BRB Chasing Dreams

As I wrap up my fourth year at Walt Disney World's International Festival of the Arts at Epcot in Orlando FL, I find myself wondering: where has the time gone? The last four years have felt like a blur and yet so much has happened! Let's catch up! :D

Since my last post, we bought a house, created a homestead, became fruit tree growers, chicken farmers, and as I mentioned above I became a contractor for Disney. Its been an unbelievable few years. Although I can't claim any of the credit for myself. All of the glory goes to God for His continued blessings and guidance. Through our homesteading process my husband and I found the Lord and our world has become greater and more wondrous than we could have ever imagined. I didn't grow up with religion, in fact I scoffed at it. But I don't feel as though I have joined a religion I feel that I found the truth. The journey is ongoing and I am so thankful and take absolutely nothing for granted. Perhaps in a future post I will go into more detail about my spiritual journey. But for now I will leave it there as there are so many photos that I want to share with you all!

I know most of you follow me on social media, so most of these photos will look familiar. But in an attempt to get caught up on my blog (and make an effort to start posting more consistently again) I will accept the consequences of redundancy!

First I want to share some before and after photos of our South Florida home. So our house was built in 1962 by the original owners and they lived in it their entire lives. Right away we knew that this was a special place. It's nothing fancy but the love was pouring out of the walls. We put an offer in the very next morning and it was accepted right away. What started out as a small project ended up being huge as we transformed our 1/4 acre lot into a full blown food forest!

As you can see, our yard has kept me quite busy for the last four years!! Currently have over 100 fruit trees and edible plants :D Now we help others build their own food forest and become more self sufficient. In addition to the fruit trees we also acquired chickens and pigeons. Slowly becoming a tiny farm! In the beginning of 2023 we realized we were quickly running out of space. And so, we started looking for some land.

We began working on a five acre fruit tree farm in hopes we would be able to take over the farm when the owner was ready to pass the torch. Unfortunately after a few months we realized this wasn't going to work out. Today our search continues. We leave it in the hands of God for our mantra "5 years for 5 acres" to become reality :) Meanwhile we will continue to tend to our tiny homestead!

I started this post by mentioning the Epcot Festival of the Arts. Four years ago I was deeply honored to be selected as a featured artist at Walt Disney World. Ever since I was a child I have wanted to do something with/for Disney. It was my dream to do background art, or design characters, or really anything! Well I can't even begin to express the joy it brings me to be able to show my OWN art through the magic of Disney world. What an incredible experience its been! I prepare and look forward to it every year. Here are some highlights:

So yes, the past four years have been a magical whirlwind that flew by like a dream. I'm going to do my best to update my blog regularly from now on as there is much much more brewing for the future and I'm so excited to share the next adventure with all of you! Much love and stay tuned!!

Julia