Our Story
About Alive To Live
Frank & Ailee
Recent empty nesters from Central Indiana who believe life is better when you are intentional about experiencing it.
Alive To Live was created by Frank and Ailee, recent empty nesters from Central Indiana who believe life is better when you are intentional about experiencing it.
After more than 22 years of parenting, raising three daughters, building family traditions, planning trips, attending games, trying new restaurants, and creating memories together, we started Alive To Live to share the stories, tools, ideas, and lessons we have picked up along the way.
This site is built around a simple belief: life is not just something to get through. It is something to actively live.
Why We Created Alive To Live
Alive To Live grew out of the way we have tried to live as a family.
For years, we have looked for ways to make life more meaningful through experiences. Sometimes that meant taking a big trip. Other times it meant trying a new restaurant, going to a game, exploring a new city, or simply being more intentional with the time we had together.
One of the biggest sparks behind Alive To Live was our nearly three-year “Dining Through the Alphabet” challenge. We visited restaurants from A to Z that we had never tried before, turning a simple idea into a fun and meaningful experience.
What surprised us most was how people responded. Friends and family followed along online, asked us about it in person, and seemed genuinely inspired by the idea. The same thing has happened with our travels and other experiences. People often ask where we went, how we planned it, what we would recommend, and what they should consider for their own lives.
Those conversations helped us realize that many people are looking for simple, practical ideas to help them live more intentionally. That is why Alive To Live exists.
Who We Are
We are parents, travelers, food explorers, sports fans, planners, learners, and recent empty nesters still figuring out what this next season of life looks like.
Frank
Ideas, experiences & tech
Frank brings a practical, curious, and experience-driven perspective to Alive To Live. He enjoys turning ideas into action, whether that means planning a trip, discovering a local restaurant, attending an NFL game in a new city, or creating tools that help people track and share their own experiences.
Ailee
Insight, clarity & learning
Ailee has been a third-grade teacher for 27 years and is moving up to fourth grade this year. (Frank jokes that she finally graduated from third grade.) Most of her career has focused on high-achieving students and gifted and talented education.
Frank and Ailee have been Colts season ticket holders since 1997 and are on a journey to attend NFL games at as many stadiums as possible, with one personal rule: the game must feature either the Indianapolis Colts or the Green Bay Packers. That journey has become about much more than football. It is a way to experience new cities, local food, different fan cultures, and memorable travel weekends.
Ailee has completed graduate-level coursework in high ability education, served as the High Ability Coordinator for her school, and continues to pursue ongoing education in the field. She brings a teacher’s perspective, a love of grammar, an appreciation for etiquette, a passion for history and travel, and a deep well of practical, theoretical, and lived parenting wisdom. She is also a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan and has followed the Colts since they moved to Indianapolis in 1984.
Together, we bring different strengths to Alive To Live. Frank often focuses on the idea, the experience, the technology, and the financial costs. Ailee brings insight, clarity, details, educational perspective, historical curiosity, and a strong sense of what helps people learn, grow, and connect.
What You Will Find Here
Alive To Live focuses on practical, experience-based content around food, travel, family traditions, parenting reflections, sports adventures, event-based trips, and tools for making memories more intentional.
We also share products, resources, and services we have personally found helpful, along with honest lessons from things we have tried, places we have been, and experiences we have planned.
We are not trying to be generic lifestyle experts or professional travel influencers. We are real people sharing real experiences, thoughtful reflections, and practical ideas that may help others create more meaningful moments in their own lives.
Our Perspective
The content on Alive To Live comes from lived experience.
We write from the perspective of parents who have raised three daughters, an educator with nearly three decades of classroom experience, longtime sports fans, travelers, food lovers, and people who have learned that intentional experiences can shape a family, a marriage, and a life.
Some of our experiences are big. Some are small. Some are carefully planned. Others are unexpected. Many have become stories we still talk about years later.
That is what we hope to help others create.
How We Make Recommendations
When we recommend a place, product, service, tour, tool, or experience, our goal is to be clear and honest about why we are recommending it.
Many of the items and experiences we share are things we have personally used, visited, tried, planned, or found helpful. In some cases, we may also share resources we discovered through research while planning our own trips or experiences. When that is the case, we aim to make the context clear.
Some links on Alive To Live may be affiliate links. That means if you book or buy through those links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Those commissions help support the development, maintenance, hosting, and growth of the Alive To Live site and future apps. We appreciate that support, but we only want to share links to things we use, trust, recommend, or genuinely believe could be helpful to our readers.
Affiliate relationships do not determine what we write. Our goal is to share honest, useful, experience-based content that helps people make better decisions and live more intentionally.
Why Trust Alive To Live
You can trust Alive To Live because this site is based on real life, not recycled advice.
We are still actively learning, still trying new things, and still building the kind of life we want to remember. We will do our best to tell you what we enjoyed, what we found helpful, what we would do differently, what felt worth the cost, and what may not be for everyone.
Alive To Live is our way of documenting a life we are still living, while helping others create one worth remembering.
Thanks for Being Here
Whether you are planning a trip, starting a new tradition, looking for a great meal, exploring your hometown, raising a family, entering a new season of life, or simply trying to be more intentional with your time, we are glad you found us.
We hope Alive To Live gives you ideas, encouragement, and practical tools to create more meaningful experiences of your own.
Frank & Ailee
Alive To Live