thetravelingwithers.com

Staying put. Growing deep. Traveling anyway.

2025 wasn’t a year of big geographic movement for our family but it was a year of profound internal travel.

After the emotional and medical intensity of 2024, this year became about learning how to live again inside a story that isn’t finished yet. Not racing ahead. Not trying to escape. Just… choosing presence, meaning, and motion in the places where we already were.

This is what 2025 looked like for us, The Traveling Withers.

💛 From Survival to Intention
We entered 2025 carrying a lot.

The previous year reshaped us… with Ross’s uveal melanoma diagnosis, treatment decisions, scans, advocacy, and the quiet emotional labor that no one really sees. This year wasn’t about fixing everything. It was about learning how to live well alongside the unknown.

2025 became the year we shifted from:

– reacting → choosing

– holding our breath → finding our rhythm

– waiting for “after” → living now

That shift changed how we show up in our days, our parenting, our marriage, and our dreams.

🚗 Travel as Meaning, Not Escape
This year changed what travel means to us.

It stopped being about distance and started being about depth.

One of the most meaningful moments of the year came in June, when we traveled for Ross’s plaque procedure… not as tourists, not as adventurers, but as a family showing up for something that mattered. That trip wasn’t about fun, but it was about courage, partnership, and choosing presence in a hard moment.

And then, something quietly beautiful happened.

Later in the year, we traveled again — this time to North Carolina to celebrate Ross’s dad’s 80th birthday. It was the first time we traveled purely for pleasure since our epic 2022 road trip when we evacuated for Hurricane Ida.

Not a medical trip.
Not a crisis trip.
Not a “we have to.”

A we want to.

That shift mattered more than we realized it would.

Travel in 2025 became less about escape and more about remembering who we are — together.

✍️ Turning Life Into Story
2025 was a year of turning experience into language.

We continued working on a memoir that weaves together:

– family and parenting,

– medical advocacy and resilience,

– grief, humor, faith, and growth.

Writing became a way of making sense of what we’ve walked through. Not polishing it, not prettifying it, but honoring it. Shaping it into something that might one day help someone else feel less alone.

Our message kept crystallizing into something simple and steady:

Life is precious. Pay attention to the lens you’re looking through. Have a bias toward action.

🎤 Finding Our Voice
This was also a year of stepping into voice.

We shaped two versions of our core story:

– one rooted in faith,

– one rooted in universal human resilience.

Both centered on choosing movement even when life feels heavy. On reframing hardship. On finding meaning without waiting for perfect conditions.

Not as experts.
Not as people who’ve “arrived.”
But as people who are still walking and willing to share the path.

💰 Building with Reality in Mind
Alongside the reflection and creativity, we stayed grounded.

We explored sustainable income ideas, practical systems, and realistic ways to build a life that can actually hold us… not a fantasy life, not a highlight reel, but one that supports our family, our health, and our values.

It was a year of asking:

“What does a life that supports us actually look like?”

And being brave enough to answer honestly.

🧠 The Real Travel of 2025
We may not have traveled far on a map this year.

But we traveled through:

– uncertainty

– healing

– patience

– redefining normal

– choosing joy without waiting for permission

– learning how to live inside an unfinished story

And that might be the most meaningful journey we’ve taken yet.

🧭 2025 in One Sentence
2025 was the year we stopped trying to get away from life — and started learning how to be fully inside it.

Thank you for walking with us.
Thank you for holding space for our story.
And thank you for being part of this strange, beautiful, unfinished journey.

Here’s to whatever 2026 becomes 💛 Love you guys!

— The Traveling Withers