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Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

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So long Texas!

After a much needed stop in Ft. Stockton, TX, we finished our drive to Carlsbad, New Mexico. This cute little park was in the middle of the desert, yet it was situated on a lake.

We pretty much stayed inside the rest of the day as the winds were absolutely insane! We even contemplated pulling in the slide at one point to help ease the rocking. Our camp hosts told us that this was unusual for this area and should ease up by the next day.

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Great covered playground – if only the kids felt better 

Thank goodness they were right and we were able to get out for a bit. Sadly, the kids were still sick and didn’t want to play that much.

Which meant another low-key day for us, playing inside.

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Aliens were everywhere!

By Wednesday, we all felt pretty good so we took the opportunity to get out. A short drive away is the city of Roswell and who could pass up the opportunity to see aliens!?!

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amazing assortment of animals for a free zoo

While, sadly, we didn’t encounter any being from another world we did get to see some animals from this one at the Roswell Zoo. This cute zoo is free and filled with lots of animals that the kids could get close to.

Right next door is a cute playground, while had a 1970s rocket slide – which Damon had to try, of course 😄

It’s been a while since we hit a Goodwill, most of the small towns we’ve visited the past few weeks didn’t have one. So we jumped at the chance to visit the one in Roswell. I scored a pile of books for the kids (I collect old Disney and Golden Books – they’re awesome and these are a steal!).

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This McDonald’s was outta-this-world!

At this point, the kids were pretty worn out, so we headed back to the RV. Before we left, we made a quick stop at McDonald’s, which had an extraterrestrial feel to it 👽.

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Since we were in Carlsbad, we’d hoped to visit the famous Carlsbad Caverns. Unfortunately, the only way to see it with kids is to use their elevator, which was down for maintenance all week. And, while it was supposed to be fixed before we left, the lovely government shutdown delayed things. Which meant no caverns for us this time. I was pretty bummed – I visited the caverns with my Grandma when I was about 6 and wanted to revisit it.

Instead, we used to day to clean the RV (which really helps with leaving the campsite), and going grocery shopping. Since it’s been cold out, I made my Crock-Pot Chili (and no, I’m not scared to use it. The ‘This Is Us’ guy died from bad wiring and NOT a Crock-Pot!).

And so ends another RV stop. Next up, Albuquerque.

RV Stop #1 – Fort De Soto

RV Stop #1 – Fort De Soto

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We’ve said goodbye to Winter Garden RV Resort – our holding place while we finished prepping the house to sell – and headed to our first stop on our road trip, Fort De Soto, Florida.

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This beautiful RV park is inside of the Fort De Soto state park – home to quiet beaches and a historic old fort. If you want a quiet beach weekend, this is the place to go.

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We learned a lot even before we arrived.

  • The two-hour drive occurred during a big thunder storm, complete with thunder and lightning, which made for a very shaky drive. The kids slept most of the way and didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong. The cats are a different story – the meowed the whole time (I hope they get used to driving soon).
  • Once we arrived, we had to do our first back-in setup (this is when you have to back the trailer into the site). Since I’m navigationally challenged, Damon took the task upon himself and managed to get us set up without hitting anything!

Since it was still rainy when we arrived, we decided to stay inside and have a quiet evening with the kids.

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After sleeping in, we decided that the kids needed to get out, so we took them to the Children’s Exploration Museum. This place is so much fun – the room is divided into different sections, giving kids a lot of options for play. Mini-man loved a lot of the sections and had an amazing time.

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The next day we spent at the campground exploring. This place is very old Florida, with lots of trees, water, and wildlife. It was very relaxing to walk around. A few minutes from our site was a cute children’s playground that mini-man adored.

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On our last day, we decided to be brave and take the kids to the beach. I’d heard that North Beach was a great place to take kids, so we headed there.

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At first, we thought the beach near the playground would be ideal, but the waves were really high. Instead, we let mini-man play on the playground for a bit, then headed further up the beach.
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This new location was perfect- hardly any waves and nice, warm water. Mini-man went in instantly with Damon. I sat at the edge with little-dude and let him get his feet wet (he liked the water but the waves scared him). All-in-all, a pretty successful trip (minus all the sand we brought back).
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Today we head to our next stop, Terra Ciea, just 30 minutes from Fort De Soto. Fingers crossed we can get everything ready before check-out. Last time, it took us several hours to get going. This time, we have just four. Wish us luck!

On the Road at Last

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We did it! The house is listed, the trailer is setup, the car is prepped – time to get this show on the road. Of course. For our first time picking up and leaving, it took a little effort to actually leave:

  1. You have to stow everything! And with a very curious toddler around, you can imagine how hard it was to get everything put away. Damon had to go back at one point after we got into the car to pick up some last minute things
  2. Once things are stowed you can’t get to anything until you reach your destination (unless you want to squeeze your way through). So I had to prepare several snack bags for everyone in the car.
  3. Triple check everything! For an RV to work it needs to be plugged and hooked up to lots of things. Damon got in the car and almost drove off before he saw that the power was still hooked up. Then he forgot that the propane was still on. Lesson learned – do several walk arounds before leaving.
  4. Driving in rain is hard. Of course we leave just as one of our lovely Florida thunderstorms shows up, making it a little harder to steer the car (it’s very bumpy back here)

Not too bad for beginner, especially with two young children to care for as well. Hopefully we’ll get faster as we progress. For now, we are thrilled to be on the road, heading to Fort de Soto, Florida.

Take A Peek Inside

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Welcome to our new home! As you can see it has many of our favorite parts of our previous house, just in a smaller scale.

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I think the first floor of our house could fit our whole RV
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Love that we could still have a fort for mini-man. Plus, its a great place to keep all his toys!
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Smaller bedroom but it has everything thing we need

And even though it’s smaller, we really don’t miss the space. In fact, it was frustrating having all this stuff stored away that we never used. Now everything had a purpose and is used every day.

Home, Sweet Home … For Now

Home, Sweet Home … For Now

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We bought our RV and SUV a few days before little-dude joined our family. We decided to take a small break from moving to adjust to being a family of four and allow me time to heal from child birth. 

Two weeks ago, we talked with our Realtor and are getting the house ready to sell. Which means we need a place to put the RV. After some research we found a cute place close to the house so we could be nearby while we sell the house and move into the RV. 

The actual trip to the RV resort was nerve racking for me – this made it real. Everything’s been abstract for months but actually seeing the resort made it real. And I have to admit, I’m still nervous. This is such a drastic change from what I’m used to. 

However, I’m also kinda excited – the resort is walking distance to parks, restaurants, and much more. Now we will have the opportunity to get out more as a family. 

It took some time to get the RV here as the place we bought it from kept “losing” our moving information. Thankfully, we managed to get the RV to it’s new home a few days ago.

We now have about half our stuff in the RV and spent our first official night. So far, so good. We still have some work to do, but it’s getting there.

Beep Beep, Beep Beep

Beep Beep, Beep Beep

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Once we got our camper, we needed a way to transport it. This was much harder than I anticipated. I assumed that the trailer would be harder, since there were so many options, layouts, sizes, and colors – but I was wrong. First, Damon and I needed to agree on what type of car:

  • Easy to drive: I didn’t want a car so big that I couldn’t drive it. I am used to full-sized vans and didn’t want to go bigger than that.
  • Comfort: We love our current mini-van. It has leather seats, lots of room and LOTS of cup holders (Damon loves his beverages. Our current mini-van has six cup holders in the front and five of them are usually taken up by Damon’s beverages).
  • Towing Capacity: I wanted something powerful. I didn’t want a car that would barely pull the trailer and could possibly leave us stranded somewhere because it broke down
  • Space: In addition to our human family, we are bringing with us our two cats and we need a space to put them while we are on the road.

Seems simple, right? Unfortunately, not. The towing capacity became our biggest issue. This instantly eliminated the standard car, mini-van, and SUV – which are the cars I am used to driving. This pretty much left us with full-sized trucks and some suburbans:

  • Trucks
    • Pro
      • Availability: Being in Florida, trucks of all shapes, sizes, and power are easy to find.
      • Towing Capacity: Trucks are made to haul stuff, so most trucks can handle pulling campers.
    • Con
      • Size: We are a family of four, with two young kids. Many cabins support this, but don’t have much leg room or capacity to store extra toys or snacks.
      • Storage: They have large truck beds but your stuff can’t be accessed while your driving. Plus, we would need to get a cover if we wanted to protect our stuff from the elements.
      • Unfamiliar: I haven’t been in a truck since I was eight (despite living in Florida for twenty years). This just isn’t a vehicle we are familiar with.
      • Budget: Trucks don’t lose a lot of value overtime, so to get one powerful enough in our budget required something with high mileage. This made me nervous since most trucks start to have major issues as they get more mileage on them
  • Suburbans
    • Pro
      • Familiar: Suburbans are very similar to vans and mini-van’s, which we are used to driving.
      • Size: Tons of internal room. Plenty of space for the kids, toys, snacks, and whatever else we need. Plus we can fit the cats inside of the car.
      • Storage: The storage is large and flexible – we can move seats around to accommodate whatever we need.
    • Con
      • Availability: There are only a few suburbans on the market that meet our criteria. In our short time researching, we have only found two that we like. People like these cars so much, that they rarely come on the used car market.
      • Towing Capacity: While there are just a few suburbans on the market, there are even fewer that have the towing capacity we need (and we soon learned that most car dealers don’t know that there is a difference).

So as you can see, the suburban makes more sense for our needs but trucks are much easier to find. I assumed that we would end up with a truck, since it would work and we could find one. Luckily, Damon kept his eyes open for a suburban and we hit the jackpot!

Damon was searching Craigslist and found a suburban that was 45 minutes away. This car had everything we wanted – good mileage, well cared for (the interiors looks brand new), powerful towing capacity (that was specially made for the original owner), easy to drive, a great size, and a great price. Needless to say, we jumped at this car.

Of course, being such a great catch, there were other people interested. Fortunately for us, we had two things going in our favor – location and cash! The first person who wanted the car lived in Georgia and was trying to figure out how to get the car. The second person lived nearby, but needed to go to the bank to arrange financing. Sometimes, the stars align and everything just goes in your favor.

So meet our new car:

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Next step is introducing our car to our trailer. Fingers crossed that the meeting goes well :p

Downsizing

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How do you fit a 1600 sq ft house into a 300 sq ft trailer??? The simple to say, but hard to do, answer is – DOWNSIZE. I’ve tried to put myself in a practical mindset – the more we sell, the more money we have to travel and less stuff to lug around. It also helps to remember that if we get rid of something, and want it later, we can always re-buy it.

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Now some of our stuff is a no brainer to get rid of, such as the furniture (since it’s included in the trailer), TV’s (we won’t need four in the trailer), my car (my Honda Fit can’t pull an 8,000 lb trailer), and kitchen stuff (I won’t need my fancy dishes any more).

Then it gets a little more difficult for me. We have cultivated quite the toy collection and play area in our house. I know, realistically, that our kids don’t NEED all these toys, but I do have a joy seeing them play with these toys. I didn’t have a lot growing up, so being able to provide these “things” for my children gives my great satisfaction.

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But then I’m reminded that what we remember most isn’t the actual toy we played with as children. We remember spending time with our loved ones and experiencing the world with them. And that’s what I want for my children – to experience value and love from those around them; not the things around them.

So while I know that downsizing my kids toys will be emotional for me, I also know that we are giving them an awesome experience.

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Now on the flip size, I am used to cooking in a 300 sq ft kitchen (which is the same size as our trailer). How am I supposed to cook in such a small space? Where am I supposed to store everything? I am used to having a lot of cabinet space, not to mention fridge space, to store food. I currently have three different solutions for my dilemma:

  1. Shop every few days, instead of once a week
  2. Stop buying in bulk and only buy what you need for a the meal (portion control)
  3. Grow fresh herbs and lettuce in a window

I have no idea if any of these will works, but I guess this is only part of what I’ll have to get used to going forward. On the plus side, it’s much easier to keep 300 sq ft clean than 1600 – especially with two kids!

Taking our Furbabies on the Road

Taking our Furbabies on the Road

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These poor cats. We adopted Kizzy and Cloud in 2008 while we were living at our townhouse in Orlando. And over the past ten years, these cats have lived in a lot of different places:

  • 2009 (October): We drove them cross country for three days to move to California.
  • 2010 (April): About six months later, in early we drove them back to Orlando, and into my in-laws house in Celebration, Florida.
  • 2010 (October): After many months of house hunting, we then moved them to our new house in Orlando.
  • 2013 (February): After a few years of downtime, we moved them to an apartment near SeaWorld
  • 2014 (January): We moved them back to our townhouse in Orlando.
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I think this pretty much sums up how he feels about car rides

Is that it? unfortunately not.

  • 2015 (September): We flew them out to California!
  • 2016 (September): We fly them back to the townhouse in Orlando

And now we are asking them to live with us on an RV and travel the country to who knows how long. I think I better stock-up on kitty treats.

Ch…Ch…Changes!

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As many of you know, we moved back to Orlando last October after a year in Glendale. And let me tell you, A LOT has happened over the past six months. We’re not quite ready to share everything that’s happened, but I will tell you that big decision. We have a lot do to and we can’t wait to share everything with you!

Welcoming Mini-man into our Clan

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Two years ago Damon and I were on a cruise when I noticed something peculiar. One day I’m enjoying soda and cruise food and the next (literally the next day) soda made me ill and all I wanted to eat were salads. I suspected something was up but dismissed it. However, my suspicions were confirmed when we got home – I was pregnant. 10 months later, we welcomed a bouncing, baby boy into our family.

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When my due date arrived, I was done being pregnant. At my check-up with my midwife she said I was close but could still be another week. As you can imagine, I couldn’t bare the thought of waiting any longer to give birth. I was anxious to meet mini-man and to stop being pregnant. That night I tried as many home remedies as I could to jump start labor – spicy food, Epson salt bath, magnesium, etc. I don’t know if these worked or if it was just time – but in a few hours I was in labor.

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I woke Damon up at one in the morning and he called our midwife who confirmed I was in labor. She hurried over and began setting things up. What happened next was one of the most amazing experience of my life.

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In bed with Damon I began to progress. There was no pressure to hurry; the room was calm; my midwife encouraged me – I felt so safe and strong. Many of my friends said that labor scared them. I never felt more empowered. Not once during the process did I think ‘I can’t do this’. I trusted my body and the people around me. This made for a very easy birth.

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After nine hours of labor, mini-man was in my arms. The first thing I heard my midwife say was ‘Oh my god he’s huge!’. Turns out I had just pushed out a 10lb, 22 in little boy with no drugs! That’s right no drugs – just peace, quiet, and a lot of amazing support.

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And we were off. Nothing can prepare you for parenthood. But the experience of a homebirth is a great way to start. Immediately it’s just you and the baby. I think that immediacy forces you to step up and start taking care of the baby.

Believe it or not, most women can have a home birth. I know the idea can be scary, but i encourage you to look into it. You never know until you try and what you gain is amazing.