It's all about education

With such a large scale adventure in our future, it's time to hit the books (and websites).  Tonight while in town I picked up a few books to start looking through.  Our family adventure in an RV is going to be a relaxed affair but if there is a giant frying pan in Arizona, I think a photo op is a must ya know.  There is so much to see in this amazing country that it will be hard to decide what to visit and what to pass up.  I highly doubt we will ever have this opportunity to do something like this again so we'd like to pick the best of the best.

Here are the books I picked up tonight:



I also picked up a kit with pamphlets from each National Park in the country.  I'm hoping between the two books and the kits, we will be able to get a good feel for each park and what we will see/learn.  I'm also curious to see which ones are more RV and long term camping friendly.    The Waterfall Lover's Guide looks pretty dang awesome.  It features numerous waterfalls found throughout the Pacific Northwest.  There are multiple that require quite a bit of hiking to get to.  We want to include as many day hikes as possible.  The promise of a waterfall will keep everyone motivated on the trail.  Family Adventures just looked like fun.  Plus I will be storing tips for long term travel with kids so lets hope it delivers.

Our plan is to visit only a few big cities: St. Louis, Chicago, NYC, Atlanta, Austin, and maybe a few more.  The rest of the time we want to spend our time in the country, national parks and the otherwise unseen places.  While history will be a large focus of our school studies while on the road, we will also be focusing a lot on biology and ecology.  Having the opportunity to see the Grand Canyon and the Everglades in the same year doesn't come around very often.  The biological diversity we will get to study hands on just makes me giddy.  We will most likely be using a nature journal to record all of our findings and observations.  We've talked about getting the older kids a simple digital camera similar to this.



Some of the kids closest friends recently moved to Hawaii. Being able to share our mutual adventures (they will  be sharing awesome HI stuff) will be something exciting that the kids can work on while we have down time or drive.

Overall the plans are coming along.

So tell me, what have been your favorite places in the US to visit and/or live?  Any recommendations for our little adventure?

 

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On butter and bonding

Our oldest daughter is nearly 12 (sympathy accepted).  She is a lovely girl with a quirky sense of humor and a need for something interesting all the time.  She is also the one I butt heads with most often.  I've yet to decide if that is because we are exactly the same or complete opposites.  We both have the overwhelming need to be right and in charge.  You can see how that may be an issue causer right?



This weekend she was sick with a summer cold.  The worst kind of cold in my opinion.  She wasn't feeling on her game and honestly I wasn't either.  We also happen to be milking our neighbors jersey cow.  3 gallons of glorious milk a day is a good and bad thing.  A very good and very bad thing.  In an attempt to use all this milk I decided to make cheese and butter yesterday.

I usually do these kinds of project cooking times by kicking all the kids outside and plowing through the project.  With a sick one who didn't want to stray very far, the kicking out wasn't going to happen.  Normally I get really frustrated with kids in the kitchen.  My brain works at high speed, always looking 5 steps ahead.  The constant kid chatter can drive me crazy and distract me.



Yesterday though was different.  Yesterday my daughter and I worked together.  We planned, we talked, we laughed, and we took selfies.  She enthusiastically helped make butter the old fashioned way with marbles.  She was happy to check the cheese temperatures.  She wiped up spills and set up supplies.  She did it all with a smile on her face, not a single eye roll to be seen.  I didn't cringe at the incessant chatter or have to breath deep with the constant invasion of my (very large) personal bubble.  We took it in stride.  We didn't watch the clock as the hours passed.



A friend once said "The moment you want to pull away from your child is the very moment you want to draw them close and focus on them."  There is something in my OCD type A brain that rejects this notion even though my heart tells me it's true.  My mom had her own version of this "The child that struggles the most is your favorite.  That child will be ever changing because each child goes through struggles."
As we worked side by side with laughter AND smiles I couldn't help but think of their wisdom. Maybe we clash because our natural inclination is to push rather than gather together. Maybe if I did take this advice, maybe she and I would find some common ground that has nothing to do with a battlefield.



Yesterday, my cranky, funny, demanding, headstrong daughter actually got along with her demanding, list driven, introverted mother.  The world didn't end, there was no tragedy to propel us in the right direction.  All it took was a summer cold and a lot of butter.



I think I will keep cream on hand everyday.

linked to barnhop

The Big Plan

As a child I always dreamed I would see the world.  As an avid reader, I found myself wanting to go any place the heroine of my book was.  Ireland, Europe, Australia, Chicago, NYC, or even small made up towns in rural Nebraska.  With a good cast of characters, any place can seem like a dream.  This desire to travel has not waned as I've grown older.  I still read a book and instantly want to go there.  The need to travel, to experience other places has become sort of an obsession.

My husband on the other hand is one of those people who has been blessed with loads and loads of contentment.  Sure, a nice vacation is something he enjoys, but home is where is heart and roots are.  You can imagine that these polar opposites have been a struggle at times in our marriage.  He has never understood my desire to see something new and I've never understood his need to just be where he is.



Last month I started plotting The Plan of all plans.  I started lists of pros and cons so I was prepared.  I priced equipment, read maps and travel blogs, I did as much research as possible before I presented The Plan.  It went down like this:

"Hey babe, I've got an idea that I feel would be highly beneficial for our family at this point in our lives.  I think we should take a year and travel the country."  I held my breath trying to figure out which con he would list first.

His mulled it over for a minute or two and then said "Sounds good to me.  When do you want to leave?"

Uhhhhh, this wasn't how this conversation was supposed to go and honestly it took me by surprise.  From there the conversation took off with ideas of how to make it work, how to work from the road, how to actually do the traveling, etc.

I'm pleased to say we not only have a plan A, but also plans B,C,D, and E.  I think this might actually happen!



Here's the very rough plan at this point:

-Test drive RV's with the goal to purchase in Jan.

-Update and reconfigure RV to support 6 people comfortably

-Plan a loose itinerary of sites we want to see

-Begin establishing multiple streams of income from online, freelance, and other work.

-Downsize in a big way come April

-Rent house

-Leave in May, heading to Northern Idaho first then onto Montana

 

Obviously this is a very simplified list of what needs to be done but it's a start.  I'll continue to update as we plan and prepare for a most awesome adventure.

And down come the walls

The first night we saw the house, our neighbor (who was showing the house to us) casually mentioned he would tear out the master bedroom wall that faced the entry way.  We walked on and that was that.  Since closing, I've found myself sitting on the stairs more than once and just staring at that wall.  The more I've stared, the more I saw the wisdom in his words.

The master bed was the only bedroom on the main floor.  The main floor was also without a family room because we converted that to a dining room the day of closing (more on that later).  Whenever we had guests, the kids would go upstairs and adults would sit at the kitchen table.  While that isn't a horrible set up, it meant that my kitchen needed to be clean all the time.  So not going to happen!

This past weekend during a moment of boredom I mentioned to my husband that I thought the wall should come down to make the entire main floor company accessible.  He agreed as he read his book.  Little did he know I meant that very moment.  I found all the tools and stacked them in the hall.  Next thing he knew, he was ripping out a wall.  When we first started the project we thought we wanted a half wall to divide the space up a bit.  Once we got it, it just broke the space up too much.  We ended up removing then entire wall.

These are the before and during pictures.  The room is still torn up as we complete the small tasks like removing molding, carpet tack strips, etc.