Amazing Women Wednesday: Suzanne Simone Stavert

I am a great admirer of Suzanne Stavert! She is the author of Adventures of Empty Nesters, a thoroughly enjoyable blog! I often have her on Travels with Tam as a guest blogger, especially her yummy foodie posts! She loves food and wine and travel accordingly!

Adventures of Empty Nesters was created from the idea that empty nesters needed a place to share adventures, as well as inspire others to go out and find adventure. Suzanne believes the second half of life can be the best ever! I agree with her when she says it is time to focus on our dreams instead of carpooling and soccer practice. She has grown her blog tremendously in just a couple of years, and loves the fact that empty nesters are a community of people who are talented, creative, adventurous, enthusiastic, loyal and are ready for the next adventure. She has created an exciting community online! I admire her for creating adventure for herself and others instead of mourning for her chicks. They all fly eventually, and we need to fly as well.

Suzanne travels the world with her husband, Craig, and blogs about their adventures. One of the most interesting things, especially in the 21st century, is that they were high school sweethearts! They have been married for thirty-one years, and have two amazing adult children, Alexandra 27 and Nicholas 22, (funny, I have an Alexandra, 28!).  Travel has always been a part of their lives, but when the nest was finally empty and Nicholas was in college at UCLA, they turned it up a notch!

I asked Suzanne what was happening in their active lives right now, and she replied, “Our biggest personal adventure to date is we downsized and moved away from our home of 27 years. We wanted to live closer to our families and so we took this huge step in January of this year. We purchased a 1937 Spanish Colonial, fixer-upper home in Pasadena, California. Wow – a huge change, as well as an exciting, scary adventure. We start the project today after months of planning, hiring an architect, contractor and city permits. While our home was renovated, it was imperative that we live somewhere else, we decided to take on one more adventure. We drove 1200 miles to Seattle, Washington where we have rented a very small apartment on the 18th floor of an urban high-rise building in downtown Seattle! Our daughter lives in Seattle and it was always a dream of ours to live an urban lifestyle. This is just temporary and so far we are really enjoying this location. Our young dog, Rocco is having a little bit of trouble adjusting to this cement jungle, but we are finding many parks to take him to play. We can fly home every couple of weeks to check on the project and see our extended family. With very competent contractors, face time and cell phones, it simplifies the process of this long distance. Our little dream house in Pasadena should be finished in March of 2016 and we can’t wait to invite our family and friends to our first open house.” How exciting to move to a different city and live a totally different lifestyle! That truly is an adventure!

Be sure and follow Suzanne’s adventures, I always do!