We are Ron and Lisa Bailey, and we are relocating to Council from Carnation, Washington, where we currently live on 10 acres in the Snoqualmie Valley in unincorporated King County with two German Shepherds and 50 chickens.
We are empty-nesters after raising five children (Ron's from a previous marriage) who are now scattered to the four winds of the globe.
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Bo, age 26 - works at Subway and lives with his mother in nearby Carnation.
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Josie, age 24 - lives with her husband Mark in Chicago. Both of them are graduates of the Moody Bible Institute and are preparing to head to the mission field full-time in Nepal where they are currently as part of Mark's Moody internship.
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Ellie, age 23 - lives in Baltimore. Ellie is a graduate of Mississippi State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and is now in graduate school at Johns Hopkins University where she is studying to become a Medical Illustrator.
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Charles, age 21 - lives with his wife Morgan in Spokane. Charles works as a parts puller for Spalding and Morgan works at the Best Western and is finishing up her degree at Eastern Washington University. Charles serves in the Washington National Guard as a Helicopter Airframe Mechanic on the Chinook and is currently deployed to Kuwait as part of Task Force Longknife.
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Angus, age 19 - lives in Missouri. Angus is active duty Air Force and has just arrived at his first duty station of Whiteman Air Force Base where he works as an Electrical Power Plant Specialist.
Ron was born in Yerington, Nevada, where he spent the first 13 years of his life in Weed Heights - the behind-the-gate neighborhood of the Anaconda Mining Company where his dad worked at the copper mine. When Ron was a teenager, Anaconda moved Ron's family to Butte, Montana, where his dad worked as the Safety Director, and Ron played in the high school band, was a member of the speech team, rode trials bikes, and developed a talent and passion for photography.
At age 20, Ron married his high school girlfriend while they were both students at Montana State University, and over the next 11 years, Ron worked at the MSU bookstore and attended school, while his wife obtained her degree and gave birth to their first three children.
In 1993, Ron obtained a Computer Science degree from MSU and moved his family to the Seattle area where he went to work for Microsoft as a Software Test Engineer and later as a Software Design Engineer in Test. Ron is now employed with Society Consulting and will be telecommuting from Council.
In addition to his "day job" Ron is a Getty photographer and his work can be found on Getty Images and iStock Photo. In his spare time (I think he had some of that back in 2012?), Ron can be found most often with a camera in his hands.
I, Lisa, was born in Orlando, Florida. Raised by my mother (a registered nurse) and step-father (a draftsman), I moved around a lot when I was a kid living in various places in Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama. When I was 11, we finally landed in Dothan, Alabama, where I graduated from Northview High School where I played clarinet in the marching band and sang alto in the concert and show choirs.
I graduated from Florida State University with a BS from the College of Business with a double major in Marketing and Management Information Systems and a minor in Computer Science.
Over the years, I worked as a computer programmer for the Department of Defense at Ft. Rucker, the Army's Aviation Training Center; a computer programmer, programmer analyst, and project manager in New Jersey for Maersk (container shipping company); a volunteer coordinator for the public school abstinence program and special events coordinator for fund-raising events such as golf tournaments and banquets for a pro-life Christian crisis pregnancy center in Alabama; owner of a gift shop in Alabama; and a Program Manager for Microsoft in Redmond, Washington.
In 2001, I met Ron - a divorced single father with full custody of his 5 children - in the singles' group at Overlake Christian Church where we both served in leadership. We were married in August of 2002 when I quit my job at Microsoft to stay home and raise children (then ages 5-12).
In the past almost-14 years, I have served in numerous leadership positions at our church, including Director of the Benevolence Ministry, Missions Director, Special Events Coordinator, and VBS Director. Meanwhile, I managed Ron's mother's Montana home as a vacation rental property over the Internet for almost 10 years.
In my down time, I am an avid reader of suspense and mystery, spy and political intrigue, and western novels (among others); run a local homesteading Facebook group; dabble in gardening (at which I totally suck); and keep chickens - mostly buff orpingtons for eggs and breeding and some Jersey Giants, hopefully for meat. Ron and I are also beekeepers.
In 2011, we began planning our escape from Western Washington. I think it is safe to say that as ultra-conservative evangelical Christian libertarian constitutionalists we march to the beat of a different drummer than that of our neighbors and co-workers, and with no family, spiritual, or philosophical roots in Washington, it was time to go. Promising our youngest that we would allow him to graduate from high school here, we set about finding our new home, landing on Council and Adams County as a great fit for us and our beliefs, philosophies, and lifestyle. In June of 2015, we began our exodus - a journey we hope to have completed no later than June of this year.
