A brief history of our family, as distinct from the personal biography of each member…

Let me (Tiffany) try to give you enough to understand our situation, without it turning into drudgery like home movies. It’s all very interesting to ME, after all…

Wolf and I were married on Leap Day 2004. We moved to the small town of Williams, AZ (near the Grand Canyon) and opened a little shop to sell his handcrafted furniture, as well as some home decor and gift stuff to complement it (and get customers who didn’t need furniture!).

In May of 2005 we welcomed Jewel into the family!

Williams, however, proved to be a challenging place, and the business and political climate (local issues) proved very hostile to new people and new businesses. After two years there we had burned through our savings and were ready to call it quits.

We put our house on the market, and our searching finally turned up a home business opportunity that sounded like a good fit (see our Team Blitz website).

Since cold calling isn’t our style, we got our business going by working online and by spending a couple of days each week driving in different directions to get to civilization and put out flyers. By the time the house sold (almost a year later – January, 2007), we were ready to go!

We put our “stuff” in storage and bought an RV. It’s amazing how little of the contents of a 3,200 square foot house and oversized garage you can fit into a 200 square foot trailer.

It was a 2001 Springdale by Keystone travel trailer, with bunk beds in the back for the kids (then 12 and 2). We also had two cats travelling with us, the “old ladies” Squeaker and Loki.

Our intention was to travel the country doing some sightseeing, some educational trips, visiting our spread-out families, and working our business (everyone in the country has teeth, right?).

We stayed on the road for most of a year, until we found out that our family was going to be growing again.

We were in Ohio, and liked the area well enough.  We had made some friends at the German Baptist church we were visiting, and one of them was a Realtor.  Naturally, we started looking at houses.

Doors were closed over and over during this process…  A house that had been on the market for two years suddenly had a flurry of offers just as we put ours in, starting a bidding war.  Another cute fixer-upper was mysteriously taken off the market the day we were in the process of writng an offer.  And on and on.

Knowing what our situaton was, our Realtor friend offered a suggestion.  He was a corn farmer during the summer, but in the winter months he went down to South Florida to work at a produce stand and bakery owned by another German Baptist family.  They were looking for someone to work in the bakery, and one of the perks of the job was a house to live in!

So we went South for the winter…  all the way to the tip end of the continent!

In March 2008, R.T. came into our lives.

Nick went back to public school starting in th Fall of 2008, when he auditioned and was accepted to an exclusive Magnet Music progam.  He hopes his Mad Clarinet Skillz can earn his a college scholarship.

Does that about cover the “Who are they and what are they doing?” bit? Please let me know if you still have any burning questions…