This Golden Hour
75. Part Two of Nomadic Homeschooling with Janette and Aaron Beier
In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Janette and Aaron Beier from Colorado. The Beiers share their unique journey of blending two families and homeschooling their nine children while traveling the United States and Canada in an RV. From overcoming personal tragedies to creating an intentional family life, they discuss their philosophy on education, family unity, and the challenges and joys of their nomadic lifestyle. The interview dives deep into their homeschool methods, their approach to family bonding, and their goals for their children's education.
Connect with the Beiers
@beierfamilyzoo
Resources
Brené Brown
Homeschooling IRL
The Good and the Beautiful
Beast Academy
Harvest Hosts
This Golden Hour
Free eBook Course
thisgoldenhour.org
In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Janette and Aaron Beier from Colorado. The Beiers share their unique journey of blending two families and homeschooling their nine children while traveling the United States and Canada in an RV. From overcoming personal tragedies to creating an intentional family life, they discuss their philosophy on education, family unity, and the challenges and joys of their nomadic lifestyle. The interview dives deep into their homeschool methods, their approach to family bonding, and their goals for their children's education.
Connect with the Beiers
@beierfamilyzoo
Resources
Brené Brown
Homeschooling IRL
The Good and the Beautiful
Beast Academy
Harvest Hosts
This Golden Hour
Free eBook Course
thisgoldenhour.org
Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill.
Janette Beier:So we hemmed and hawed and he looked at all kinds of other things, which scared me because he's bold. He's I could quit everything. And I found this random job. I'm like, you don't have expertise and you have a degree. And I get scared being too risky. Believe it or not, I actually don't like risk and I have anxiety. Then we went on a family vacation and we'd been stewing over this for months and it was stressful. And then we were driving home. And the kids
Tim Eaton:are all in school at this time, right? Everyone's in school.
Janette Beier:Intended to leave them in school. Our one kid has started middle school. It was as traumatic and more so than I thought it would be to send my kid to middle school. She did fine, but it was really hard as a mommy to drop her off. And And I brought it up. We were driving back and I said, Hey, remember that one time where we talked about living on a bus? So now we own a home in a really beautiful place in the mountains. That would rent pretty high income. We have savings still, cause we're really good about savings. You said you found these big buses that are old for pretty cheap. We could cashflow it. What if you just quit working and we just travel? Like he said that year, he goes, babe, 50 and 52. Let's do that. When we retire 50 States in 52 weeks. So by the end of the year that we've seen the whole country, I said, that's lofty, but he kept saying it just as a fun thing. So I was like, remember how you said the 50 and 52 thing?
Aaron Beier:Yeah.
Janette Beier:What if we did that? And all of a sudden the conversation wasn't stressful. It was like, Oh, yeah, that's working. So
Tim Eaton:fun, man. I love it.
Janette Beier:And then that was the first week of June. We had a bus by the third week of June. He'd been to three States by then. This is
Tim Eaton:2023.
Janette Beier:Yes. And we got our house listed to sell. And then the stress hit the fan. It was six months of. There's a
Aaron Beier:lot of roadblocks.
Janette Beier:Nightmare stress. Mechanically, everything went wrong. Everything was more expensive than we thought. Mechanics were doing us wrong, left and right.
Aaron Beier:Just timelines weren't being met. We couldn't get
Janette Beier:renters. Our rent was going down, but if we got renters, we'd have to leave. We'd be homeless. Our bus isn't ready. We wanted to leave in August. It's now getting into fall and winter. It was extremely stressful. But we knew we'd homeschool for that year. So we were like, it's just for this year. We need quick online stuff. We got all of our kids use iPads for the first time. They've never had devices. So that was a hard shift, but it was like, we're going to manage it. It'll be educational stuff only. And
Aaron Beier:it's you feel like you're buying into what might be considered the system. Like as much as we resisted technology and take kids to nature and just be in the woods and play tag. And they play house and they play tag and they make up games is there's these really cute games that our kids just make up. It's just random stuff that they do. And it was, okay, now we're going to give them a device. And that is like a game changing thing that when that happens, without a very intentional plan ahead of time, and a very willingness to be adaptable along the journey, it gets out of control quickly. Yep. Yep. Yeah,
Janette Beier:I can say something about that because I bet device conversations come up a lot for you. So we've always been really strict, but like you said, we set expectations ahead of time, but we always bring our kids in on conversations and they are way more on board. In fact, even with homeschool, I'll get to that was a really good conversation. When you're just really honest with them with what, You and your spouse are talking about, not your filtered what you're telling your kids. So we told them the rules of the device is that it is a learning tool, it is not for video games. I'm very anti video games, because I remember growing up, they, you don't bond through video games, and you fight non stop. And it's, it takes you away from humans. And life, so I, my, my poor children I am pretty against them. But as time went on, mom, everyone has this app and it's free and it's just like little puppies that you get from the pet store and it's just little number tiles that Yeah, So I slowly let it happen. And then we had a rule, like it can't have ads and they get very little free. We have a satellite, starlink. We have Starlink on our bus, which is nice, but we limited them. And it slowly shifted, and it became only when we ask, only when you ask, and only sometimes to we're trying to do a crowd today, right? It gets laxed.
Tim Eaton:Yeah, every person listening knows what you're talking about.
Janette Beier:Everyone knows what we're talking about. But then there's the point where you feel like you've lost it. That sucks, but here we are, there's no way we can go back. Our kids would kill us. And we went back and we brought them in. We find if it's in the living room, it doesn't work. If it's on mom and dad's bed, suddenly it's intimate. They're not usually allowed there. And we call it family meetings.
Aaron Beier:Yeah. That's a good plug real quick for just don't have card conversations in hard conversations in the kitchen. Because then the kitchen becomes this place where only bad things are done, right? Have conversations. in another place, right? Because your teens will come back to your home and they will stand around in the kitchen and eat with their friends or they won't because that's where hard conversations happen. And so for us, it's our bed. The kids are not allowed in our room. They're not allowed on the bed unless we say, come in and you can come on the bed. And that's when they're not feeling well, when they need snuggles, when we need to have conversations with them, when we need to check up on them, or cookies and conversations like Jeanette mentioned, or in this case, this conversation.
Janette Beier:So I knew this would be a mountain because they had done a lot, and the four year olds especially. I saw some addictive tendencies in them. I'm like, ooh, they're gonna eat me alive when I tell those voices. Yeah. So I called them in one at a time, and I just said, do you remember the first conversation that I said? And they all remembered it. And I said, I didn't do a good job holding onto my word. These are the reasons that I said it.
Tim Eaton:When is this? Cause this is just started last June. This is just a year ago. It started.
Janette Beier:Yeah, I would say this device conversation happened two weeks ago.
Tim Eaton:Okay. Gotcha.
Janette Beier:And I said, we need to get back to that. And I understand that it's disappointing, but they were all bummed, but did not fight me because they got it right. Because I talked to them from day one. I told them this is on me and that we need to stick to it. And we erased everything that is not educational. And later my husband goes, when are we going to have that talk? I said, done. Okay. And they all are fine with it. He's what? I was like, yeah, it was
Aaron Beier:driving down the road. Does that go one
Janette Beier:on one just my plug is you can reset. Like I've had parents say, I wish I never gave my kids a phone. Like you can change that.
Aaron Beier:Jump back to homeschool. So
Janette Beier:yeah, we thought it'd be quick. And we're like, the bulk of homeschool is going to be that. We're going to check out historical sites, agricultural farming, factories, all kinds of businesses
Aaron Beier:in America,
Janette Beier:geography, we're going to do so many things. And had
Tim Eaton:you already set your travel plan, like where you were going to go and when and stuff?
Janette Beier:We just knew we wanted to see 50 states. 48. We decided not to do Alaska and we can't do Hawaii. So when we
Aaron Beier:started we planned to go to Alaska and fly to Hawaii, but that's not going to happen.
Janette Beier:So we got to 48 states and a little bit of Canada. We're actually going to have done five Canadian territories by the end. Cool. We're heading into
Tim Eaton:Canada,
Janette Beier:Ontario
Tim Eaton:or
Janette Beier:yeah, the homeland of the good witch. I can't help but go to those sites. There's a plug for any fans. Anyway. So I was like I can do homeschool now because it's not all the curriculum because my science and my history is field trips, which is my favorite part of homeschool is the field trip. Hands on stuff because I learned too. And it's yes.
Aaron Beier:Yes.
Janette Beier:And everything else is they do it themselves. So they did an online math and I simplified reading and writing. They just had to read every day and type every day. And their app would tell them if it was spelled wrong and and then we would read together as a family and they would do their own private scripture reading. And the kids who struggled, like some of them struggle with spelling or with writing paragraphs. I just went to a store and bought them a workbook just for those things, which really well, and they're very cheap. So that's how we did homeschool. Math was a nightmare for three of them. All the time. It's tough.
Tim Eaton:Beast Academy
Janette Beier:I think is such a good program. It really is. It's a really good curriculum. You can tell the teacher who does it, someone said, you're a genius, make an app. And it really helps you conceptualize numbers in a way that you can just do what you want with them. Our Lego brained boys love it.
Tim Eaton:Very
Janette Beier:creative writing girls. They want it more straightforward. They can't stand it. And how
Tim Eaton:did you guys determine what you wanted them learning or what they wanted learning? Like, how did you determine what you were going to do? Because when I'm listening to it, I'm going, man, you're going on a trip to 48 states. That education alone is sufficient. So how did you determine, and I know that there, you've got a full day every day, To fill. And there's a lot of learning that can take place, but how did you determine
Janette Beier:you needed more to fill? It's that I think I was stressed that they have to keep up with the basics of math and grammar and reading.
Aaron Beier:Yeah. I was
Janette Beier:like, And so many people, even teachers said they're gonna get such a better education on this trip than they could here. But I'm like, but don't they also, I would love to not do the math and language arts I would love for our unit study to be unschooling and this is what we do. we
Aaron Beier:haven't entered the world of unschooling. We have some friends that unschool, but we basically just took the soft step of. Take your public school curriculum, but just find other ways to teach that curriculum. So there was math. There was science. There was reading and writing. And then there was ELA and the arts and then the history, right? So there you go. You got it all covered. And then when we go to a park, it's get out the soccer ball and play a family soccer game. Get out the wolf ball bat. And play family wiffle ball. Throw the frisbee and play tag and do the game.
Tim Eaton:So did you get on the road in June or July?
Janette Beier:We didn't get on the road until December. That's how long it took to
Tim Eaton:get here. Oh, okay, because you were thinking maybe we'd sell the house, but you ended up renting it.
Janette Beier:No. We planned to rent it. We planned on renting it, but the bus wasn't getting done. There was so many mechanical issues. We didn't know when we bought it, and it drove fine until we got home, and then everything went kaput. Neil Peart from Rush drove it all over the place. Then another country singer drove it, and then people just didn't take care of it for years.
Aaron Beier:We had the bus. We had to work on it. So
Janette Beier:we homeschooled for a semester at home, which didn't sell me on homeschooling because I was like, Oh, this is harder at home. But we did, you know what? Our adventure starts now. And we started adventuring Colorado and that really put a pep in our step instead of just waiting and being stressed. And there
Aaron Beier:was math corner with dad and there was reading time and stuff with mom and dad would sit in the kitchen and do math. And if kids needed help, I said, I'll be in the kitchen helping. And I sat at the Island because I'm a very desk friendly. Learning person. And Jeanette's a very lay on the couch, lay in bed and do her research. And I don't function well in that environment and stuff. And so she had the living room and I had the kitchen and we just let kids rotate through what they needed help with. And then we'd go off on a local adventure and do whatever we needed to do to fill the other part of the time. Because
Tim Eaton:you were still getting the RV ready and you were still just getting ready to. Yeah. And
Aaron Beier:he quit his job at
Janette Beier:that point. And
Aaron Beier:I was getting the house ready for renters and,
Janette Beier:that reminds me, that's why I wasn't planning on full time homeschooling again at that point. Because he was homeschooling with me, which was a game changer. Yeah. For 16 kids, and they're all, only our oldest really could mostly do it herself. So just even rotating between the two of us was really busy. And I was like, Oh, and, but the few days he couldn't help me, I was like, this is too much. But on the road, it's amazing. Honestly, it's the stuff they have to do is pretty minimal. They get it done really fast. I got out of my head of structure. If we don't do homeschool before this, it won't happen. Like it can be done in two hours for Pete's sake. I relaxed my kind of rigidness on this trip, which, because there was no outside thing telling me what time it was, what day it was, where I had to be. It's amazing.
Aaron Beier:That's where I think dabbling into that unschooling kind of philosophy or that freedom that I mentioned earlier at the beginning. The reason I've come to that conclusion because we've been homeschooling on the road full time, which is great. I'm sure most of your listeners aren't full timing on the road and homeschooling. They're homeschooling. And so you do have that dynamic of, Oh, it's always there because it is always there, right? So there's always chores to do at home. There's always a meal to prep. There's always something to fix.
Tim Eaton:If you listen to like my episodes over the last year and a bit it's it's such a lifestyle thing. Like it really is. It's a MIT homeschooling really is a misnomer because for like you guys right now would be considered technically world schooling or something like that. But the reality is. You're just the buyers, man. You're just the buyers and you're just, and you're just living your life. That's what you're doing. And that's what it is. But the principles that homeschooling, traditionally espouses is being it's manifesting through what you guys are doing with your family. You're just making decisions.
Aaron Beier:It's the seed that you plant in the fruit of that. is the result, which is that lifestyle change that you're talking about. The seed is let's homeschool, which gives you the freedom to do other things, which you don't even know what those things are if you haven't homeschooled because. You don't know what freedoms are available. You just think you have to be school. You have to write. I've got this structure. I've got to get my kids from a to B. Then there's these events that they want to go to. And there's the trunk or treat and the trick or treat and the pageant and the singing and the talent show and
Janette Beier:the field trips.
Aaron Beier:It's all the things that draw your kids. Oh, attention and not that they're not good things, but it's that good, better and best kind of idea. Yeah. It's yeah, there is good things. And it's
Tim Eaton:if there's anything that I do in this work, it's it's helping families customize it to their family. And it's like you were talking about, and that's why I do want to talk to you at some point, Jeanette and Aaron, about just how to To customize this to your family so that you don't feel like I have to do this or I have to do that. So they keep up because after studying this for years and seeing we've had two kids go all the way through already. One's a third one's about to finish this coming year. And I just know for sure that it works out so if one question, maybe I'll just ask it now is what is the outcome that you're after for your nine children? What is it that you're hoping that materializes or happens? What is the end goal of their education by the time they leave your parent tutelage at 18 or 19 or whatever what's your knee jerk response to that? What are you hoping is the outcome and what do you hope to see by the end of that time?
Janette Beier:It's not knee jerk because we've talked about it and written it down many times. We talk about our why. We talk about our focuses. We bring our kids in on it. We put flashcards all over the floor with, here's all the wonderful words that could describe what summer or homeschool should look like. Everyone pick up one that matters most to you. And then, oh, I wouldn't have thought they cared about that more than that. That's good for us to know. Then we family meeting over how it's conceptualized and put together and see if they agree. So not so much that I can rattle them off, because we just two nights ago had the conversation and everyone went on another list oh, this was our list.
Aaron Beier:Yeah, remember this list that I made back like a year and a half ago?
Janette Beier:Our end goal, and we've talked about this repeatedly, is that we want our children to love learning. Because they'll easily forget everything they learn, right? You can't just cram it down their throat to get it done. If anything, that'll make them hate learning. And anytime you get a job or even go to college, you're relearning it all. So you just have to know how to learn and be excited about it. We want them to love learning. We want them to have a very healthy sense of who they are. And what makes them tick, and for our kids in particular, we want them to have a healthy emotional assessment of who they are, and how to take care of themselves, and how to teach people how to treat them. Which
Aaron Beier:is an evolution, right? A lot
Janette Beier:of this was like, we have a lot of different disabilities, so we teach our kids, oh, this is anxiety, this is why this feels this way. And it's your job to learn how to help yourself, how to ask for help, how to remove yourself when you're mistreating someone because of it. Like it's a balance of taking care of yourself and teaching others what that looks like. So we want them to be healthy in that, because I think that piece is why so many adolescents, particularly removed from a parent home, who really knows them in an adolescent world of hormones everywhere, addictive decision. A lot of those bad decisions that are harmful is because of that emotional unrest. Whether it's light long term triggers that are trauma that hasn't been dealt with or new issues or depression or whatever that may be. So
Tim Eaton:what I'm hearing is that what you guys are after are children who love learning, who know how to learn and who know who they are and so there's a lot of relationship implied there. So from that, what I would say is if you work your way back, that really determines, what do I do today? If you begin with the end of mind and you go, and I'm not saying that means you don't do math or whatever. I'm just saying that is what should inform everything that you do in the present. Because I think what we think a lot of times is, and I'm still having to break out of this. Is that if I don't do these things, then they're not going to be ready and I'm just learning more and more that if I focus on them, knowing how to learn and loving learning, that stuff just happens,
Aaron Beier:no, I was going to give you my quick and knee jerk response. Unlike Jeanette, who has the list. She actually has the list in her head and she just went and pulled it out. That's how she got there. She walked back to the file cabinet, mentally pulled it out, looked at the list and told you. My knee jerk reaction is a different answer. And that's, I'm raising future adults. I'm a kid who has children and I'm still learning. And I'm on my learning journey. And as a homeschool dad and as a dad, as a father, I'm just raising future adults. And I just want to help. them be the best adults that they can be. And whatever that looks like for each child in their own language, as I mentioned earlier, that's what my goal is for the homeschool is. What is it that you like? So we have a, that's really into horses and it's so much of who she is that there's nothing more that I want for her than to just land in a world where she can just be around horses. Because horses is their therapy. Horses is her passion and she'll be great and amazing at it. She'll be the best horse, whatever she decides to be. I just need to allow her that freedom and ability to get that. And if I sit at home and don't give her an exposure and wait until she's. On her own as an adult and then expose her to that. She'll still be a great horse person, but she won't have that life journey of being a horse person that she wants. We have a neighbor across the way that has horses and our girls are getting bareback riding lessons from her this summer. We're waiting to go on our trip and just to see her excitement level because of that education that she was getting. That's my excitement. Developed her as a person. She's gonna be an adult someday. She's gonna be passionate about horses just like she is now. And so that's my knee jerk off the cuff. And that's my real answer for it. And that's the only answer I have. Jeanette has a lot of other reasons. And those other reasons are in there, but those are deeper for me than just I'm raising a future adult who really needs to become who they are meant to become, and I'm here to help develop them into that. And this method of schooling for us is the right method at this time for us to do that. And we're just blessed to be able to be doing it in the way that we're able to do it.
Janette Beier:Very hands on. I will say we're being converted. We planned on being done with homeschool at the end of this year. And as we've gone along, we're like, we actually can't stop this. Whatever it looks like. We don't actually need the travel part of it. It's awesome. It really is. It's also a lot of work. What we're like, what are we loving most? We are loving that we are not being dictated to by outside structures and timelines. Even having a house around you, the begging for work to be done is hard to ignore.
Tim Eaton:We've homeschooled all the way through, but our kids have participated in the like adjacent school sports. Like our kids play football, basketball, and volleyball and stuff like that. And I can't believe how much that dictates our life. And it's to the very mighty chagrin of my wife and more me.
Janette Beier:Yeah. And those are the things I'm like, I don't want to get stuck in that. And I feel bad. I'm like, I just hope God didn't give me a prodigy. Cause I don't think I'm going to. And if I have one, yes, child, I will give you what you need, but I we host fall festivals on weekends and we go on hikes. Like I want the freedom to decide this is how we spend our time. Our kids are saying this is great while they're young, when they're teenagers, they'll need more of those things. I'm like, maybe, but what they really need. Is their parents to be really good parents and for me to be my best self? I have to be happy with my life and personally at my center Driving all over the place Is not what makes me tick or makes me Having my kids around and being on adventures with them. And if they want to play a sport and our family plays it with them, like that makes me feel joy. And so that has to be a factor that drives what our lives look like. Is that makes mom and dad happy? Not just the kids, because really the kids are happier.
Aaron Beier:And it's our life too. And I, as a person who grew up playing team sports, it is hard. I played hockey. And, someday I'll get back up to Canada and play with Dan who introduced us and you can come join us and we'll have some stuff. But as much as I love that game, I don't want my kids to play hockey because I don't want to drive them all around to all of the rinks and the tournaments and dedicate my life towards just getting them from A to B and their stinky pads. And maybe there's a season of our life where that'll happen. But right now the season we're in is the one we're in. And we did have to give up some things. We gave up guitar lessons and we gave up cello lessons and bass lessons and violin. And those other things that we chose to do are on hold while we're, what you said, we're world traveling or as we're on this trip and homeschooling. But those are things we can pick back up. And then when we have a child that's. extra interested in gymnastics, which we have many that are very good at it. Maybe we find the time with the homeschool schedule that allows us the freedom combined with homeschool that we can make those choices to do some of those activities that otherwise we wouldn't be able to do in the public school system strictly because Literally, there's not enough time in the day.
Janette Beier:Or, you really don't want to do it, there's YouTube tutorials. Or people can
Aaron Beier:come to our house.
Janette Beier:Learning in my living room, right? I'm not depriving her by not adding something to our lives that we know. Isn't actually the best for our rhythm.
Tim Eaton:The principle is that your experience right now is the freedom not being dictated by other schedules And the companion to that, obviously for you guys right now, especially is the time as a family, the time together.
Janette Beier:That's the second. That's so we can saying we don't need the travel. What we need is the freedom. And this amazing intentional time. So we're just been brainstorming all the things like, what can we do financially? Nothing we want to do can happen, but we're still pressing on and manifesting and seeing what we can make of it because we're not going to go we don't have the money. We have to go back to normal life. We're like, Nope, that's not how we live. When we find what matters, which for us has always just been time together, we will sacrifice and we'll fight and we'll pray and we'll figure it out. So what's your what
Tim Eaton:is the trajectory of your trip? You started in December
Janette Beier:named some
Tim Eaton:places you've been and then tell us where you're headed.
Janette Beier:Yeah, so we started in Colorado We left in the winter. So we headed straight to the south. So we angled down the Midwest, you know
Aaron Beier:That's folks live in Missouri. So I went through Missouri and through Nauvoo and spent three Christmas in Nauvoo
Janette Beier:the cool thing about this trip is after next week, I will have seen every single aunt, uncle, grandparent, and cousin that I have that the few that I tried, but we missed each other, but I've been by all of them and that I haven't seen a lot of them in 15 years. That's been really cool. Really cool. And Aaron's family we've seen and old friends. That's been a blessing on this trip is just those we're not disconnected. We're just disconnected from our stationary at home, but we are very much connecting. So then, yes, we went through Georgia. We did the entire coast of Florida because I was like, I don't know why people love Florida. So I'm going to check out the whole coast and figure out what's the best part. Why do people love it? That's not why people wanted to
Aaron Beier:see why everyone loves their state, right?
Janette Beier:Yeah. So we did we, then we did the entire South. I've also wanted to know what, where's the right beach. Cause all the beaches we go to are too windy
Tim Eaton:so we
Janette Beier:did the whole South. Saw a lot of cool things along there. Then we came up through California. Then we did the West and we did Utah North to South Idaho. We came up to the Pacific, Northwest, we did Montana,
Aaron Beier:Washington, Oregon.
Janette Beier:So we did, we basically got all of the west and the west coast. Then we went up into British Columbia. We saw Victoria, Vancouver Whistler. Then after Alberta we went down into Glacier.
Aaron Beier:From Calgary. So we got to go through the beautiful Western Alberta that you live in.
Janette Beier:Oh my gosh, you need to look at our Instagram. So it's called Byer Family Zoo. B E I E R. The word beer with an I in the middle. So people can see what there is to see in each state, but Canada, it shows just the drive thru and it's
Tim Eaton:so you were just here a few weeks ago, right? So where have you gone from here?
Aaron Beier:So we came down into Glacier and then we went from Glacier. We went across kind of northern Montana into North Dakota where we Met our friends the tix And then we went, down into South Dakota and saw a few places in South Dakota that people see. And then we made our way over to Wisconsin to go see a college friend from back in the day. Yep. We went through Minnesota and did the biggest mall of America where our eight year old got ears pierced And then we went and hung out with a friend for a week and they were tour guides and showed us all the local stuff to see and we went swimming and went to parks and went to the lake and it was great. And as we left Madison, Wisconsin and fix those on the road. And then we went up into the UP state in the UP for kind of a week. And then we headed down into this part of Michigan. And so now we're over by
Janette Beier:So the plan was to get these Northern states in the summer. And then we're going to pop over to Ontario and see Niagara Falls. I come down upstate New York. And we're going to spend a lot of time in Vermont because our goal after this is to build a small little cute A frame house in Vermont. Then we're going to go back up into Canada. We're going to check out, Montreal and on. I'll
Aaron Beier:go see the Maritimes and
Janette Beier:Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island. That has been number one on my list. So we're really excited to hit that up, early September, then we're going to come back through Maine and we'll do New England in the fall, which we've done once before and loved it. That's made us decide we'd love to live in New England every fall. So let's have a little house there. Then we're going to keep coming down into the Carolinas and then we've got a few more Midwest states to hit on the way back to Colorado because we've added so much Canada. We might miss a few. Like Oklahoma, Kansas, places, Iowa, but they're close enough that we could see them later.
Aaron Beier:So
Tim Eaton:when will you land at home?
Janette Beier:So then we will get back first of December, like December 3rd. Then we will have Christmas back in the mountains. And then our plan is to settle down for the winter.
Aaron Beier:Settle down, shake our heads. The
Janette Beier:next plan. The original plan was to spend less, save up a nest egg, use his skills, To build a cute A frame in Vermont, park the bus, live on it while we build the A frame, live in Vermont for a year, keep renting Colorado to fund that one. Now we get on the bus, hit the road again. Now we have two homes renting, generating income. Then when that gets to be enough, we also love Pacific Northwest. He's always wanted to build a tree house that you actually can live in and then keep building that. And that's how we sustain this life. The problem is our bus has taken all of our money. We have Bondua Mechanic every month. Fuel isn't
Aaron Beier:cheap and you just gotta keep maintaining it.
Janette Beier:Financially, we don't have that nest egg. We are debt free. We don't have current jobs. We're living on a dream. So that's what do we do? And we've hoped as we talk to people on this trip, maybe we'll get direction. We do know we won't be going back to dad gone forever. 95 and mom's full time home like it's like we've
Aaron Beier:seen the light, you can't go back
Janette Beier:and on the homeschool front Our kids keep saying they can't wait to go back because they miss their friends and we've started shifting We've converted into gosh, if you aren't gonna go back to working full time I really want this time with our kids. Like I don't want to let it go I don't think we should let it go. Nine children, it's divided by two. We can never give them the individual time they need, much less if we literally have them for a few hours a day. Even when I put my kids in public school, I got some real beef about the public school hours. Like you don't get your kids ever. Heaven forbid they have afterschool programs. Like you just don't get them. And that's not what they need. Especially when
Tim Eaton:you throw in activities and stuff like that, it's so hard.
Aaron Beier:It's hard not to say that public school was designed for the parents and not the kids, but that's really the reality of it is the hours are working hours so that parents can go to work. And that's, I get that when education was started and everyone was farming and it was go to the school to learn. It was during the day and it was around those seasonal farming hours and those daylight hours were precious and you sent your kids to school. But. As society has evolved into this very, Western civilization way of living, the family unit is just, it's just threatened with extinction. Other things that are good, but not the best.
Tim Eaton:I just hope you guys are documenting a lot of it because I think some things could be turned into a book
Janette Beier:I've been told to write a book my whole life, but my mom is a published author. And I think I see how hard it is and how everyone writes books and it doesn't seem to read them. I think if someone came to me and said I care enough that I will publish this and people will read it and it'll be worth your time, I would. But I haven't been motivated to write because of that. We
Aaron Beier:have a few Hallmark movies in our back pocket and definitely lots of books.
Janette Beier:But I, yeah, we love sharing. I'd love to share. If someone like, yeah, I'd love to write stuff down or talk about it, but.
Aaron Beier:We thought about doing a podcast just a big family podcast when we blended. But as it's a lot of work and time, but if just Jeanette and I had an hour conversation once a week or every two weeks about big families and obstacles that entails and ideas for, you know, hacks for cooking and hacks for chores and all the stuff, but that's just, you add, you just, it's one more thing on top of you actually still have to parent all of those kids.
Janette Beier:I feel very drawn and moved to speak to people and help inspire them, not because I feel inspiring, but because I've been inspired, and I've been in a lot of difficult crossroads in my life, and I've done a lot of the hard work, and I've been through tons of therapy, and I've
Aaron Beier:Yeah.
Janette Beier:A lot of prayer and a lot of guidance and so just sharing that it helps everyone I meet. But I guess I feel like if I ever needed to do good, I won't have to try and chase it and make it happen. It'll just naturally come into my life and until that happens, I'm very busy. But if it ever came into my life I'd love to embrace
Aaron Beier:it. Yeah, sure.
Tim Eaton:So one thing I was wondering cause we've talked a lot about how much education is happening just by being on this trip and you talked about things that they're doing, how are the kids liking it? And what would you say about their learning on this trip?
Aaron Beier:One, thing that we do take advantage of is national parks. When you go to a national park, if you don't already know this, most people probably do know it, but any national park and a lot of state parks have something called a junior ranger program where your kids get a little pamphlet and every national park does it different and some are very thorough and intense and some are very easy. And so we have kids that love doing that and because they love doing it, it gets the other kids excited. So that's going to be my input on this. I'm going to let Jeanette finish with her answer. But it's taking advantage of existing opportunities like national parks, like children's museums. We went to Madison, Wisconsin, and there's a children's museum plug for them. It's an amazing place to take your kids. And just let them be kids and when there's no timeline and you get to be on a kid's timeline,
Janette Beier:it's
Aaron Beier:so fun. One of the things we did sidetrack, one of the things we did when we were homeschooling before we went on the trip. We went down to Denver, Colorado, close to where we live. And we went to a park and we let our kids govern how long we stayed there. And it was eight and a half hours later that we left the park.
Tim Eaton:So cool.
Aaron Beier:It just played. And it was fun to be a dad that was not trying to get to the grocery store afterwards or worried about. We need to go get food because we packed a lunch and we just came with our stuff. We had some one wheels and skateboards and a playground and we played catch and Frisbee. And it was just like, you let kids be on their own. How many times do you go to a park and the mom or dad is saying, okay, it's time to go. So yeah, take advantage of whatever local activities are already set up for your education.
Janette Beier:So two part question, right? How are the kids liking it? And what's the, what's education look like? So we broke down the kind of simplified structural school that they've done. Every day. And if it's a big homeschool day, then we don't worry about it. We have governed our stops around what could be more educational. So harvest hosts is a program for RVers where you stay at someone's property for free. It's really nice. You pay like 85 bucks a year or something. And where we're staying now is some guy's property and he happens to be a bus guy too, and he's got hookups and we're just here for three nights and it's just a friendly thing that they do. And
Tim Eaton:how did you connect with him?
Janette Beier:You go online and you book Harvest Host and then you just search for it. You just search. I'm going to be in this part of Canada and every Harvest Host comes up. And if they're available, you request to stay. It's really great. And there's businesses that do it. If it's a business, you're asked that you support the business. So we try to stay at farms. Not like meat farms because I wouldn't buy the meat and I'd feel bad. But there's other there's a farm we went to that was amazing. And it was like an all organic, sustainable farm. And we stayed, it's supposed to be one night, but they gave us like five. Cause they often will let you when you're there. And they said they have a program where they give your kids a farmer certificate if they want to help out. I was like done. And it was really cool for that to just be an opportunity and to see which kids cared and our four older girls set their own alarm and they were up ready for the farm manager to show up every morning. They wouldn't sightsee anything with us. They didn't care about Astoria. They didn't care about lighthouses. They worked that farm. They took care. They milked goats. They made cheese, they made yogurt. They took care of the chickens and the geese. They raked poop. They, your kids did
Tim Eaton:all this stuff?
Janette Beier:Yeah. They were mucking and they were so mad when we left. They wanted to stay forever. They were
Tim Eaton:in tears.
Janette Beier:But so yeah, learning opportunities, like we, we use local libraries more than we thought. And we can't check out books, which is a bummer, but we can sit and read all day or
Aaron Beier:so we do that. We go to the library in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and we sit and we read. And then we walk outside and run to the park that's right next door and play. And then we come back and we sit and read.
Tim Eaton:And
Aaron Beier:the kids are wandering around the library, looking at books, reading, trying to read a whole book while we're reading there. Or we're reading a bunch of books.
Janette Beier:Where do you guys
Tim Eaton:shop where do you get food?
Janette Beier:Oh, so expensive. It's expensive. Costco we've only hit Costco a couple times.
Tim Eaton:Just the local stores then,
Aaron Beier:whatever the local store is. We eat a lot of produce,
Janette Beier:a lot of
Aaron Beier:produce. And so we try to find whatever the local natural produce store is. If there's farmer markets.
Janette Beier:We thought we'd hit more farmers markets and like more you pick farms, but it's not quite that. We're waiting. We're like, can we pick those? But not yet. So yeah, but we can't even do cheap grocery stores because they don't have good produce and they don't like, we have three kids who can't eat gluten. So we just have specialty foods. We
Aaron Beier:just spend a lot on food. We
Janette Beier:spend a lot on food. We plan the menus. We have to eat like this is the meal. There's no free snacking. There's no wasting. Yeah,
Aaron Beier:beans and rice is definitely back on the menu a lot. Yeah.
Janette Beier:We eat really well. Like I'm a nutritionist but I also love to cook. I used to host cooking classes. Cool.
Aaron Beier:Green
Tim Eaton:smoothies
Janette Beier:basic food. We eat cheaper, but
Tim Eaton:You're, you were answering the question about education, but I'm just going, Oh my goodness. Like they're doing all that with the farms, geography, national parks,
Janette Beier:They're
Tim Eaton:observing. I always call it the economy of the home and yours is a traveling home. The economy of the home is where kids learn so much and sufficient. They're watching mom and dad deal with mechanics and they're seeing car things, they're being exposed to things and they all have meaning. And that's the thing where you can't underestimate what that's doing to their education and what that's doing to their minds. They're observing that stuff, man.
Aaron Beier:Makes you feel good about all the breakdowns. It just makes me feel good about when they're, Away from the home. They're not seeing those things, but when they're on the bus with mom for two hours, why dad's getting the van brackets, a tow back welded on from some guy that he just calls and dad's I do what I do. And I make connections with people and I use first names and Oh, James told me to come talk to you, John and John's not there. He's on vacation. And next thing you know, I'm north of Madison getting brackets welded on the van by a nice guy who grew up in the UP. And yeah, our kids are learning from that. And they
Tim Eaton:are, man. And the social learning the, just because you have so many people, that laboratory of the home is sufficient and there's just so
Janette Beier:many harvest hosts we stay at. And when you stay there, the host always talks to you and the kids they're so social. They go, when are we going to stay at another friend's house or a cousin, and they've never met them. Or like the harvest was like, is it someone's house? And they talk to them and they'll show them around their farm and they'll show them how they grow stuff. And I just tell
Aaron Beier:them about one thing
Janette Beier:I love about the bus too, is they're learning about conservation and to value every utility, like why limit it off. Power is limited. Oh, we have to turn it off.
Tim Eaton:The
Janette Beier:solar is coming in. Oh, our internet is going to run out. Turn that off. The hot water is going to run out. And just not mindlessly turning things on. But knowing and seeing the water go in. And seeing the power plug. And seeing the solar panel. thing, like grasping to value those things and that when you don't have them, we're okay. Like we've taken, we have to,
Tim Eaton:You're connecting as a family through it all. Give us a visual of the, bus, like where are people sleeping and where is stuff?
Aaron Beier:Yeah. So there's actually a tour pinned on the Instagram, but as you walk in the bus, you walk up three stairs. This is a 40 foot Prevo coach bus in 1992 XL La Mirage. You walk up, as you walk up the stairs, there's a nice brown seat that my dad thankfully gifted to me to replace the old worn out seat. So I have a nice seat up there. And then right behind that seat on the driver's side, there's. Two short couches put together, and on the opposite side is a longer couch. We have three younger boys, two four, and then one seven, they sleep on those three couches. There's six windows right there, and there's two sets of hooks for hammocks. So while we're driving through Yosemite, my wife can lay in a hammock and look out the window. And then as you keep going back, so that's where the first TV screen is on the passenger side, you get past that long couch on the passenger side. There's also a buddy seat in the front on that. So you get to the bathroom where there's a shower and a closed room with a sink and toilet. And then opposite of that is counters and a sink, and then a little three burner invection oven with a full size fridge that was in the bus before we bought it. We wouldn't have chosen that size, but it was on there and the only way to get it out is
Tim Eaton:It's
Aaron Beier:an older fridge, and I had to go find parts from a junkyard of fridge and freezer appliances to fix a component that made it not work completely. When you listen
Tim Eaton:to all that learning,
Aaron Beier:Right past the fridge. There's a little area where we have a washer dryer combo to do laundry. And then on the opposite of that, where it used to be a full house furnace is now a pantry where we put all of our food. And then behind that, there's six bunks, three on each side. So triple bunks. And then past that, there's a door with our room, which is like a eight and a half by eight foot room with a little platform that folds up. With storage underneath it. And then my dresser is on the ground with a bunch of totes little baskets, and then Jeanette's is on the black wall some baskets. And we just roll up our clothes. And the kids each in their bunk have two baskets that they can keep all their clothes in. And then a very small basket for their. For their iPad to charge it and then art supplies and books that they want to read.
Tim Eaton:So what's the reality of like cleanliness? Does it stay clean? Do people have chores? What's
Aaron Beier:it's who are you asking about their space? Because our space is clean, Jeanette and I. And then we have kids that are innately more clean than others.
Tim Eaton:Yes.
Aaron Beier:And some beds are made every morning meticulously. Her youngest daughter, she wakes up and makes her bed and puts her pillow and stacks her stuffed animal that she's allowed to have. Aww. And her clothes are rolled up nicely and if they get messed up she fixes them. And then you have other kids that it's have you ever made your bed? How do you know what to wear? And so they find out when everyone's gonna watch a movie on kid date night when dad says, Okay, we'll go clean your room, meaning your bed,
Janette Beier:One of the downsides of the living room is those like leather couches. It's one of the few things that Neil Peart did that we didn't touch. Everything else is remodeled. It's not very cozy. The kids are fine up there, so they left a pile on our bed and they don't quite fit. So there's like a, I was here first and here, but then my face.
Aaron Beier:But it is fun to get all 11 of us on one, basically a queen size bed.
Janette Beier:And yeah, it's definitely fun to snuggle on the bed, but there's a lot of we call it kid date night. We did that years ago, mostly during COVID when we couldn't leave to date or we just can't afford babysitters. So the kids get a date night too. So they're also excited. So they get a special quick dinner and a special movie and they are not allowed to come knock on our door and they get a double feature. They have to go to bed when it ends and her boys who are the babies who don't really obey rules. And I let them because they're cute. So it doesn't, they come in and go, but I want to snuggle you forever. And I'm like, oh my, yes. So it's not as intimate as it was before the twin boys were old enough to crawl out of bed, but the other kids get the drill pretty good. So that's the date night.
Aaron Beier:Some of them have learned if they're wasting water, I take it personal. Oh yeah. And I'm like, Hey like just recently, Isaac, he's he was found filling up the soap container with water from the sink in a closed bathroom. And so I found out and said, Isaac, come with me and I took him outside and we were actively dumping and filling the water. And so I, I showed him, this is what I have to do every time we run out of work. And then there's other kids that, they might take a long shower and it's like, Hey, you get to come and help me empty this tank that you filled with all the water. And now they go, I don't wait, there's poop in that water. I don't want to touch that. And I'm like, then don't be wasted, right? Have their chore.
Tim Eaton:What's the longest you've stayed somewhere? Like, where do you, where have you stayed the longest?
Aaron Beier:No, the longest was Missouri when we got. Stuck there with some, we had sickness hit us
Tim Eaton:so what's the average that you stay, like how long are you going to stay where you're at right now? How long have you been there?
Janette Beier:Three nights is average. We're hopping around. Have you guys
Tim Eaton:ever gone to a restaurant on this trip?
Janette Beier:Yes. Rarely.
Tim Eaton:Yeah,
Janette Beier:we sneak off like this. Our kids sleep in now.'cause our shift, our schedules are crazy shift. Totally.
Aaron Beier:Yeah. Our shift is scheduled with the sun. So
Janette Beier:so when we're near a cute downtown, I'll sneak away in the morning, get up early and have my brief time or exercise or whatever. So I went yesterday and walked the shops and got my little pastry and went on the lake. So this morning I woke him up at 6:00 AM and took him so that we could have like breakfast in front of the water. So that doesn't happen a lot because we don't want to be too far from the bus, but if we're in an area like that, we'll sneak off like that taking the kids out. We got stuck in victoria I know poor us the very old And we're like it's so
Tim Eaton:expensive there too, man.
Aaron Beier:Holy weekend on Victoria day. It
Janette Beier:was Victoria weekend. And we had, we have nine kids and we had our two dogs with us and we had to get hotel rooms.
Tim Eaton:There's lots of helpers. That's a good thing. But I could see that being a little crazy too. Like again, I bet you some people listen to this and they're just like, their anxiety has gone like up so
Aaron Beier:much, but I love it,
Tim Eaton:I'm living vicariously through you.
Aaron Beier:I'm very cool minded almost to a fault when something catastrophic happens.
Tim Eaton:One thing again that I'm thinking of is like just your kid's exposure to all that. But the learning that happens with all the fixing and the learning that happens, observing their parents and how they deal with that and how they can, like you said, keep their cool. And those are huge lessons for life. And so the last question I wanted to ask, and then we'll wrap this all together is what would you tell people about family and learning? Cause to me it is about family. What would you tell people? About family and learning and the lifestyle that you've chosen to live.
Janette Beier:What I would say is the things that I spend my time learning are nothing that I ever went to school for, even though I went to school and college, but the stuff that I will spend hours and hours on that I have enough hours to get a degree out of is stuff that's just applicable to my life that I'm interested in or that I just need to know. And so learning really is about learning yourself and learning how to live your life and the life that's been given to you. And I think that broadens it outside of the word education. And so with that mindset, if you're talking about homeschool it helps me stop and check are my kids learning to live? They have, you have to learn yourself and then you have to learn about yourself in the world around you.
Aaron Beier:Yeah.
Janette Beier:How were they learning those things? My most valuable learning absolutely was not anything I got from school, and for some people it is. It's not. And the stuff that I've learned, a lot of it actually isn't written anywhere. But it's just personal exposure and experiences and asking questions and talking to humans. People interaction, right? I can read all about what people say happened to the Native Americans and people take a side. But you know what? I'm gonna go to the Native American Cultural Center. Or even the reservation and talk to the actual people
Aaron Beier:what
Janette Beier:are your parents telling you that your grandparents told them? What is, what's actually true? So that's how I see learning.
Tim Eaton:And even in an example of that is what we said earlier with Aaron. It's not like he was studying all these homeschool books. He was just thinking as a, as his own human, his own being. And his life experience determined his thoughts about what he wants for his family, what he wants for his kids.
Aaron Beier:No. It is a good, broad question. And there's lots of routes in my head that are happening. Yeah. My, my mom, she was a lifelong learner. She loved to learn. And I, as a kid, I didn't understand that. As a kid, I didn't like to read. My dad is he's a speed reader. I've got a son who's just like that. And I'm really glad that all my kids read. My wife is still asks me even on this trip, like you didn't read these books. I just didn't read. I got through school, through the public school system, with very minimal reading because it was hard. I had a tracking disorder as a kid where I couldn't track my vision. I had to go to a vision therapist. It was hard work to figure it out. We have a daughter that had the same thing. I'm like, Oh, I know that. I've been through that. And Jeanette had no idea what it was about. And I'm like, Yep, this all makes sense. And I could work with her. And it was an experience that we now share together. But it's hard. And having that experience stunt my learning, I didn't love school. Most of my learning came from interactions with people and in my career, interacting with people. And I'll credit that to my dad wasn't always around, but like you said, we have these little ecosystems in our house. My ecosystem growing up was, Dad wasn't around to play with me. He was always helping someone else fix something, whether it was fixing a deck, a fixing an oven, installing a feeling ceiling fan, putting in a sprinkler system, helping someone finish their basement automotive repair. He was gone all the time doing that. And as a kid, I remembered my dad's always gone. I want to be present when I'm a dad and that's shaped how I am as a dad. But I also love going and helping people. And I love teaching people skills that they don't have because it's good to feel useful. And I'm blessed to have so many people in my ecosystem, in my home, that I feel useful a lot. There's a lot of need that we have. And so my view of how learning has impacted me is largely how I was taught as a kid by my father's example, how my mother told me she loved learning and how she learned. She passed away recently a few years ago with breast cancer that turned into lung cancer and she fought it and she had a winning battle for, almost 10 years. And that example of always learning that she set by living it. I have a desire to learn because there's things in this world that I just want to know. I have all these random hobbies. Bonsai. I'm into bonsai. Why? Because I think it's cool and now I do a bunch of research and I just do it. I'm into different things and different activities because a child gets interested and then I passionately dive myself into it. I've always envied people who could play musical instruments. I grew up playing the clarinet and. Never thought that was a cool instrument to play, and I'm trying to teach myself the ukulele. And so I've taken lessons, I've taken online, I've learned. I'm not really good at it, but it's definitely one of those things that I just want to do. And I know that's possible because of the example of my mom, who was an adult who was learning. And as a kid, I was, Watching her go back to school and earn another degree so she could get a qualification for a specific job that she had. Yeah. And so my ecosystem of my parents was definitely impactful of how I've turned out. And like I said earlier, I'm just raising future adults and they're going to be adults that will happen to be my children, but we'll have a lot in common as adults when we're hanging out and I'm slightly older than they are, and we're sitting at fire or at a restaurant or in the kitchen, cooking a meal or doing whatever we're doing together. And it's. It's these memories that we're creating definitely on this trip, but more so with this life change of our family unit is the education system
Tim Eaton:and you
Aaron Beier:have to learn teamwork and that's a skill that you learn because you complain about your chore being hard that you have to take the trash all the way to the end of the driveway and it's cold out. You know what? I can help, but you're still going to have to do it, right? And those are lessons that you are able to have with your Children. When their schedule is more flexible because you're choosing to homeschool them, right? And those are experiences that you can have as well, not in that homeschool environment, but it's Less organic.
Tim Eaton:I just want to. Tell listeners that they've been listening to Aaron and Jeanette Byer and it's so cool is that they left in December on their RV and have been traveling and have had so many learning experiences. With their children, with their family. And so it's just been, it's been amazing to talk about this. Thank you again for taking time, you guys, and being with me. And again, maybe we'll reconnect in the future.
Aaron Beier:Yeah. Thanks. Anytime. Thank you. We'll come up and hang out
Tim Eaton:That wraps up another edition of This Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.