By Tiffany Merlo Phelps
mail@floridanewsline.com
Nocatee wellness coaches Ryan and Sara Badeau were living in Ohio a year ago, working their home-based business, when they realized that they really wanted to live near the beach and had nothing holding them back. They no longer wanted to be stuck in the house five months out of the year, so they took a trip with their three girls to North Florida in search of a house with the help of a realtor. After looking around in St. Augustine and other areas, they had given up and decided to just call the trip a vacation and stopped officially searching. Then Ryan, now a licensed real estate agent with Keller Williams, pulled out his phone as they sat at the St. Johns Town Center. That’s when he spotted a development called Nocatee. They took a drive and found Addison Park at Nocatee Town Center and fell in love with the houses and knew they had found home. Sara saw families on golf carts going by, so they decided to see where everyone was headed, ending up at the Nocatee Splash Waterpark where they discovered that it was “Prospect Day.” They were given a pass to enjoy the day at the park where they met two families from Ohio. Those families showed them all around and remain close friends today. Three months later and before the Ohio winter could hit, they moved to Addison Park — into the exact home they had first admired.
Q: What do you like about living in Nocatee?
A: It is hands down the best family friendly town. Everyone is in the same boat, and everyone is so nice and welcoming. We have better friends here than we did in Cincinnati. It is amazing because Nocatee has so many family friendly amenities and events.
Q: Tell me about ways you like to be involved in the community.
A: Sara works with the MOPS (Moms of Preschoolers) group, and she also started the 3’s learning playdate group. Educational playdates are planned for once a week and we take turns at different homes in the group. We incorporate different themes such as painting, the alphabet or movement plus a snack, usually meeting for an hour.
Ryan runs a men’s boot camp called F3, a national fitness, fellowship, and faith group that meets Monday through Saturday. It is free and open to all men. It is a good way to get healthy and active as well as develop friendships.
Q: You refer to yourself as entrepreneurs with an e-commerce and social retail business. Share a little more about this please.
A: We work for Modere, a company that sells clean living products. We are both health and wellness coaches. We choose to live a life a little different than most people. Entrepreneurship certainly isn’t for everyone, but for us, it’s the most important piece of our puzzle called life. It allows us to tuck pockets of work in and around our family. We wake up early to do work before the kids wake up. We work during nap times, and we stay up late getting things done after the girls go to bed. For us, it’s a system that maximizes our quality time with our girls.
Q: What hobbies do you and your family enjoy?
A: We love anything that has to do with our girls, Lexi, 4, and twins Lily and Livy, 3. We love the beach, park hopping and the splash park. The girls dance at Grace Conservatory of Dance, and we are members of Crosswater Community Church. Anyone who knows us, knows that we are always together.
Q: What is your life philosophy?
A: We both come from families that struggled financially, spiritually and relationally. Broken marriages, addiction, abuse, you name it, it was there. We know how precious time is as a commodity and how little time we truly get with the ones we love. Our kids spell love, “T.I.M.E.” The most important thing that we can ever give them is not toys, or presents, it is our time. That’s why we always focus on our relationship as a family and as a husband and wife. This is the reason that we moved to Nocatee. We are here to set a new example for our children of what is possible. We know that our past doesn’t determine our future, so the cycle ends here. Our philosophy is “It ran in our family, until it ran into us.”
Photo courtesy Sara Badeau
The Badeau family
