A Glimpse Into Our Life in Victoria, BC

Hello, from Victoria, BC, Canada! We are here until December, and are currently living in a beautiful rental home near the water. There are many things we’re enjoying about our new home, including the walkability, the neighborhood, the community, and the fabulous property. Let me show you around!

In this video, I start at a nearby beach, but then take you on a tour, showing this lovely home and the new car we just bought (much cheaper than renting!). In addition to seeing our living space, kitchen, bedrooms, and office, you’ll get a chance to hear what Jen, Marie, and Aysia have to say about being here in Victoria.

I finish the video with some insight into the local community, and the kinds of things we’re spending our time on these days, including conferences, writing, and coaching.

I hope you leave inspired to live your dream life, however you define it.

Listen to the audio:

Download audio here. (open link, right click and select “Save as…”)

Transcript

Hey Everybody, it’s Brandon Pearce. I’m here at Willow’s Beach, which is in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Victoria is the spot where my family has decided to kind of settle down for the next six months (or a little longer) and enjoy this beautiful place.

This beach here is actually just a hundred meters from where we’re staying—about a minute walk away. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to stay in this house the entire time we’re in Victoria. Because there’s such a saturated rental market, it’s hard to find a good furnished rental that’s available for the full six months.

I’ve had a few requests to show you around the house and show a little bit about how we’re settling in and how we set it up. We actually got a car, as well, and I’ll show you that, which is unusual for us. I just wanted to kind of check in a little bit with how we’re doing here in Victoria and give you a little taste for it.

Alright, so this is the house we’re staying in for the next six weeks.

And this is the car we bought: a 2008 Dodge Caravan (pictured below). That is the rental car we got, which was going to cost nearly three times as much over the course of six months. So that’s why we decided to buy.

This is a beautiful neighborhood, with tree-lined streets here. We’re just loving it. It’s so walkable—to the grocery store, to restaurants, to the beach, and so many great things. It’s a beautiful part of town. It would be very expensive if we were to own a house here. Renting is still expensive but we’re making it work.

Inside our House

I’ll show you around inside.

This is the entrance to the house. It’s obviously an older house that’s been updated. Let me show you around a little bit while Marie’s taking care of the camera there.

Let’s go through this way.

This is the living room. Beautiful windows. Someone was colouring here (I guess that was Aysia). There’s a whole bunch of Dr. Seuss books upstairs that she’s been enjoying reading. I read a couple to her yesterday.

This is where we eat meals most of the time.

Alright, now let’s go in the kitchen. Aysia’s eating a sandwich. Love this kitchen. It’s not huge but it’s really well-equipped and we’ve very much enjoyed it.

I won’t show you the basement because it’s not really finished, but that’s where the laundry room is.

Let’s go upstairs, as that’s where the bedrooms are. I’ll show you where we’re sleeping. There’s a bathroom here.

(Do your best on the stairs, Marie. You might have to lift it up a little higher. Good job!)

Upstairs

This is my office. This is actually normally Emily’s bedroom. And this is a Murphy bed here that comes down, which is kind of fun.

But right now, Emily is actually not with us. She is 12 years old and off on her own adventures. She flew away a couple days ago to Eastern Canada to visit a friend there for three weeks. We’re missing her, but she’s having a great time. And in the meantime, I get her room as an office!

We also borrowed this piano from a friend the other day—they just offered it to us! They weren’t using it and it was just going to sit in their basement because they’re moving, so they let us borrow it for a little while. Now I’ve got a piano to play on again, I’m so excited about that!

There’s also a beautiful view out there. Let me show you that view. Lots of trees, lovely garden.

That’s the bathroom.

Let’s go down the hall. There’s a couple of toys on the floor here, My Little Ponies.

This is the master bedroom. Well, we’ve turned it into a master bedroom. None of the bedrooms have an ensuite bathroom. There’s just one bathroom upstairs for all of us to share. But this had, I think, the biggest closet space, which is why we took it.

Want to see what we have in our closet? We’re still kind of living out of suitcases and those are all our clothes, pretty much.

Marie, why don’t you show us your room.

This is the room that Aysia and Marie share. Marie’s kind of cleaning up her toys a little bit )and making her bed at 5pm or whatever time it is).

Aysia:
I love this room!

Brandon:
You like this room, Aysia? What do you like about it?

Aysia:
I love that the colors are pretty!

Brandon:
Yeah. Wait, what is this up here? Are those your My Little Ponies?

Aysia:
Yeah!

Marie:
No, those are MY My Little Ponies.

Brandon:
No, they’re MY My Little Ponies! [laughter]

Aysia:
They’re just ponies!

Brandon:
Hey Marie, why don’t you take us to Mom?

The Backyard and Guest House

This house has a beautiful back patio, as you can see, but it also has this great added feature of a little guest house in the back that guests stay in when they come, of course. We’ve had Jen’s parents come last weekend, and then her step-sister and her family is going to be here this weekend.

In the meantime Jen uses it as an office. So let’s go see what she’s doing.

Hello, Jen.

Jen:
I love it. I’m absorbing every single second. Every single moment. Absolutely amazing.

I love this house, I love this neighbourhood, the location, my private house office. The weather is amazing.

Marie:
And up the ladder is a bedroom.

Brandon:
Should we show them up there?

Aysia:
Ok, so I love it here and I really like our house. I really like the view here and the beautiful flowers and I like riding my bike sometimes. We’ve been renting one (actually we bought a used one). We go to some beaches sometimes.

I like honeysuckles, I haven’t seen those in a while but I still remember that you can suck them. It makes sense that they’re called that because you can suck them.

These bugs I play with sometimes. I play with them in games. That one is mostly clean because all the other ones get dirt on your hands mostly.

I really like this place because it has so many things that I play with and games, and I’m really glad we’re renting this place.

We’ve been traveling and I’m excited to see all the other countries that we’re going to see. [giggles] What am I gonna say?

Upcoming Conferences

We’ve been back about a week or two. Well, Jen and the girls have been back for a week longer than I have because I spent the first week in South Carolina speaking at a conference, the Savvy Musician in Action Conference, which was an arts entrepreneurship event. It was really fun to be able to participate as a thought leader there and give a keynote and I look forward to more opportunities.

Our family’s speaking in September again as a family. Jen is also doing a presentation and Emily’s doing a songwriting workshop at the Life Without Instructions Conference in New York. That will be fun, as well.

We have several more conferences we’re attending this year, not as speakers, but we’re attending a couple in Portland (World Domination Summit and Life is Good) and then one in California (Experts Academy).

Enjoying Victoria

We’ll be kind of all over the place, but really we’re looking forward to spending most of the next six months here in Victoria and exploring Vancouver Island.

(That kind of confused me when I got here. Vancouver the city is on the mainland, but Victoria is on Vancouver Island, which is a separate island. Just a little bit north of Seattle. So, now you know.)

The weather is great, it’s so sunny and beautiful today. And warm.

You know, we spent a few months here last year and the year before, as well. We’ve been able to make some good friends in the community.

It’s a great homeschooling community here. There are so many amazing classes to take and really friendly people. We are just enjoying the energy of the place and the atmosphere. Lots of flowers in town and downtown is beautiful. I’m sure I’ll show you that in another video.

Taking Time for Writing and Coaching

Another thing that we’re spending our time on now that we’re here is a lot of writing. Jen is preparing for her presentation for the Life Without Instructions conference, and we’re doing a lot of writing on the blog. We’ve got five posts coming up about our time in New Zealand that Jen’s mostly written and I’m doing all the photography and video for.

It’s really fun for us to do this, to look back on our past adventures and to see what we’ve learned from them. It’s also fun to have something to remember from the experience and to share. We appreciate it when other people find interesting the things that we’re doing, as well, and we can connect on that level.

I’m also doing coaching again. I’m really enjoying being able to work with individuals one-on-one and support them through making big life changes, as they overcome fears and limiting beliefs. To take action in their lives and work towards things that they value.

That’s been a really rewarding, connecting experience and I look forward to continuing coaching. If you’re interested in coaching or working with me, feel free to send me an email and we can talk about it.

Choosing the Life You Want to Live

Well, I hope that this video has give you a little bit of insight into how we’ve set up our lives here in Victoria over the next few months and that you’ve found it a little bit interesting.

I just wanted to leave you with the message that this lifestyle that we’ve created is something that we’ve chosen. You know, we have worked very hard for years to be able to live in beautiful homes like this. Most of the places we stay aren’t quite this nice, but we’re so grateful to be able to stay in this beautiful place.

We have met so many other families who are choosing the life that they want to live. They are choosing to live where they want to live, with the people they want to live with, doing the things that they want to do. And they’re feeling fulfilled.

If there’s a part of you that doesn’t feel fulfilled in your life, that feels held back, I want you to know that it’s possible to move beyond that.

I think so often we discount our own inner greatness and our own potential. We place ceilings upon what we believe is possible for us in our lives. I believe that we can break through those ceilings and rise to greater heights. We can do the things that inspire us and live amazing and beautiful and fulfilling lives.

I would love to see you do the same.

Thank you for watching and remember to live well and enjoy life now.