We are The Christensons - Gary, Courtney, Joelle (age 16), and Charley (age 14) - and we are on a journey to create and live a life that works for our little family. After years of struggling to thrive, we realized that we'd gotten swept up in the current of "normal" American life and were consistently making choices that ran contrary to our family's wellbeing.
Now, we're attempting to create an alternative that works for us... a life that meets our family's needs and values without regard to cultural expectations or any sense of "should”, and one that allows us to more easily connect with and help others on their own unique path through life.
We LOVE what we get to do for a living, but there’s more to life than work, so you’ll mainly see “life” documented here on this site.
For work we do a couple things: Gary is a full-time independent Creative Director and recently launched Out There (Adventure Co.), and Courtney is a copywriter, author and launched her passion project called Spark & Matches. We are also serial entrepreneurs.
For us, freedom and flexibility is what it’s all about. Time is the true riddle to solve. Couple that with the understanding that we only get this one life, and we’re extremely motivated to make the most of it. Join us on the journey by reaching out and keeping in touch.
Our story.
It begins in Hawaii.
Maui, HI
We met eachother while living in Maui. We surfed, sailed, scuba dived, dated and got engaged on the Island in the matter of 9 months. Hawaii has a special place in our hearts so we try to go back as often as we can to visit the “family” that we formed while living there.
Married young and moving north.
The first great adventure
Thirteen months after we met we got married in Dana Point, CA. During our honeymoon in the Caribbean we rented a duplex on Craigslist and confirmed the decision to move north to Bend, Oregon - a place we knew very little about. Don’t ask us why but it just felt right… even though we didn’t own a vehicle, furniture, have jobs (or money) or know anyone. Adventure is in our blood! So we did it.
Our growing family.
Oregon + California
We spent 3 years in the Pacific Northwest playing in the mountains, lakes and rivers, launching our photography business and making our first baby (we’ll spare you the details about that). Shortly after Joelle was born we were fortunate enough to be able to purchase a home near the beach in Southern California (thanks Recession!) and made the move to San Diego. A few years after we moved, we had our second kiddo, Charlotte, who turned out to be just as awesome as her sister.
Adventure is out there.
Working & playing abroad
During our time in Southern California we had a lot of amazing opportunities to travel around the world for both work and play. We photographed destination weddings, used our photography and design skills to help various nonprofit organization in Africa and Asia, and were fortunate enough to take a lot of fun family trips to some snowy mountains and warm beaches. Traveling is a huge passion of ours, we’re grateful for the places we’ve been and get crazy excited just thinking about where we might go next.
Hello Pacific Northwest.
The Great PNW
We treasured our time in San Diego with our friends and family, but we wanted a bit more out of life so we sold most everything we owned, rented out our house and moved to the Seattle area for two years so that Courtney could get her Masters Degree in International Community Development. During our time in the great Pacific Northwest we pretty much maxed ourselves out with busy schedules and lots of exploring the area. Such amazing country up there! Far too crowded, but insanely beautiful! We adventured and traveled all over the place, mainly by camper van (’87 VW Vanagon named Betty).
Back to Bend.
Building for the future.
After graduation Courtney started working as the Field Communications Editor for Preemptive Love Coalition before striking out on her own and launching Sparks & Matches. Meanwhile Gary set out on his own (after 7 years as a Creative Director for a Los Angeles based Branding Agency) and starting working as an Independent Graphic Designer & Creative Director. We decided that our next move would be back to beautiful Bend, OR. We bought another fixer-upper and sold our house down in San Diego (which was also a fixer-upper). We also upgraded our VW camper van to a trusty and much larger Ford named Big Red. Oh, and we also got a black lab named Bailey… life changes!
Time to travel.
We always had a dream of doing some serious International travel while the girls were in the middle school zone. So we started getting after it. Covid-19 complicated things greatly, but we decided to do what we could (safely and easily) and started venturing into opening countries.
Swiss Alps
We took a big trip to Switzerland the Fall before the world shut down b/c of Covid-19. Ahhh, travel pre-covid was so much easier! We hit the timing just right and enjoyed a beautiful fall, an early snow storm and overall great weather (and epic views and fun) the whole time. What a place!
Baja, Mexico
Over the years we visited the southern and northern part of Baja several times, but always dreamed about spending several months down there. So that’s just what we did. We drove our truck down to the very bottom of the Baja peninsula and enjoyed exploring the area. It was quiet, little to no tourist, great surf and perfect weather. We had some of incredible experiences together as a family - diving with Whale Sharks, riding horses on the beach, surfing, snorkeling, whale watching, exploring hot springs and waterfalls, eating some amazing grub, and most of all enjoying each others company.
Panama
We decided to keep heading south. Some good friends of ours have been down in Panama for a few years now and invited us down to show us all around the country. It was an incredible way to experience a new place! We went all over the country and got a great taste of what Panama offers, which is a lot!
Montana
We spent the summer living in a cabin out in the woods with horses on the property - pretty much the girls dream come true! After lots of warmth, surf and beach focused trips this last year, it’s time to get country-western and let these girls get a taste for ranch life in Montana - which is how I (Gary) grew up, in the exact same area we’re visiting! So I’m pumped to show the family the ole stompin’ grounds.
Portugal
We headed to Portugal for several months and checked it out top to bottom. Almost moved there, but the country-life back in Oregon was calling us home.
Oregon was calling us home.
Time for some Ranch Life.
What made the most sense to us was to swap out our house in town for a property out in the country (only a few miles away).
Where we could have some critters, mountain views, quiet living and tons more outside time. The high level goal here is to have some consistency in life for the girls while they go through highschool. And what better place than Central Oregon?! We spend a lot of time together and going to every single outing or event the kids want us there for. Soakin’ it all up before it’s gone.
