Blog Post 2: Where It All Started

Aaron and I met October 2025 when working on building an online community together as he flew out to help support my first summit for my non-profit. Our full story will be documented one day and for now the purpose of this story is to clearly articulate what happened so my husband can get his life and his kids back.

With that, I flew out to Arkansas to meet the kids and see what life in Arkansas would be like if I moved out there. Seeing that I would no longer be having an apartment in Washington we decided what would be best for the kids would be to give Aaron’s ex, Alexis his house, and we would find a rental as she had them during the week and did not have stable housing, and then we could get an apartment near by and help care for the kids during the week and find a solution that worked for all of us.

Everything worked great. I became friends with Alexis. We had sent here over $3,000 dollars extra for the time, care and attention she’d be giving the kids for the two weeks I needed to move out of my apartment

At that point, the kids were mostly with Alexis. Their living situation wasn’t stable, and everyone knew that. There wasn’t a safe, consistent home base for them. So before anything else, before apartments or routines or even knowing what our relationship would turn into, the first real decision we made together was about giving the kids the one thing they didn’t have: a steady place to live.

I had just sold my house in Washington and was planning to move to Arkansas anyway. Because of that, I had the flexibility to get a rental. The logic was simple:
If Alexis had the house, the kids would at least have a solid roof over their heads every day, not just on weekends.
That felt like the right move. It wasn’t emotional or dramatic. It was just the clearest path.

So that’s what we did.
We set it up so Alexis and the kids could move into the house. Aaron and I would find a rental nearby when I got back. It felt right, it felt responsible, and for a moment it seemed like the first stable thing any of us had done in a long time.

Alexis moved in. Two weeks went by. Nothing major happened in that window. I finished selling my house, packed up my things, and Aaron drove back to Washington to help me move. We drove back to Arkansas together and went straight to the house.

That’s when everything tilted.

The kids were not living in safe conditions.
Not “slightly messy” or “a little chaotic.”
Not “typical single-parent stress.”
Actually not safe.

The environment was off. The people around them were not appropriate. Their basic needs were not being met the way we assumed they would be. And this was supposedly the stable house we had just set them up in.

Nothing about it matched the plan we made or what we thought we were stepping into. And once you see something like that, you can’t unsee it. You can’t pretend it’s fine.

We both stood there trying to figure out what the next move was, and the truth is we didn’t know. Neither of us had the legal footing to push anything immediately. Alexis had ripped the kids away from Aaron multiple times before, so we knew if we reacted too strongly she could disappear with them again. That wasn’t an empty fear — it was something she had done.

So we started walking very carefully.
Weekends with the kids were still happening.
They were okay when they were with us.
But the weekday situation wasn’t something we trusted.

We talked to attorneys. We started the custody process. We did the slow, cautious version because any sudden pressure could blow everything up and leave Aaron with zero access at all. We were in that gray zone where every option carried a cost, and none of them were guaranteed to actually help the kids.

This is the part people miss when they jump to the later parts of the story.
Everything with the mushrooms came after this, not before.

We were already walking on eggshells, trying to keep access stable, trying not to escalate anything with Alexis while still trying to protect the kids and figure out long-term plans.

This was the actual beginning.
Not dramatic.
Not spiritual.
Just two adults trying to keep two kids safe in a situation where every move was risky.