ways. What how is it? My first question is I want to hear what it's done for your marriage. The good and the bad and the ugly.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : We told you we weren't going to talk about that one.
Amber Warren, PA-C: You said we were going to talk about sex. I asked such a bigger question than just sex. Yeah,
Amber Morse: Um, I would say number one, it was like a magnifying glass. And for us both having, you know, land life was like we both had different careers. You come together in the evenings or the weekends.
Brandon Morse : Yeah. You realize you have a lot of natural breaks on land line, right? You go to work or your husband's on a trip or yeah, we didn't have that.
Amber Morse: So to be together 24 over seven with our kids, 24 over seven, I would I would say that it was probably some of the hardest months of trying to adjust to, like, seeing like, every little rift, everything felt magnifying, you know, like just learning boat life with our kids. I think that it brought so much conflict. We actually brought like a, a marriage therapist along with us, did some telehealth with us to work through some of these things that we were like, yeah, of course. Yeah, it was it was always the woman. We always need the most help. It's so.
Brandon Morse : Emotional.
Amber Warren, PA-C: You're done actually. Yeah.
Brandon Morse : You're done!
Amber Warren, PA-C: The interview, it's just going to be Amber and Amber for the rest of the day. Amber and Amber show. Amber, get his mic. Cut his play. Brandon doesn't get to talk. We're gonna edit all that out.
Amber Morse: Yeah, I would say just. Yeah. For our marriage, it was really, really hard. And I think there was part of me, though, that was like, okay, if we can survive this, if we can sort this out and live on a boat and have a happy marriage, then we can do this anywhere.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah.
Amber Morse: And it was just more of it was just a an opportunity for us to look at ourselves more deeply into our relationship more deeply, and to be willing to change.
Brandon Morse : To add to that, you're adding, you know, from from land life. If you're comparing land life to living on a sailboat in the ocean. We added a whole other element that we've never dealt with in our marriage, which is like scary situations, like like.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Hurricanes.
Amber Morse: Yeah, like hurricanes and weather and and, you know, harnessing the wind to move your house and like, all this stuff where you're everything's heightened. Right.
Amber Morse: Yeah, so you're also a captain. I mean, you're the captain, and I'm trying to learn how to be the first mate, and that's not a role that we've ever played before.
Amber Warren, PA-C: It's a really vulnerable place to be. And you really learn about trust. Yeah. When you're in those vulnerable situations.
Brandon Morse : So if we're fast forwarding just for this question sake, um, I mean, in the past year and a half, would you say two years? I mean, it took a good. We've we've been on the boat for almost three years now. Um, and I would say it took a good year and a half of that. Like half of that time was hard struggles, you know, working through a lot of marriage struggles and all that. And then the next half, it's like you get to the other side and it's been amazing. Like our marriage has never been better. Um, where we just have the most incredible amount of grace for each other's weaknesses, and we know where our strengths are and.
Amber Warren, PA-C: When you've had to work as a team. Like you have no choice and you can't walk away. You can't go for a drive. You can't. You can't just walk away from the situation. It gives a whole new meaning to like letting the sun go down angry because you're just you're you're on a boat.
Brandon Morse : Yeah.
Amber Morse: Yeah. And we have to function well as a team, and I think, and I have to trust him as the captain. And I think that's ultimately that was that was such a enlightening experience as to be like, I would be scared, like we were going to die when scary things happen. And he would have to be like, we're not going to die. Like, our boat is safe. It feels scary, but the reality that you're worried about, that you're going to die is just it's not reality. It's not a reality. And so it was like, oh yeah, okay. Like there's things that I'm having to work through. Yeah. And we're working through that in this whole new environment.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And in front of the kids again. It's like, you know, there's no hiding. You can't i\I mean, kids go play outside mom and dad need to talk. Like you're all right there.
Brandon Morse : That's one of the. Maybe the pet peeves on the boat is when we're actually trying to have a conversation, and they pipe in. It's like, no, we're talking. Be quiet. We don't. This is not this. Let us talk for once.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Go swim with the sharks. Yeah. Gosh, we need an hour to talk.
Amber Morse: I know!
Amber Warren, PA-C: I don't want to hear from you unless you're bleeding.
Amber Morse: I know, getting eaten by a shark. I don't want to hear from you.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So, what is it? So? So on that topic. This is a good segue. What has it done for family dynamics, like with your children?
Amber Morse: Yeah. Well, I mean, I would say being together 24 over seven, it's like you get you get more conflict, but you also just get more joyful connection. I mean, sitting at the dinner table all the time together, eating and sharing meals. All. All the meals together. Everyone's contributing. Like everyone has boat jobs. That's such a beautiful thing. And sometimes you don't always realize it in the moment until you see remnants of it, like out and about. Or I see, like, how our middle aged teenage daughter and the relationship with our youngest, Cohen. It's like she's a little mommy, and she takes so much joy in him and reading to him or doing school with him or all of that. And I'm like, man, what a gift that is. Because if we were here, she'd be off in middle school, he'd be off to elementary school, and their lives would
Amber Warren, PA-C: Because they're so far apart.
Amber Morse: They'd just be pretty separate and stuff.
Brandon Morse : But we're also a normal family. And I mean, I always when people say, when we were RVing, people would always say, I couldn't live with my kids in that small of a space. And same thing with the boat. And it's like, you know what? Our kids fight the same that they did in our 3000 square foot house, that they did in the RV, that they do in the boat. It doesn't really matter, you know, it doesn't matter if it's like, not like you're gonna not have the same problems.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. And I always go back to that because it's the same kind of argument as like, you know, thinking about homeschooling or thinking about getting out of the crazy sports scene and things like that. Like, who's influencing your children? God entrusted us to raise our children. There's a reason that you have your four children under your roof. You are entrusted to speak life into those children, right? And I'm not taking away from wonderful teachers, you know, friends that that speak life into our children and coaches and stuff. But like, I think and this is this is where I want to really dig into the like question everything, like question what you're doing because it's such a finite amount of time that we do have these children under our roof, and we have the ability to influence and shape them. And I'm not doing it yet. I'm still fully sucked into the system five days a week at school, the sports every night doing the chaos. But my heart feels so unsettled with what we're doing. And I don't know what the different thing needs to look like yet, but I know I need to get there, because what I'm doing right now, I know, is not where where I want my family or where God wants my family to be. So I think I just want you guys to like, how do you advise someone like me or anyone that's like, yeah, this feels it doesn't feel right. But it is so scary to think about something that's so dramatically different because there doesn't feel like a lot of gray.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : Yeah. I mean, one thing we we say quite often on our social media stuff because we don't want people to be like to think that we think everyone needs to sell everything and move on to a sailboat and be so dramatic.
Amber Morse: Yeah. Moving to an RV.
Brandon Morse : Yeah. That's not practical. And it's probably not the right thing for a lot of people. For sure. Our whole mission and then trying to inspire people with what we do is just, I mean, we say create more moments, more memories, more Saturdays. That's why we're called Every Day Saturday.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I love that.
Brandon Morse : And so, like, what can you do to just step away, even if for a little while, forget what day it is for a little bit, you know? Um, and I know that one thing that was really that really weighed heavy on us is we felt like we were when we were living the land life and just the busy grind. We felt like we if we stepped step out and kind of looked in, we felt like we were putting our kids to bed each night and kissing them to bed just to like, send them out the door the next day, you know. And then you have and then they're off the whole day and then they come back and it's like, quick dinner and it's all right, kiss you to bed. Same thing. Just the same thing. And you're missing so much time with them, you know. And so I just think, like, if we were to inspire someone to, just to do, like, what can you do differently? You know, I mean, you're not the busiest person in the world. Your job will be okay without you for some X amount of time.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : You know, what can you do to create more moments? You know, just different than just too easy to get stuck in the grind.
Amber Warren, PA-C: For sure.
Amber Morse: And it only will happen with intentionality. It will never just magically happen. Like, we can't just. I think of it as like this hamster wheel. And I thought in my mind, like, is there a way to, like, slow it down? Because it does feel like that we get back and it's just everyone is so busy. And I think for us, like, we just had to be like, well, I don't think we could slow it down. So I guess, yeah, we did something drastic and completely jumped off the hamster wheel. But I think I've also heard a lot of families thinking about like, well, evenings are really crazy, so starting a rhythm of having breakfast every day together like that, that, that, that type of a thing. And I think some of that is regaining back of what the busyness is trying to steal from families.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Right.
Amber Morse: Is protecting that time is maybe having a no screen evening or an adventure day that like, you're just getting out as a family and you're experiencing things together. And some kids, you know, they whine or they're like, I don't want to do that or whatever, but you have to create that rhythm. And I think that rhythm and repetition of like, this is what we're doing as a family. This is how we're intentional with each other at the dinner table or the breakfast table. I think what can you do is really the question.
Brandon Morse : What can you do to get uncomfortable? We're talking about being uncomfortable is like, do something uncomfortable together, right? Like do something totally different than you would normally do. Like come on, how many times have you gone to the village, like, come on, do something else. Go somewhere. Get out of town. Go in the mountains.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Go on an adventure.
Brandon Morse : Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Go somewhere where you have to serve someone.
Brandon Morse : Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Do you guys miss, like, the day job? Like, do you miss medicine? Do you guys miss interacting with other adults in that capacity?
Amber Morse: I miss my nursing brain.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah.
Amber Morse: A lot of the time, my brain in that way. Yeah.
Brandon Morse : You don't miss the shifts, the shift work.
Amber Morse: No, I mean, of course, like the politics of the hospital and all of that. No, I don't miss that, but I, I miss, you know, being a part of that education and empowerment. You know, for me, as a labor and delivery nurse, like, being there for the job offer might be.
Brandon Morse : What's it to you?
Amber Morse: Yeah. We're always hanging our ends. Uh, but but being there in some of the most special moments of a woman's life, you know, the birth of her child. So I think there's some grief in that of letting go.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah.
Amber Morse: Um, and and I miss some parts of that. But at the same time, when I look at, like, what I'm gaining or what I'm pushing myself to be, or even just being a homeschool mom. That was never a role that I ever actually really wanted in my life. But then I'm like, oh, what a treasure. This is uncomfortable. This is hard. This is challenging for me. And to step into that.
Brandon Morse : Was the question, do I miss a normal job?
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Do you miss like the day to day like your interactions with adults are so different than what it used to be working at the church?
Brandon Morse : No, I can't say I do. You don't know. Um, but I was, you know, I was working for someone in a pretty mighty way, right? Yeah. So I was at a point where I'm like, I don't want to be told what to do, and I don't want to be told where to be and what time.
Amber Morse: Well you desired, you longed for a more freedom in your schedule.
Brandon Morse : Exactly. Yeah. So I'm enjoying that. And we're building our own thing now. And so we have a purpose. And and then my purpose on the boat is, like, full on boat maintenance. The captain. And it's a lot of work. Yeah. So yeah, it's not a lot of like sitting around on board at all, really.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So how do you financially support this?
Brandon Morse : Well, I mean, with what you agreed to pay us for this podcast. That helps a lot.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, $50,000. Anybody else? A few months.
Brandon Morse : But she's starting now.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Please email bennett@funmedidaho.com to be next in line. And we'll tell you what we'll pay you.
Brandon Morse : So when we started we we sold our house. We didn't we never we didn't have any debt when we went into this. So that really set us up. That helps. Yeah. To not need to make a lot of money. And we sold our house. We paid cash for our boat. Um, and then and we have a couple rental properties that help to kind of kind of help us get through the first while, um, and then we've just kind of built our own brand on Instagram and TikTok and all of that, and that brings in income now.
Amber Morse: Um, so, yeah, we started doing content projects like when we are being we we got a content project for Jayco Inc, and yeah, and that was so cool that he was able to use a lot of those skills. And we had started a YouTube channel and it was just really I picked up some travel nurse jobs. It was it was fun to like. We were able to think outside the box where that was so scary to think before, but we were like, oh, well, we have. We started diversifying our income a little bit and that and that really helped us be able to be like, okay, well, we're getting a little, okay, we're getting this here. We're getting this chunk here. Like, I think we can do this.
Brandon Morse : Yeah, and then just this year I launched what we call our sailing and boat life training experience. And we had eight bookings, eight weeks of that where people come out to the boat and the family, they left.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So cool.
Brandon Morse : And, um, actually, Hudson, our 13 year old and I, he was my first mate and they spent a week with us and we teach them how to sail all about boat life provisioning, maintenance.
Amber Warren, PA-C: What is that business called?
Brandon Morse : Well, it's all part of our Everyday Saturday brand, so.
Amber Warren, PA-C: It's all everyday under that.
Brandon Morse : All the experience, the Sailing and Boat Life Training Experience. Okay, okay. Um, and yeah, we, I mean, we put out a one reel about it or two reals and booked more than we could handle. And so.
Amber Warren, PA-C: You guys, that's incredible.
Brandon Morse : It is. Yeah. So we're trying to figure out that was just like a trial, you know? Like what? How would this go? But there's we know there's a niche out there of people like us who want to live the lifestyle, but have no clue where to start.
Amber Warren, PA-C: How to do it.
Brandon Morse : How do we know we did it wrong? By just jumping into it? And it's kind of a safety thing too. Like, yeah, wouldn't recommend, like putting your family on a boat and then just, you know, trying.
Amber Morse: It out.
Brandon Morse : You know, like, let's try this.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. So is that your obviously, I understand the purpose for your family and why you did this and why you're continuing to do this. Is that like what's your bigger purpose in all that. Is that it to like help teach other families to do what you've done and find that the joy in those experiences?
Brandon Morse : No, that was more of a way to help people and make some money.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Okay.
Brandon Morse : We needed the money.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Done.
Amber Morse: Yeah, we needed money. That was. Yeah. Well, and give back to use something that we have and to give back.
Brandon Morse : Yeah, but what would you say to that?
Amber Morse: I'd say like the higher purpose. I mean, I truly believe that God's given us incredible role into our kids lives. And I think for us to take them to other cultures, to other countries, to create this cultural sensitivity and to to love people, um, just to show up in places to, to celebrate God's creation and then to also just be shoulder to shoulder with people that we would never be
Amber Warren, PA-C: Never interact with.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : Yeah. And ultimately, I think just to teach our kids that they can dream big and live different, you know. Yeah. Amen. That just that we don't have to do what everybody told us we have to do. You know, the same exact.
Amber Morse: You don't have to fit the mold. Yeah. Like.
Brandon Morse : And and speaking of, like our kids, we've noticed some massive differences in them.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, like what?
Brandon Morse : Well, we're they're so used to just meeting random people and having to engage quickly because you might roll up into an anchorage and there's a boat full of kids, and they want to hang out and have a great time. And there's no time for this, like being shy and stuff, right? Like, they want to play and have fun. And so yeah, they can talk to anybody like our kids can. Our 13 year old middle school kids who, you know, middle schoolers are generally pretty awkward. Um, they can talk to an adult, like they can have full on conversations.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And there's also parenting. You guys are also phenomenal parents.
Brandon Morse : Well, let's talk more about that. Why don't you. Why don't you tell us where you saw that? I'm just kidding.
Brandon Morse : No, I think I think it is. It's like putting them in uncomfortable situations, right? We.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon Morse : We gain experience and.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And just teaching them to love others and think of others before they think of themselves. And it was really interesting. And I might be totally off base here. And this might be off topic, but our ten year old had like quite the meltdown after school last week and it was really out of nowhere. And my husband, who I think is pretty wisdom with parenting stuff, was like, think about since school started the last six weeks of our life, our world revolves around him and his schedule and his school and his activities and his play dates and everything. Of course, he's going to melt down when we tell him to do something he doesn't want to have to do. Right. And I was like, and of course, in my mind I'm like, oh my gosh, he's probably deficient in B vitamins and he probably needs some. You need to work on his nervous system.
Brandon Morse : Go get the LMNT!
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Electrolytes. Wrong brand of electrolytes, by the way. You just. We just taught you something. You're not learning anything anyway. And I was just like, yeah, that's probably really insightful. Like, I he's he's really comfortable. And our whole world just revolves around the chaos that he wants to do. And we let him. It's not like he's asking, you know, we sign him up for all the things. And even though I try to be intentional about one sport at a time and stuff, but he's and also he's tired. They're in school five days a week. We talked about this on a recent episode. Like, why do school start at 8:00 in the morning? Why? Why are kids going to school at dark half of the year? Like, this is crazy, right? These kids have sleep wake cycles that they need to follow, and these little brains need to develop, and they need to be out in nature, whether that's on a sailboat in the mountains. And it's just. Yeah, it's like what? Who taught us to raise our kids like this? What institution are we following? Right. And I was talking actually in a recent episode, too, about how in France, we were in France this past summer and they they take Wednesdays off, they don't go to school. They do no academics on Wednesdays because that's their time to engage their right brain and do their athletics activities and music.
Brandon Morse : The French take like 2 or 3 hour lunch breaks. Mhm. It's terrible when you want to like go buy something.
Amber Morse: You want to go to the grocery store.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And they're all closed in the afternoons. You're like, what the heck, come on. But at the same.
Brandon Morse : French nap time.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So how do you find fresh food? This is a different topic, but I'm now thinking like the health aspect of what you guys are doing. I'm thinking nutrition. I'm thinking exercise.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: What do you do? Yeah.
Amber Morse: Well, for nutrition, it really depends on where we are. Okay. The Bahamas, it's like the most gorgeous water. And it's the most desolate place to try to get fresh food and, like, just to buy, like, cauliflower. It's like $16 to buy cauliflower.
Brandon Morse : The don't grow any their own food because it's like volcanic rock, you know?
Amber Morse: Yeah. It's just not it's not fertile soil. Um, so that's really challenging. And we do what we call provisioning. And like, our boat becomes a food barge and I'm just storing up, like all kinds of food
Brandon Morse : In Florida. We have we spend like three grand, maybe 2500 bucks.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : And just loaded the boat with as much food as we possibly could. Because, you know, once you lose, you know, it's hard to find.
Amber Morse: But you can't. You can only do so much fresh and so.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Can you can on the boat?
Amber Morse: You can. I mean, people bring cans. I mean, you could can if you had, like the fresh ingredients to can, but most people don't like you bring cans. Um, yeah. And that's just one of the hard parts of it. But then and on the flip side, it's like when we're when we are in the doctor, they grow like so much of their own produce and there's fresh produce stands everywhere. And then we felt like we were like in heaven. We're like, what is it like nonstop.
Brandon Morse : The Bahamas and we got to the Dominican Republic. And I remember we walked up to this produce stand and Amber was like a kid in a candy store. She was.
Amber Morse: So I was like, it's a watermelon. I mean, just it was it felt so silly. But yet we were celebrating like it. And I think for our kids to to experience that.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yes!
Amber Morse: Like and I mean, it is it is hard. I do have to ration our fresh stuff, like our fresh stuff, which is hard as a mom to be like, wait, you can only have half that apple? Yeah, but at the same time, we have to think about others and we can only have so much fresh. And then there's times where we've went like a week where we couldn't find anything fresh. The food barge hadn't brought food in. And I think that that's one of the, one of the big challenges on a boat.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Uncomfortable.
Brandon Morse : Yeah.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : For sure you know, she does like, she has a supplement that with, like, powdered grains and. Right.
Amber Warren, PA-C: You'd have to.
Brandon Morse : A lot of that kind of stuff.
Amber Morse: Yeah. Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So how do you guys exercise?
Brandon Morse : I'm in the water every single day.
Amber Warren, PA-C: You're moving your body all day.
Brandon Morse : I mean, I go on, like, specific swims to get exercise, and I have swim paddles. I don't know if you've seen those.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I have.
Brandon Morse : They go on your hands.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Super cool.
Brandon Morse : So it just makes it more resistance. Yeah. Um, in the Bahamas, spearfishing like 1 to 2 times a day, diving breath holds all that stuff. And we have weights on the boat.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Oh, cool.Yeah. So you do.
Amber Morse: Yeah. So I do just a different like, app program. I think right now I'm doing Sammy Clark. I've done different other programs, but that along with swimming and that's kind of like.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I'm sure you guys like, don't you hardly ever sit like you're just moving all
Amber Morse: Like on passages. We do a lot of sitting. So it's like when the boat's actively like moving on the ocean. We tend to not feel that amazing. And so everyone is kind of like a little bit. It slows down a little bit.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: That's so cool.
Brandon Morse : Um, but yeah, you know, it's interesting about that is when you come back here and when we live at sea level. So my lungs are nothing like they used to be when I was mountain biking. Just like walking up the stairs or like it's like, oh, boy, I need to get that altitude again.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah.
Brandon Morse : Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So this is your plan permanently. Like you right now?
Brandon Morse : No.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Oh, maybe I shouldn't ask this.
Brandon Morse : Yeah no, it's not we. I mean, we can't live on a boat forever. It is a hard life to sustain, okay? Just even the stress of, you know. Yeah, we we alleviate a lot of stress that we land life has for sure, and a lot of the bills and just the rat race type stuff. But you're trading out that portion of your brain with like the weather and things. We talked about catastrophes and maintenance and, you know, all of that kind of stuff, safety. So we needed this. We took a big break this summer. I've been, you know, we've been here for I've been here for two months.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Okay.
Brandon Morse : Um, because I just needed a rest from all of that. And so we don't know. We don't know how much longer. We. We always said we'd give ourselves three years, and this was three years. Okay, but we don't feel done.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah and so you're going back next month?
Brandon Morse : Yeah, we're going back October. November? Yeah. Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Okay. So maybe now it's just year to year.
Brandon Morse : Yeah kind of.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And you guys homeschooling Amber. You feel like you guys are in a really good routine of homeschooling?
Amber Morse: Now, my middle schoolers are doing an online school through a charter school out of Nampa. And I feel like as they're entering into the bigger grades, our oldest just graduated from the online school last year, so I feel like now I'm just homeschooling schooling Cohen. And it feels like I'm like, I can do this with one child, you know, kind of a thing. So that feels like a better rhythm. And I think we also just needed a break from, you know, walking two miles to get groceries. Right. It's just like the amount of work and the amount of hours it can take just to do really simple tasks.
Brandon Morse : Yeah, it's an inconvenient life. I mean, we don't have a Home Depot when we need something like, I have to stock the boat with any parts you.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Might potentially, or.
Brandon Morse : Anything I could possibly need. And you have to be resourceful. Like I've had to learn to fix things that I'm on land, I would have called a guy, probably. Right? Right, right. And I am the guy out there, and she has, like, just the way that you've, um, progressed in your ability to, like, make things from scratch and breads and sourdough and all of that. She's she's the the galley wench.
Amber Morse: Call myself the galley wench.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Galley wench.
Amber Morse: Yeah, yeah. But so yeah, the question is like, what? Yeah. That timing. What's the best thing for our family. And I think like once we get out there, once we get back on the boat, do we still have that drive for like more adventure, more experiences, new places? Um, or do we see ourselves, you know, transitioning to something else that's meaningful?
Amber Warren, PA-C: Is Idaho still home?
Amber Morse: Idaho we still call home. Okay. But it doesn't mean that it will be home.
Brandon Morse : I would say it doesn't. For me, it doesn't feel as home as it was. Like Idaho.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Right.
Brandon Morse : Like right where we grew up. Yeah. Um, you know, like the price of real estate and stuff like that coming back, I'm like, I don't know, we couldn't afford to live here right now. But I also don't know. I mean, after living on a boat, not in a subdivision, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know what it looks like. I would be hard for me to to live that lifestyle again. Yeah. So but I, I tell people, I think boat life's kind of messed us up a little bit because it's amazing. It's incredible. But when it's done, it's like you're kind of where do we fit?
Amber Warren, PA-C: Now you're having to, like, segue back into a more conventional life, and that's going to have its own challenges.
Brandon Morse : It's tricky for sure.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: But again not comfortable. And that's where you grow.
Amber Morse: Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Is in the discomfort.
Amber Morse: Yeah 100%.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Mhm. For sure. You guys are so inspiring. And I think that there's going to be so many people that just think differently or you know, inspired to do differently. Um, whether it's their own journey or they bring their family along with their spouse and children. So thank you so much for sharing your story. It was so cool to hear.
Brandon Morse : Do you know what's inspiring?
Amber Warren, PA-C: What is?
Brandon Morse : I used to mountain bike with this lady and she just worked at this place, and then she bought it and then she scaled it. And now they have multiple locations.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Brand, it is not me. It is not.
Brandon Morse : Yeah, but you guys have built it. Yeah. It's been cool to watch. Oh, it's been cool to watch.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Well, I feel the same. Your story has been so cool to watch, but thank you. That's so kind of you. Yeah, it's been some really wonderful humans and a lot of graciousness from God that's allowed us to do what we do every day.
Amber Morse: It's amazing.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And it's yeah, we love the community and what we get to do and help people heal and hear stories and tell stories, and it's amazing. So thank you. You guys are such a gift. Thank you so much.
Amber Morse: Thank you.
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