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We bought a family business for $40,000 and moved to Boise. We are raising our daughter to know it’s OK to take risks.

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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Heather Schoonover, owner of Painting With a Twist in Boise. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Three years ago, my husband Levi got a call from family. His uncle had died, and the family was preparing to sell his business, which produced trophies and medals. They just wanted to be rid of it and were going to sell it for about $40,000.

That was less than the truck we were considering purchasing. And unlike a truck, the business was something we hoped would appreciate in value. So, Levi and I loaded into a half-finished 1957 Airstream trailer and moved seven hours from our home in northern Idaho to Boise, where the business was located.


Trophy business

Heather Schoonover and her husband parked their Airstream inside the trophy business they bought. 

Courtesy of Heather Schoonover



We parked the Airstream inside the warehouse for the trophy business and lived there for a year. Sometimes we wondered what we had done, especially since the first year, the trophy business only netted about $35,000. But the year after that, we doubled our profits, then doubled again. That’s when we started to think we had made the right decision.

We decided to open a paint and sip studio since there wasn’t one

When we moved to Boise, we were eager to make new friends. I have a background working at paint-and-sip art studios, and we thought that would be a great place to meet people. We were surprised to learn that there wasn’t a paint-and-sip in Boise.

Gradually, we met others, and I started hosting paint-and-sip events right in the warehouse, next to our airstream. I was only charging for materials, not making any money, but people loved it. We could immediately see another business opportunity.

Having a franchise was helpful when I had a baby

We were still in the trenches of resuscitating the trophy business, so we decided to look into franchises. Ultimately, we thought that would help us have more flexibility. We wanted to own the paint-and-sip business without being tied to working there every day. Having a proven model seemed to be the option that would get us to that goal the fastest.

It was definitely the right choice. Finding a location in Boise took longer than we wanted, but our franchise company, Painting With A Twist, helped us stay focused on finding the right space and then negotiating a lease once we found it.

I found out I was pregnant the day before the grand opening. Because we had the franchise’s resources, we were able to stay open and even continue making money during my maternity leave. Having a baby and a new business in the same year would have been a million times more stressful if we were on our own.

Owning businesses gives us more control over our time

For Levi and me, success means owning our own time. Running two businesses — plus rental properties — demands a lot of time, but also gives us freedom. We can get lunch together. Before our daughter was born, Levi would bartend at paint-and-sip nights just so we could spend time together.

Having freedom in how we spend time has become even more important now that we have a baby. Our businesses have complementary schedules, so I often watch the baby while Levi works at the trophy business during the day, then I head to Painting With A Twist at night while he’s home with her.


Dog living in Airstream

Courtesy of Heather Schoonover



We want our daughter to know it’s OK to take risks. We went from working stable jobs and living in a nice house to running our own businesses while living in a half-finished trailer with two big dogs. Although it wasn’t glamorous, it led to opportunities and a community we love here in Boise.

We never want to look back and think “we wish we tried that.” We’d rather take the leap and try to figure it out together.




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New era of drone warfare creates higher risks for civilians

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With wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine, a new era of drone warfare has arrived that’s harming more civilians.

Skies are full of large, powerful, and lethal drones that are much cheaper than cruise and ballistic missiles. That means more of them are being launched and need to be stopped.

The United Arab Emirates, for example, said that as of Wednesday, it had intercepted far more drones than missiles: 876, compared to 183 ballistic and cruise missiles.

The process of defeating drones and missiles can cause problems of its own. There are more targets to intercept, and US allies have said that objects hit in flight have killed civilians and damaged homes.


Sparks, smoke, and yellow light in a dark sky

Militaries want to shoot most incoming drones down, but that can still leave missile fragments and dangerous debris.

AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File



“Large-scale drone war is a civilian risk because there are more projectiles in the fight than if it were just missiles, thus inherently creating more debris,” Molly Campbell, a drone and counterdrone warfare expert at the Center for a New American Security, told Business Insider. It’s not that drone debris inherently causes more damage than missile debris, but there can be so much more of it.

The use of drones in warfare is surging. Ukraine says Russia attacks with about 6,000 Geran drones modeled after Iran’s Shaheds each month. A Shahed drone has a wingspan of roughly 8 feet and can carry a warhead up to 110 pounds.

Militaries want to stop attacks before they reach a military target, and that could be dangerous if they’re flying over populated areas.

The problem is that “what goes up must come down,” Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI.


Black smoke rises into a blue sky, with a black tarmac road in the foreground

Iran has struck countries across the Middle East with its drones and missiles.

Mahmud HAMS / AFP via Getty Images



A missile that hits its target will typically cause more damage than a drone due to its higher speed and larger warhead.

It’s simply dangerous when “large numbers of drones are being intercepted over populated areas,” as James Patton Rogers, a drone expert at the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute, put it to BI.

Most drone interceptions in the Middle East appear to be kinetic, which involves a projectile launched to hit and destroy them. “Kinetic interceptions create debris, and the risk of collateral damage is real and particularly complex in the urban settings we’re seeing in the Gulf,” said Campbell, the drone expert at the CNAS think tank.

Interception comes with its own risks. It could merely deflect the threat or achieve a partial hit that divides the missile into fragments that leaves its warhead active.

The problem of debris from intercepting an attack isn’t new, and it’s long been a factor in missile defense. In Europe, for example, Douglas Barrie, an air warfare expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told BI that there has always been the knowledge of “if you try to intercept things at extended range, then you might be shooting something down effectively over somebody else’s airspace,” and cause damage to an ally.


A man in camouflage stands on the back of a black truck pointing weaponry in the air, with another man in camouflage standing beside it, all under a black sky

Ukraine uses systems like truck-mounted machine guns to take down incoming drones.

Pierre Crom/Getty Images



The problem with drones, Barrie said, is that “there are so many of them that if you intercept them at comparatively short range and it’s a kind of urban or a quasi-built-up environment, then some of them are going to fall in populated areas. It’s inevitable.”

Militaries can and do try to intercept attacks while causing minimal damage. Modern air defense systems track threats like drones and missiles to give air defense crews a sense of what they threaten and whether they should be countered.

Rogers said that civilians can often become better protected over time in a long conflict or war, as “a kind of bunkerisation begins to take place as societies adapt to the risk.” In Ukraine, for example, people receive alerts about bombardment and move to hardened shelters. But that’s also a negative outcome: “In that sense, drones don’t just kill people, they take the life out of a city.”

The low cost of drones enabled so many more of them to be used. Iran’s Shahed one-way attack drones cost an estimated $20,000 to $50,000 each, for example. Missiles cost far more: hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars each.

The effects of large-scale drone warfare are clear in Ukraine, where drones are being used more than in any other conflict in history. Ukriane’s military relies on them, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in January that Russia had fired more than 57,000 of its Shahed-style drones since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Russia’s drones have devastated Ukraine. Many still caused harm even after being intercepted.


A ruined house at night, with people in head torches searching outside

Russia’s drones have devastated Ukraine’s buildings and maimed its civilians.

Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images



Both the Middle East and Ukraine show that “future conflicts will likely feature high-volume drone and missile attacks designed to saturate air defenses,” meaning more of them flying over and near civilian areas, Campbell said.

Countries will need to stop these attacks, making the debris risk unavoidable, Campbell said.

“Debris from kinetic interceptions compounds this risk — but it remains far preferable to allowing an armed drone or missile to hit its target.”




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Kelsey Baker, Military and Defense Reporting Fellow

The US Navy sacked a destroyer captain after a ship collision. The incident spotlighted the risks of resupplies at sea.

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The US Navy abruptly fired the commander of guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun after his ship collided with a logistics vessel during a resupply operation at sea earlier this month.

Rear Adm. Carlos Sardiello, who leads US Naval Forces Southern Command and 4th Fleet, relieved Cmdr. James Koffi on Sunday.

The ship collision that resulted in a “loss of confidence” and cost Koffi his command occurred during a replenishment-at-sea operation involving USNS Supply, a fast combat support ship, the Navy said in a statement on the relief.

The cause of the ship collision remains under investigation but highlights the risks of at-sea logistics and the challenges of keeping naval forces on the move.

Replenishments-at-sea are resupplies in which one ship sails closely alongside another to transfer supplies such as fuel or ammunition. These missions are routine operations that support global naval activity by allowing vessels to remain at sea, rather than forcing them to return to port.

At-sea replenishments carry risks, though, that can be exacerbated by a range of factors beyond proximity, such as sea state, crew fatigue, communication breakdowns, and equipment failures.

Two personnel sustained minor injuries during the February 11 collision between the Truxton and Supply.

Koffi, who took over the Truxtun just over a year ago, has been reassigned to Commander, Naval Surface Group Middle Atlantic. The Truxton, which had been deployed for under a month when the ship collision happened, is in port in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The Navy said the ship is undergoing repairs.

Cmdr. Taylor Auclair, who most recently served at US Fleet Forces Command, has been assigned to command the Truxtun.

“The Navy maintains the highest standards for leaders and holds them accountable when those standards are not met,” the Navy said in a press release.

A near-miss during a resupply in 2024 resulted in the relief of the commander of USS John S. McCain, another destroyer. And last year, the Navy relieved the captain of an aircraft carrier after it collided with a civilian merchant vessel during a deployment that experienced a string of major accidents, including the loss of three fighter jets, including one to a friendly-fire incident.

The Truxton deployed to Caribbean waters as part of President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against Venezuela and narcotics trafficking. The administration sent nearly a dozen warships, among other combat assets, to the region late last year. The military launched strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats, seized oil tankers, and carried out a January raid inside Venezuela that resulted in the capture of its former president, Nicolás Maduro.

More recently, roughly a dozen Navy warships have been directed to the Middle East as the administration has shifted focus to a ballooning buildup in the region. As of last week, the Truxton is now one of just five ships remaining in the Caribbean




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I’m an American raising my child in Denmark. Kids here are trusted to take risks — and parenting feels easier.

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Growing up, I knew two things: I wanted to be a mother and to live abroad one day.

Both came true when I met my Danish husband while traveling solo almost a decade ago. Not long after, I moved from New York City to Copenhagen, which was ranked first in the Happy City Index for 2025.

We had our Danish-American son, Aksel, just over three years ago, and today we live in central Copenhagen. I now experience Danish society more fully through the reality of raising him here.

Having Aksel made me understand why Denmark earns its praise. Here, parents are encouraged to trust children’s independence and rely on community support. In the US, parenting is more often shaped by caution and a stronger emphasis on individual responsibility.

My son goes on adventures at day care

This may be my favorite example of that trust: one afternoon, when Aksel was about a year old, I picked him up from vuggestue (day care) and learned his class had gone on a field trip earlier that day. I didn’t sign a permission slip, nor did I receive an email.

Since then, I’ve been surprised by updates to Denmark’s parent-teacher app, Aula. I’ll receive photos of Aksel riding the Metro or exploring Rosenborg Castle during school hours, all without my prior knowledge.

Growing up in the Connecticut suburbs, that would have been unthinkable. I remember even a trip to the town center (just a five-minute walk from my high school) required signed permission slips and repeated reminders to parents.

This is because a stronger suing culture in the US often means safety concerns extend beyond protection to liability. Denmark operates on a different premise, with little fear of lawsuits by parents and a general trust in educators and parents to exercise judgment.

Public life in Denmark is child-centric

That child-first mentality extends into public life. When Aksel was an infant, I used to refer to Copenhagen’s mall as the “milk stop” because there were always proper family rooms for feeding and changing (including in men’s bathrooms!). Restaurants often include play areas, and even formal dining establishments have offered Aksel a highchair.

In contrast, when traveling with Aksel in the US, I always feel as if I’m somehow disrupting adult systems. For example, I remember meticulously planning subway routes in Manhattan because so few stations are stroller-friendly.

In Denmark, public spaces actively accommodate families, reducing stress by meeting children’s needs without explanation. Accessibility features like ramps built into staircases are standard, and the idea of “play” is prioritized. Copenhagen is even designed so that anyone can walk to a beach or park in 15 minutes.

That same thinking shows up in everyday transportation. Like many parents here, I take Aksel to daycare on a cargo bike (the Danish equivalent of the “soccer mom van”) because Denmark invests in supporting it.

Childcare is affordable and accessible

When I signed Aksel up for public day care, I was surprised by how straightforward and accessible the process was, thanks to a centralized system supported by government subsidies that make quality childcare affordable.

There is far less stay-at-home parenting in Denmark because childcare is treated as a public good, something families are expected to need rather than justify. In fact, Denmark leads the European Union in the share of children attending formal childcare each week.

And in this family-first society, even parents in corporate roles usually pick up their kids by 4 p.m. on weekdays, a sharp contrast to the late work hours typical in the US. Here, work simply isn’t given the same priority as family, which, as a “workaholic American,” I’m learning to adjust to.

Children are trusted to take risks

My mom group describes Danish playgrounds as coming “with a side of danger.” This is because risky play is more valued in Denmark than in the US. In day care, kids routinely use tools, work with fire, and learn by doing, because the belief is that resilience is built through experience, not by avoiding discomfort.

At first, this approach was uncomfortable for me because I was used to the American “helicopter mom” mentality. Over time, I realized what seemed like a lack of parental control in Denmark was actually just an expression of trust in educators, institutions, and, of course, children themselves.

Parenting here feels collective

A friend once told me that parenting in the US often feels like defensive driving: constantly anticipating risks and advocating for your child.

That’s a marked contrast to Denmark, where I don’t feel compelled to stay on alert all the time. Whether Aksel’s on an unannounced school field trip or learning to bike at a staffed playground (while I watch from a distance), trusting his safety is the norm, not the exception.

Denmark isn’t perfect, and parenting as an expat has its unique challenges. Still, raising my son in this trust-based, child-centered society has given us what every parent seeks: a genuine sense of community and support.




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The risks of ‘ghost vacationing’ over the holidays

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At the end of the year, it can be tempting to keep your Slack on and quietly slack off.

If a lot of your coworkers are away — and you’re supposed to be working — you might feel the pull to skip out. Yet, what’s sometimes called “ghost vacationing” carries risks that often outweigh the benefits of surreptitious R&R, career advisors told Business Insider.

One of the biggest hazards, of course, is getting caught. That can damage trust with your boss, said Amanda Augustine, a career expert at TopResume.

The timing can exacerbate the situation if you disappear when many people within your company are already scheduled to be off. If an issue arises — maybe a last-minute project or a client concern — and you’re not available when you’re supposed to be, “the ghost vacation really can backfire,” she said.

The cost of holiday-themed quiet quitting can grow if your coworkers are forced to cover for you while your mouse jiggler puts in overtime.

Augustine said that anyone who had legit time off scheduled might be left thinking, “I played by the rules, and then somebody just decides to go rogue, and now we all suffer for it.”

That resentment could linger. “How is collaboration after that? How is team morale?” she said.

Communication is key

For some workers, Augustine said, it might be reasonable during the holidays to take a longer lunch and check off some errands on your list — especially when offices are quieter, and expectations are looser. It might also be OK to announce that you’ll only be available by phone for a few hours before returning to your keyboard and attending to work.

The key, Augustine said, is clear communication with your boss so that expectations are understood on both sides.

Where it gets sticky, she said, is when you’re trying to appear as though you’re working when you’re not.

“For those that are blatantly just pretending to be on the clock when they’re supposed to be but are really unavailable, I think that’s when you can get into trouble,” Augustine said.

Flexibility can help

Augustine said that it’s likely that many people have, at some point, partaken in a bit of ghost vacationing — on a nice summer day, perhaps, or while traveling.

One reason could be that many people don’t use the vacation days they’re allotted. More than four in 10 US workers who had the benefit of paid time off took less time than they were given, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey.

For workers who might be feeling burned out, snippets of downtime on the DL often serve as little more than a Band-Aid, Augustine said. That’s because there’s lingering pressure to stay tethered to work messages.

It’s much more relaxing to be away from work when it’s approved, and you don’t have the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder, said Peter Duris, CEO of Kickresume, a career tool that uses AI.

Bosses can help reduce workers’ temptation to slip away by being extra accommodating during periods like the holidays, he said.

“It’s definitely better for the businesses to change the schedule or change the workload,” Duris said.

Augustine said that if you can’t get time off approved when you want to, try to push through and take time off when others are back. That’s a safer approach, she said, than trying to take work in some camouflaged PTO.

“If you get caught misrepresenting your availability, it can quietly erode trust and and that can definitely last longer than, say, that day or so that you took off,” Augustine said.

Do you have a story to share about your career? Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com.




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