Hi. I’m Candice.
Welcome to The Great Wanderlust. A place to dream, be inspired, and find camaraderie with other women who thrive in adventure and choosing the off-the-beaten path in travel…and in life. Take off your shoes, grab a drink and hang with me awhile. I’m so happy you’re here!
Part One
One late spring night in 2012, with our twin babes were soundly sleeping in their nursery, we came up with a business idea. People often ask how we could possibly have been looking for anything else to do (considering our twins who weren’t quite one). But we just loved the idea of building something that could be a family project and allow us to give back as a family too.
We sat in our home office, Jon at his computer and me at my sewing machine, and excitedly brainstormed what we could create! That night we had a logo and our next great adventure, Love Well Handmade, was born. Our handmade baby clothing business that paired Jon’s love for design with my love for creating simple + meaningful clothing for our babies quickly became not only our family business, but our family’s anthem.
Over the next four years, we clumsily grew that business from a tiny little pop-up shop at a handmade market to a couple handfuls of retailers and an online store with an entire product line including blankets, leggings, bloomers, hats, headbands, decorative prints, wall hangings and lots more. Late into the night you could find our dining and living room covered in fabric scraps, Jon using patterns to cut out legging pieces and me sewing hundreds of items to drop off at our retail shops or pop in the mail to customers. Days would find Jon at his day job across town and me loading up the babies to buy more fabric or needles, pick up shirts at our local screen printer, drop off orders, and later on to visit our stay-at-home mom seamstresses for training or to pick up finished orders. It was so much work + chaos…but we loved it!
We became best friends with our retailer partners, spending holidays together and running our businesses while our babies crawled together underfoot. It was a gift beyond what we had envisioned…and it grew quickly. Then in 2014, when Love Well was just shy of two years old, we got some news that rocked our whole world and would become a defining life change for our future and the future of our little business.
Our Story
Part Two
In the fall of 2014, we found out we were expecting another baby, and we were overjoyed! But we were in for the biggest surprise yet one afternoon when we went in for an ultrasound. L+V were just 2 years old, but we took them along to make a family afternoon of it and help them to feel a part of the process with the new baby. I had dreamy visions of experiencing a normal, uneventful birth, going full-term and getting to bring our tiny baby home just days after birth, rather than going through preterm labor, bedrest and having three excruciating weeks in the NICU like when Linc and Viv decided to arrive early.
We held our breath and waited for the doctor and nurse to read the ultrasound and let us know the heartbeat was strong and everything looked great. The blank stares and long pause went on a little too long. We knew something was up. Clearing his throat, our doctor quietly announced - “I’m seeing not one, but two babies. You’re having twins again.” Silence. We couldn’t believe it - total shock. We never expected to have one set of twins, but two??
About 7 months later, on the exact same gestation day as Linc + Viv (33 weeks and 3 days) we brought our two precious and spunky baby girls, earthside. We were in heaven, but also completely in over our heads! So in love with our little 4 pack of babes, we struggled through another 3 weeks in the NICU before finally making it home in early May 2015. The following couple of years would be a blur of crazy, precious, sleep deprived, chaotic and wonderful days. We continued to run the business, now with four little models instead of two, hoping to build it into not only our family’s legacy, but our livelihood. And then, not long after the girls arrived, more unexpected, but incredibly exciting news found its way to us.
Part Three
One busy afternoon I was driving home with Linc and Viv and our baby girls, now 3 and 1 respectively, when my phone rang. It was Jon. “You’re not going to believe this babe,” he said. “I just got an email from West Elm and they want to schedule a call to talk with us about carrying Love Well in their stores.”
“Wait, what?!?” I couldn’t imagine how he could be serious. After harassing him over whether it could be fake or a scam, we scraped together a response, trying to play it cool but failing miserably, and hit send. The following weeks were a blur of excitement as we learned that they wanted us to be a part of their local maker program. Considering they weren’t a baby product company, the plan was for us to use our designs to create new products for the home, a challenge we accepted with gratitude and excitement!
For the next two years we worked with West Elm, selling our products in their online store and in 7 markets across the U.S. and being featured in a video they came to our house to film, sharing our family story and promoting their company mission to support small, local businesses. We worked harder than ever and even made a big move to a new part of town, always on the lookout for more adventure and connection in our lives.
We also began to travel more, finding even more fulfillment in it than ever now that we had four little ones in tow. Seeing other cultures and parts of the world through their eyes, and experiencing it alongside them lit me up in a whole new way, and I just wanted more and more of it. Our beginning desire to give them a broad worldview and appreciation for people who were different than us became stronger than ever. But between me caring for our four little ones all 3 years old and under, Jon’s full-time job in the city + another side business he was growing at the time, it all began to be too much. We were frazzled. And I was struggling with what I now realize was probably extended post-partum anxiety coupled with pure overwhelm. Running on nothing but the fumes of our dreams, we knew something had to change, and quick.
Part Four
We were juggling four babies, 3 businesses, 2 adults with way too big of dreams and one old + very needy house. Something had to give. Love Well was the center point of our social life, our creative outlet and what we were known for in our community. But also a little doubt had been brewing about whether we were building something we actually wanted? The handmade part was key to our vision (hence the name;), but it had become complicated and to stay relevant in the fashion world (which it turns out is pretty important) was not our passion.
We wanted to keep the heart of the company, but how? So began what we refer to as The Long Pause. See, Jon and I tend to avoid when we’re not sure what to do. So Love Well just sat.
Then, covid 19 hit. The kids all came home from school for spring break as rumblings of the pandemic got louder. When rumors began that school may not start back at all, I found myself hoping it wouldn’t. That summer Jon left his full-time job to launch his dream business, and we went on our first extended trip - a socially distanced road trip through Utah and Colorado. We suddenly saw a future of freedom, and while it was one of the scariest decisions we’d ever made, we pulled the kids from school and started homeschool at the end of that summer. We fell in love with the slower pace of life, the extra family time and moments spent together reading, playing and of course traveling more. But this new lifestyle didn’t just answer questions about our family life, we also suddenly knew what to do with Love Well.
Part V
On the way home from that roadtrip, it hit us - take away the handmade part and add in the people (which was the center of it all from the beginning!). Love Well Folk. We would tell our family story as we explored curiosity and found magic in the everyday through learning, reading, exploring new places and encountering diverse people at home and through our travels. It would celebrate and see beauty in diversity, rather than fearing it. And it did.
We spent months slow traveling in different cultures and continents to fully experience different ways of life and unique perspectives. People we met along the way made us realize that the story we want to tell is much bigger than just our family. Those who are doing their part everyday, all around the world, to bring people together through adventure, love and community. Who run coffee shops in the south of Portugal to be a place for people to gather. Who open their homes in central America so we could experience the magic of their local towns, traditions, values and landscapes. Who take risks and do hard things in the Rocky Mountains to put more good and love into the world. And it’s a story we hope you’ll come along for too. We’re wandering into a new era.