AVYN is heading out on the ultimate adventure

Hello AVYN Nation, Lauren here! I hope y’all are finding ways to enjoy the summer and soak up the Vitamin D happy vibes. Lord knows we could all use a healthy dose of it, given what has been a very stressful, strange and chaotic 2020 to say the least!  Over the last few months I’ve had so many long conversations (and virtual happy hours) with friends across the country and it’s INSPIRING how the women in my life are finding ways to deal.

Let’s face it, we’ve never been in a pandemic before, so aren’t we all making it up as we go along? Finding new pockets of community, leaning on your neighbors, enjoying outdoor spaces, nesting at home, supporting local businesses. All around me I see the human condition of grit, survival and adaptation happening. So on that positive note, I’m here on the blog today to share some exciting news in my personal life and also what’s on the horizon for AVYN. 

My husband Shad and I are dreamers. Chandler and her husband Nick are the same way and I think that’s why we make such a good team. We’re always tossing around ideas and no idea is too outrageous. So a little background about us, Shad and I have wanderlust spirits. We love TRAVELING, the kind of trips that submerge you elsewhere, where you’re unfamiliar with it all and get used to wearing the same three shirts all the time. We plan very little and figure it out as we go. This is all very challenging for me, because I LOVE my clothes and I LOVE having a PLAN. That’s why these sorts of experiences are so good for my soul. Gotta break out of the grind every once in a while and live a little, right?

Prior to Covid and 2020 in general, Shad and I were planning on taking a gap year (or sabbatical if you will). We wanted to have an adventure together as a family before our son starts kindergarten in 2021, because as you all know, having a baby puts constraints on that wanderlust lifestyle. We’ve been saving our money and sort of pictured this trip happening abroad somewhere tropical like SE Asia. When it really hit us that the pandemic was here to stay for awhile, we decided to reimagine what our idea of adventure could look like. After a few camping trips early in the summer, we decided it was going to look like a camper trailer exploring the forests and canyons of the United States. Haha! So we bought a bad ass Winnebago HIKE camper trailer, found a used Ford F150 in mint condish, and got the go-ahead from our jobs to take off for a year. Have we ever camped in a camping trailer? Nope. Are we crazy? Maybe a little. Do we know what we’re doing or where we’re going? Sort of. 

Since launching AVYN in 2019, Chandler and I have busted our asses juggling our day jobs, mom duties and carving out time for AVYN when we can. If any of you have had a side hustle then you know what I’m talking about. The struggle is REAL. Now combine that with no childcare (thanks Covid). Even if I did have time to dedicate to AVYN, I haven’t had the mental bandwidth to do so. So this extended trip we’ve decided to take is exactly what I’ve needed from day one of launching this business. To be free from all these distractions that take away from my ability to grow the business. We’ve got a lot of growth up ahead and this sabbatical couldn’t come at a better time for AVYN. 

While Covid definitely slowed down our manufacturing process, we have been busy in production with our new, revamped styles and also a new manufacturer that we’re super impressed with. We’ve reviewed several rounds of prototypes and submitted colors for sample dye testing. Next comes the fit testing part of the production process where we ask moms to wear the samples for two weeks and critique them. (If you want to be a part of this process, send us an email!) After that we’ll make any last adjustments to the bras and then place our BIG order! If all goes according to plan (which it won’t, haha), then we should have new bras hitting the market this fall. 

Well, I’ve gotta sign off for now and get back to packing up my life and deciding which three t-shirts I want to wear for the next year. I’ll be posting about our adventures on our stories and I wanted to give you a heads up before you started wondering what the H is going on! If you’re a returning customer you may even get some postcards from different parts of the country. This is my story about how we’ve decided to cope and capture an opportunity before it passes us by. I’m eternally grateful for AVYN, our fiercely loyal customers, my supportive family and being able to work on the road.

I’ll leave you with this quote I came across recently and I hope it inspires you as much as it inspires me: 

“I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars always makes me dream.” ~Vincent Van Gogh.