Merry Christmas!

Some of you have been asking why we haven't been blogging recently, and the short answer is that we are back home in Texas, spending time with our families for the holidays. The RV is currently in the shop having a few minor touch ups and repairs done, so we have been staying with each of our parents on and off. We were promised a three week turn time on the RV, but we are currently going on week six and they still aren't quite ready to hand it back over to us. So needless to say, this mama is starting to feel a little antsy knowing that our house and 90% of our possessions are currently sitting in a semi-secure parking lot in a sketchy part of town. I had big hopes of spending Christmas in the RV this year, and even bought the perfect tree to fit in our tiny living room...only to have that entire idea shot down completely. I'm feeling a little bummed about that. I wasn't able to decorate our home for Christmas for the first time in ten years, and have been feeling pretty sad about it, but my wonderful mother-in-law, in who's house we are currently staying, set us up an adorable little Christmas tree upstairs in her game room, and even let me hang the kids super tacky stockings on her banister rail! It's not what I had envisioned for this Christmas, but we are so thankful for our families opening their homes to us during this holiday season!

I'm sure there are a million things I need to get the blog up to date on, seeing as we haven't blogged for the past 2 months, but for now we are just relaxing and enjoying our time with family and friends. We'll get back to blogging as soon as we hit the road again after Christmas! Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

- M

Tennessee is the Second Best "T" State

When we last left off telling you about this leg of our journey, we were on our way to Knoxville. Molly's parents were getting away for their anniversary and chose to spend it in and around the Knoxville area, so instead of making our way slowly across the state to the east, we instead drove all the way across the state and decided to work our way back west so that we could spend some time with them. To be close to her parents and to take a small reprieve from the trailer, we decided to stay in a hotel for a few days. Fortunately, the one we selected let us park our trailer in the parking lot, so we were set! We took full advantage of the week...

Our first stop was Pigeon Forge where we made a quick detour for food at the Old Mill House, then on to Gatlinburg where we rode the Ober Gatlinburg gondola to the top of Mt Harrison, taking in the beautiful countryside. In spite of all the "attractions" in that area, I repeatedly found myself more drawn to being outside, just enjoying the scenery.

The next day we stopped at this fantastic little grocery/deli/shop and picked up some items for a picnic, then headed out to Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. They have a scenic drive you can take through the mountains, with numerous cabins and churches that are hundreds of years old. Attempting to describe how beautiful it is wouldn't do it justice. The first cabin you come to on the trail was built by John Oliver, and has a rich history associated with it. For those of you who don't know, my Grandma Ensey is an Oliver, so this place was of particular interest to me. The cabin is set back in a cleared cove of trees, against the base of a mountain, with a spectacular view out over a pasture, and beyond that, mountains all around. It was somewhat surreal, thinking about what they faced making a life in this place, but at the same time how rewarding that view had to be every morning, stepping onto the front porch. A little farther down the way was the church they attended, surround by a cemetery with the family's graves, including some that dated back to the 1700's. After driving the whole tour, we stopped at the small park they have up front and ate our picnic lunch. The park has a small creek that runs beside it, and the kids had a blast playing around it, climbing out on trees over the water, throwing acorns at each other, pretending to fall in, etc.

                         

The next day I needed to go visit my client's offices in the area, so Galen and Mikki did their own thing and Molly and the kids chilled at the hotel while I worked. That evening my in-laws kept the kids so Molly and I could have dinner alone. Trust me, when you're without any form of babysitters for weeks at a time, you take advantage of every chance you get to have some alone time! The following day we went to this amazing little farmer's market they do every Saturday in downtown Knoxville. There were food trucks and vendors everywhere and we loved it! We made it out with a few more pounds and a little less cash. Saturday was actually Molly's parent's anniversary, so they went to dinner alone Saturday and we were perfectly content to order room service and do absolutely nothing in our hotel room.

The last day my in-laws were there we decided to go to Dollywood, one of Molly's favorite places. It's very similar to Silver Dollar City in Branson but a little bit nicer. The day started off rainy but got a little better as the afternoon progressed, and the temperature was fantastic. As a pleasant surprise, Gordon Mote was there in concert so we got to hear him! If you don't know who he is, it will be worth your time to check him and his story out. (You can click his name in the last sentence to do so.) After wandering around letting the kids ride rides and check out all the little shops and vendors, Molly and I wanted to ride a roller coaster while my in-laws were there to watch the kids, since we can't quite ride with them. We settled on riding the Wild Eagle, a crazy coaster that's already 21 stories up before you ever start riding, and you sit suspended out to the sides of the track, not in a car! It was wild but we had a blast. When we left the park, we said goodbye to "Mik-Mik" and "PapaG" and headed our separate ways.






After one more night in Knoxville, we headed to Chattanooga. Chattanooga isn't far and we made it to the park early afternoon on Columbus Day. The park we stayed in was on the grounds of an old Civil War battlefield, so it was a great teaching opportunity for the kids. RV living requires things of you that a traditional home doesn't, such as dumping your sewer on a regular basis, making sure your house is level, checking to ensure you have propane, etc. Since we're full time, we are constantly on the lookout for tools that make any of the consistent task that we do easier and more efficient. With that said, we were only about 5 minutes from a Camping World, so we headed over to restock on some things we needed and see what we could find.  The hose on our sewer had sprung a small leak, so I ended up replacing it with a Sewer Solution, a system that uses high pressure water to liquefy waste and tissue and send it down a hose the size of a regular garden hose instead of those nasty 3" hoses. If you have an RV, I would definitely recommend it; dumping our sewer is now an easy, clean process. Bet you weren't expecting a plug for a sewer product in this post, but hey, this is an RV travel blog!

Tuesday morning I knocked out some busy work, then headed to visit the three offices in Chattanooga early afternoon. When I got home that evening,  I wanted to take Molly and the kids to see how beautiful Chattanooga is, so we loaded up and headed into the city. After wandering around for a bit, we decided to stop at a little hole-in-the-wall taco place called Taconooga. I'm always a little skeptical of getting any type of Mexican food outside of Texas, but I have to say that this place was declicious! It had excellent tacos, both traditional and eclectic, reminiscent of a blend between authentic Mexican fare and Torchy's. Since we only had one more day in Chattanooga, we wanted to do something fun on Wednesday, such as Lookout Mountain or Ruby Fall's, but it was very overcast and we didn't want to spend the money if we couldn't get the full benefit of being up there. Instead, we just headed back to downtown and walked around, buying some macarons and chocolates at The Hot Chocolatier and eating lunch at The Terminal, which is in a cool old building built in 1909.

Last Thursday morning we packed up and headed to Nashville. We actually parked at the KOA in Goodlettsville, a suburb just to the northeast of the city. I needed to catch up on a lot of "busywork," so I spent all day Friday - from about 9am to 8pm - working while Molly and the kids played outside here at the park. That night we made a little fire in the fire pit and roasted some marshmallows. We took Saturday pretty easy, sleeping in and then making our way over to Perry's Smoking Pig just up the road to enjoy some good Tennessee BBQ. I've become very fond of BBQ pulled pork sandwiches smothered in sweet homemade coleslaw. Mmm-mmm.

Sunday we headed over to First Church Nashville where Bro Ron Becton pastors; the Becton's are long time family friends, and his dad, Bro C.M. Becton was one of the greatest men I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. They were having an "all-nations" service, that included the multiple nationalities of their three multicultural churches. Hearing other nationalities worship God in their own language, but all feelings the same Spirit - that was a cool experience. Not to mention that our kids loved hearing people speak and preach in different languages, something they hadn't experienced before. After service I drove them through the south-Nashville countryside, over to Brentwood and Franklin, one of my favorite places. We ended up eating at a place I had been before called Jonathan's Grille.

Monday, I headed out for a few client visits, then back home for some more work. That evening we tried out a place Molly had found called Chef's Market. When we pulled up, we were having second thoughts - it's in a shopping center and doesn't look very appealing from the outside; however, the crowd of people inside and out compelled us to stick around. I know we talk about food on here quite a bit, but to me, that's one of the best parts about visiting new places! The food in this place was phenomenal, and I'm not being hyperbolic.

Tuesday morning I headed over to Frothy Monkey in Franklin to meet my good friend, Matt Armstrong. Matt is a successful songwriter that I write with every chance I get, and he also produced our last EP (click here to listen) that we recorded the end of last year. We had a great time catching up. As soon as I got back to the house, Molly and the kids piled in and we headed over to Clarksville. The trip was twofold: I needed to visit an office there, but once I was done, we were meeting a couple of Molly's high school friends who had gotten married and have three kids of their own now. We had a wonderful time; the kids had a blast playing and I know Molly enjoyed catching up with them. On our way back through Nashville, we stopped in at Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream. The flavors I had were: sweet cream biscuits & peach jam, goat cheese & red cherries, and lime cardamom buttermilk. All I have to say is that they ship, people - order some.

After visiting the last of the Nashville offices on Wednesday, we got dressed and headed to church. The church in Goodlettsville that I had intended to go to wasn't having service that evening, so we had to scramble and find another church nearby. Fortunately, God knew what he was doing and we found another church about 10 minutes away; the message spoke to us, and the kids even got to go to children's church.

On recommendation from my dad, we went to the Loveless Cafe for dinner Thursday evening, and we weren't disappointed. The last couple of days have been pretty low key - I've been working and Molly and the kids have been doing school and playing here in the park. I've grilled outside a couple of times this week and the weather has just been absolutely perfect. During the day it's in the 60's and at night it's in the 40's. I've been impressed with how well our trailer has retained heat. It has a full heating system, but since it uses propane, I try not to overuse it, so we bought a couple of small fan heaters at Walmart and it's more than enough to keep us warm at night. As I said, each new climate and location you learn something new.

We have church tomorrow, then we'll be headed toward St. Louis to stay with my brother and sister-in-law. We've only been to their house once since they moved to St. Louis five years ago, so this is yet another benefit of us being on the road. We're loving it!

~J

Walking In Memphis

I can already tell that this leg of our journey is going to be a favorite of mine. We've been on the road for a couple of weeks now since leaving Oil City, LA, where we celebrated the life of Jonathan's Pawpaw. After visiting with our family there for a few days, gathered in Mawmaw's home, laughing, remembering Pawpaw, and of course eating lots of good home-cooking,  we finally hit the road again for our second "official" Ensey family RV adventure, this time to Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Missouri! Our first stop was in Little Rock, Arkansas, which I have to say was surprisingly beautiful and not at all what I expected, especially with the first signs of autumn leaves and cooler weather arriving about the same time we did. Jonathan only had a couple of business meetings in Little Rock, so we were able to spend a lot of quality time together, exploring the area. We took one whole day to do some hiking in the hills around Little Rock, letting the kids just explore nature, and giving ourselves the chance to unplug and focus on our family. We hiked a 2 mile trail on some pretty rough and bumpy terrain, but the kids did incredibly well and never complained. Annie demanded to be carried for about the last mile, so Jonathan and I took turns hauling her like her own personal pack mules thru the hills of Arkansas. But all in all, we had a blast, saw some incredibly beautiful scenery, and burned a LOT of calories!

Since we were so close to Hot Springs, we decided to take a day trip over there since I had never been. Hot Springs is the neatest little town. If you've never been, I recommend visiting if you're ever in the area. We stopped at a little BBQ joint called Stubby's to grab a quick lunch before heading into the national park there. I would love to sing the praises of Stubby's and tell you all about what we had for lunch, but within five minutes of sitting down to our food, Jack took the lid off of his sweet tea and proceeded to dump the entire cup of ice cold sweet sticky tea all over me. So all I remember from that stop was taking off my hiking shoes and socks to try to wring the tea out of them and get them dry before our hike. Sigh...oh well. But I HEAR Stubby's has world famous BBQ. Haha.

Also, there's a great little cupcake shop in Little Rock called Fat Bottomed Girls that was featured on Cupcake Wars. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to eat a famous TV cupcake, so of course we stopped and bought a box of five! I had a lemon-lavender cupcake that was divine; it really helped turn my bad mood around after the sweet tea incident. And believe me, my mood needed some serious turning. There's nothing like cold, wet socks to make you good and mad.

Back in Little Rock, we had parked our RV at one of the most beautiful spots you could ever hope to stay. The back of our RV was only about ten feet from a twenty foot drop-off into the Arkansas river, so our view of the river was fabulous, as was our view of downtown across the water. The sun set directly over the river every evening, so we got some killer pictures! I did have a time keeping the kids from getting too close to the drop off into the water, though. I drew a literal line in the sand and told them not to DARE cross it. I can't even tell you how many times they crossed it. What is it about a line in the sand, both literal and figurative, that makes you just HAVE to cross it? Needless to say, we had a few serious "come to Jesus" meetings about crossing that line and getting too close to the water. There's a sermon in there somewhere! ; )

One evening as we were all getting ready for bed and relaxing, I heard what I thought at first was a barge on the river blowing it's horn. I ignored it for a minute, but once I realized it hadn't stopped blowing, I decided to step outside and check it out (and maybe throw rocks at the barge driver for bugging me). As soon as I opened the RV door, the siren was deafening, and I could tell it was turning in circles by the way the sound moved across the river. I had never heard anything like it before; it made the hairs stand up on my arms and I was immediately terrified because I knew it was a tornado siren, even though I had never heard one. At this point Jonathan had already joined me, and I told him I was afraid there was a tornado coming. Sure enough within a minute or two, a neighbor came running over to let us know a tornado was spotted just 10 miles from us. Now, I'm a pretty calm and collected girl. In Texas, I have sat thru massive hurricanes without batting an eye. But a tornado is just a different ball game in my opinion. I went into panic mode. Our RV was literally only feet from the huge drop off into the river. The RV park had zero places to take shelter. We have three children with us. I wasn't about to die in some RV park in Arkansas, I don't care HOW good the view is! So we grabbed the kids and a Bible and ran like mad for the truck. As soon as we stepped out of our front door, the storm hit. It rained like you wouldn't believe. The wind was blowing, the kids were bawling their eyes out because they were terrified, and quite frankly I was terrified myself. The only place we could find to hide was under a giant freeway. As soon as we pulled under the freeway, we couldn't help but laugh. Parked around us were five other F350's like ours that had fled the RV park looking for shelter. We were talking to my parents on the phone, and my dad let us know that the tornado was basically right over the road we were hiding under. We had some serious family prayer, and I read to the kids out of Psalms 91 about God being our protection in times of trouble. They were finally able to calm down, which took a lot of the stress out of the situation for me and Jonathan. We had a lot of friends and family praying for our safety, and thankfully, the tornado never touched down near us. After waiting out the rest of the storm and checking the weather about 10,000 times just to be sure, we finally made our way back to the RV and crashed for the night. RV-falling-into-river crisis averted!

One last thing that HAS to be mentioned about Little Rock is a little hole-in-the-wall BBQ/southern home-cooking type place that we stopped at called Burge's. Y'all, there just aren't words for the food we ate there. I looked online for recommendations, and saw a lot of people suggesting the turkey salad. Sounded pretty sketchy to me, so I asked the lady behind the counter for a taste test before I committed to anything. She brought out a spoonful of the most uninspiring, unappetizing cream colored mush that I had ever seen. I thought maybe the good folks of Little Rock were just really easy to please, having seen them rave over said mush online, but I gave it a try anyway. Y'all, words fail me. It was to die for! Like literally, if I died eating that turkey salad, I would regret nothing AND go out with a smile. I can't fathom how they got all the flavors I tasted into that mush. But it's kind of like Santa when you're a kid: you don't really know what he is, where he comes from, or what makes him work, you just accept that it's pure magic and go with it; same with the turkey salad from Burge's. Don't know what's in it, how it's made, or how they cram all of that flavor into something that looks so simple, and I really don't care. I just assumed it was magic and left there with a goofy grin on my face...and the top button of my skirt undone so I could breathe. 

Our next destination was Memphis, Tennessee. Technically, we were parked right across the state line in Mississippi, so we've now covered the top and bottom of Mississippi without actually really visiting the state. Haha! We had a really great time in Memphis and saw some really incredible sites. Our first stop was Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley. The tour of the home and grounds is done very well. Every person is given their own iPad and headphones and led on a personal tour of the property. Stepping into Graceland is like stepping back in time. It's such a strange experience to see inside of a home last updated in the early 70's. I absolutely loved the tour, and had to fight back tears every time I heard Elvis speak or sing thru my headphones. How sad to be so loved by millions and still feel so empty and alone. He was so talented, and had that familiar quality that makes you feel like you knew him personally. As the tour was coming to the end, I got that feeling you get when you're watching an old movie you've seen hundreds of times, and you know it ends badly, but still hold out hope that somehow the ending will be different this time around. But in the end, as we knew we would have to from the beginning, we filed past the grave of Elvis Presley, and paid our respects to a legend. We left feeling a little sad and empty, knowing that someone so talented and so loved by the world felt so alone at the end of his life. It made me even more thankful to have Jesus holding my hand, to know that even if the whole world was against me, I never have to feel alone and empty. I'm so thankful for joy and peace that passes understanding, no matter what the circumstances.

While in Memphis, Jonathan wanted to try a BBQ place near downtown that is rated one of the best in Memphis, so we made a stop at Central BBQ, and ate some crazy good ribs, BBQ nachos, baked beans, pulled pork sandwiches, etc.!  As we were leaving, we looked across the street and realized we were only steps away from the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was shot and killed. I was excited to have randomly stumbled across this piece of history, so we made our way over and spent some time at his memorial that they have set up at the hotel. It was such a unique opportunity to see in person the place I've seen in pictures my whole life, and also so heartbreaking to have to explain to my kids the reason behind this man's death, to have to explain a hate and a concept that they can't even fathom. Heartbreaking, but also such a great opportunity to teach my children what Martin Luther King, Jr stood for, fought for, and in the end, died for. We had a wonderful time in Memphis and I look forward to going back sometime soon to explore the cities' amazing history a little further.

Last Monday morning we left Memphis and headed toward Knoxville. Since it was about a seven hour drive, we stopped overnight at a gorgeous KOA park along the way. Right across from the RV was a massive hill, so while Jonathan and I were setting up the "house" for the night, the kids were rolling like crazy people down the hill, screaming like they were being chased by bears. Haha. I'm sure all of the old, grumpy neighbors loved that! Something about children brings out the not-so-nice side of elderly RV folk! ; ) The next morning we were packing up to head out when our next door neighbor came by to say hello. He was a very nice guy, and didn't treat our children like they have the plague, so we enjoyed talking to him while we worked on getting the RV ready to leave. After we had chatted for a while and playing with his two dogs, he asked where we were from. I told him we were from Texas, and he said he was too. (It's so nice to come across other Texans on the road.) So Jonathan asked where in Texas they were from, and to our utter shock, he responded "Conroe"! Haha! What are the odds?! And they only live a few miles away from us! Neither of us could believe the random coincidence! We talked a little longer, exchanged information, said our goodbyes to our new hometown friend, and hit the road to Knoxville!  

I know this post has been a LOOOONG one, and I'm sorry to bore you with all the detail, but this blog acts not only to keep our friends and family informed of our whereabouts and the fun we're having, it also acts as my memory! I have a horrifically terrible memory, so I'm hoping that having all of the details written out will help me not lose whole chunks of this adventure. Haha. Here's hoping!

Until later, 

- Molly

Wake Me Up When September Ends

September was a very full month. Full of good, and unfortunately, full of bad too. We made it home just in time for Labor Day weekend, and it felt so good to be in our home church, and then to celebrate Labor Day with our family and friends. Looking back over the month, it was actually a nice respite. Starting that next day, we hit the ground running and haven't slowed down yet.

The first week back was full tilt for me, catching up on some administrative things in the office and getting ready for a client trade show we attend every September. Each evening we tried (and usually succeeded) to have dinner with family or friends, and sometimes both. When you're only in town a short period of time, you tend to create as many opportunities as you can to spend quality time with the people you care about, and that's what we did.

On Saturday the 6th, I got to do something so amazingly cool that it has to be included in this post: I got to play cops and robbers, but for real! Let me explain. My good friend, Micah, has a buddy who is a member of a local area SWAT team. They were doing some training exercises and needed a couple of "bad guys" willing to shoot at them and get shot at. Each drill used Simunition, which are live, plastic-like rounds fired from real weapons, howbeit at reduced velocities from a normal bullet. They still fly anywhere from 400-600 feet per second, and are designed to leave a colored mark wherever they impact. We took along our Glocks, the SWAT team had pistols and M4's, and we ran through several designed scenarios where we, as the bad guys, had to attack or hold off the police officers, and they had to follow procedure to effectively neutralize us. To keep from going on and on, let's just say we both came home with quite a few cuts, scrapes, and bruises from being shot multiple times, but we gave plenty of our own. Matter of fact, we shot so well that they invited both of us back to reprise our roles the next time they train. That was a pretty solid endorsement if you ask me.

In early August, my PawPaw Rathbun had been diagnosed with lung cancer and only given a few months to live. After my mom spent some time with him during the first week of September, she shared with me that he wasn't doing well. We had already planned to visit my grandparents as the first stop on our next trip, but I didn't want to regret not getting up there soon enough, so Molly and I cleared our schedules and headed to Oil City, LA on Monday the 8th after I finished working. We didn't get there until late that evening and PawPaw was already asleep. Early the next morning I got up and sat with PawPaw and we talked for almost three hours, just me and him. Molly and I spent two full days sitting around with family, talking to MawMaw and PawPaw, just enjoying each other's company. On Wednesday we had to head back to finish getting ready for my trade show.

On Saturday the 13th, Molly and I headed over to Austin so that we could get to the convention center early the next morning to start setting up our booth for my trade show. Sunday was filled with a lot of manual labor - setting up a 10'x30' booth filled with displays and merchandise takes time - so nearly 11 hours later we wrapped up a few last minute things and left the convention center. A couple of my team members had come over from Houston to help us set up the booth, so before they headed back I wanted to treat them to a nice meal. Moonshine, one of our favorite places, is directly behind the convention center and we told them to meet us there. I didn't have any cash on me to valet, so we parked on the side street beside the restaurant, which connects to the feeder road of I35. I've eaten at Moonshine numerous times, and parked in that location many of those times without any issue, but I had a bad feeling about parking my truck there. I hadn't kept my concealed carry on me since we had been working all day, but when we got out of my truck, I opened my back door and got it out of my backpack, which was in the backseat, and put it on. I tucked the backpack down behind my seat and laid a travel pillow over it. With my tinted windows, you couldn't see anything in the backseat, much less my bag. When we had walked almost all the way to the restaurant, I asked Molly if I had locked the truck, and since neither of us could remember, I trotted back down and made sure it was locked and the alarm set. After a wonderful dinner, I headed back to get the truck; halfway down the street I saw that my rear driver's side window was shattered. I immediately knew my bag was gone. Sure enough, it was. As I immediately scanned the area, I noticed a man sitting in his truck across the street. I asked him if he had seen anyone by the truck. He exclaimed loudly, "Man, less than 10 minutes ago a guy with a backpack walked from over there and got in a white Mazda and drove off! I didn't notice your window was broken, so I just thought he was leaving his car and catching a ride with someone else!" I missed that joker by less than 10 minutes. God probably had a hand in that, because I might be waiting on a trial right now if I had caught him in the act. Anyhow, my backpack is essentially what I live out of: my MacBook, two iPads, wireless router, Mophie juice pack, numerous charges, adapters, and cables, credit card readers, an HD camcorder, a Mont Blanc pen I received as a graduation present that I use for important meetings, plus two business journals, several documents, and quite a few business cards that I've collected over the previous month - I had over $6,000 worth of items in there. The digital information was all backed up, but much of what was in there I can't recover. I was sick. That is absolutely one of the worst ways you can start an out of town business trip. I was up until 1:30am on the phone with the police and then the insurance company, trying to make sure I had all of the bases covered to document and hopefully recoup what was taken. At some point that evening, I do remember consciously saying "Thank you God for your many blessings." I wanted to make sure that in my anger and frustration I didn't lose perspective of how blessed I truly am, even when something bad like this happens.

After a fairly sleepless night, we were up at 6am and headed to work the show. What followed was five days of complete craziness, in a good way. We were swamped the whole time, and had a record week for the business. At some point that day, I got more bad news: my insurance agent called to let me know that auto insurance would cover the window (which was good news, and expected), but that it doesn't cover the contents of a vehicle; homeowners insurance covers that. Since you're reading this blog...about our lives full time on the road...you may already see where this is going. When we sold our house in May, we no longer needed homeowners insurance, and therefore were not covered. I asked if our fifth wheel insurance would cover the loss, but apparently that only covers the contents of the trailer itself. We were up a creek. That evening we went and purchased a new MacBook since I have to have one to run the business. Even though it's a company paid expense, spending money for such an unnecessary purpose as theft replacement was painful. By Friday evening, we were exhausted. After cleaning up, we ran to Fogo de Chao to celebrate the success of the week, then happily headed to my in-laws farm a couple of hours away and promptly crashed.

The next week began in an amazing way. During an incredible church service on Sunday, our people gave an offering of over $105,000 for Sheaves for Christ, a missions-based program of the UPCI. If you're reading this and aren't familiar with our church, this is a pretty incredible feat because have about 200 saints, which means that the average per capita was over $500! I'm so excited because God always blesses sacrificial giving and I can't wait to see what He does in our church.

Our friends Chris and Danielle Green were in town since he was preaching Sunday and Wednesday for our church. Molly and I left the kids with my mom on Tuesday evening and took Chris and Danielle to our favorite Thai spot in The Woodlands, then for coffee and ice cream. It was nice to chill with good company. Wednesday night followed the same vein that Sunday left off in, and we had one of the most powerful services I've ever been a part of. God spoke some things directly to me that I needed to hear; He always knows exactly what we need. We spent Thursday evening with Aubrey, one of our close family friends, and Friday night we celebrated my friend Micah's birthday.

On Friday the 26th at about 2:30 in the morning, Mom called to let me know that PawPaw had passed away. Instead of leaving after service on Sunday as was our plan, we had to get everything packed and the whole trailer ready to go by Saturday morning so we could be there for the viewing Saturday night and the funeral on Sunday. We rolled into Oil City around 6:30, just in time to visit with everyone at the viewing. It was wonderful seeing the faces of so many old family friends, many of whom I hadn't seen since I was a kid. MawMaw had asked me to sing at PawPaw's funeral, and she wanted me to sing whatever was on my heart. As long as I can remember, MawMaw and PawPaw have lived in the same log cabin on Ferry Lake Road, but it struck me that the next time I see PawPaw, he'll be living at a new address, so I sang Address Change Notification. It only seemed fitting. Watching my MawMaw begin to worship as I started that chorus is something I'll never forget. Both of my brothers spoke, and both did a fabulous job. I think PawPaw would have been proud.

Since we already had our trailer at the local RV park, we decided to spend the rest of Sunday and Monday there with family before heading out. We've now been on the road again for a week, and it's already been incredibly eventful...but this is already the longest post I think I've written, so I'll let Molly tell you about that in our next post.

Looking back over September, I have a few takeaways:

• It takes some effort to fit everything in, but you'll never regret the time spent with family and  friends.

• Thanking God for what you do have helps you keep perspective when bad things happen.

• You can't out-give God. Two days after we gave in that offering for our church, I found out that our business insurance would cover the theft, paying for the replacement of my stolen items.

~J

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**Disclaimer** This post is a month late! We had most of it written, but because of how busy we have been while at home, we are just now getting the chance to post it...as we're leaving town again.**

Part 1

Well, after 8 weeks on the road exploring some incredibly beautiful places, we made it back home! We left Jacksonville, Florida - our last official stop on the trip - on August 26th. We drove several hours and stopped for the night at a little RV park in Bonifay, Florida. We didn't level anything or slide the slide-outs out; matter of fact, we even left the truck hooked up to the RV, plugged in the power and water and climbed into our un-level, tilted beds, and went fast to sleep. We were all totally exhausted after a long day of travel. We woke up early the next morning, unhooked the electricity and water, packed the kids back into the truck, and off we went! I have never been so excited to be headed back to Texas!  

The excitement however did not transfer over to the kids. They literally fist-fought, cried, blamed, tattled, pinched, poked, and sobbed for 12 hours straight! I, in turn, screamed, threatened, growled, swatted blindly into the backseat, put my fingers in my ears and hummed "ommmmm" to myself for about 20 minutes at one point, and nearly cried several times! It was a long, LONG day. We had originally planned to stop in Baton Rouge for the night, then finish the drive the next day, but after being in the car for two days with the kids already, we just couldn't face another day. One more day in the truck would have pushed me right to my breaking point. I'm sure of it. 

So we rolled right on through Baton Rouge, and eventually we passed the BEAUTIFUL "Welcome to Texas" sign! Never has that Texas flag looked better. I would have shed a happy tear to be home, but I was just too exhausted and emotionally drained to work up any tears at that point. Around 11pm, all of the kids had finally dozed off, and Jonathan and I drove in almost complete silence the rest of the way home. Silence is golden after all!

- M

Part 2

As Molly said, the drive home was less than desirable. I had to get onto her as much as I had to get onto the kids. :-) The plan all along was to stop around Baton Rouge because I wanted to make one last client visit before heading home, but spending hours on end in a truck cab with three very resultless children strongly persuaded me that we needed to get home and out of that truck as soon as was humanly possible. We ended up getting back to Conroe around 12:20am on August 28th. By the time we dropped the trailer at the church and headed over to my parents to crash for the night, it was after 1am, but of course Mimi and Papa were still up, waiting to see those grandkids! I think we finally fell into bed around 3am and crashed. 

The 28th was my grandpa Ensey's birthday, and it just so happened that my parents had planned lunch at Vernon's, our favorite local mom-n-pop restaurant. While we were celebrating Grandpa's 76th, it might as well have been my birthday when they brought out my pork tenderloin, mashed new potatoes, green beans, and the best sweet iced tea in the world!

It was nice to be home...

~J

Roadschooling

When people hear about what we are doing, they pretty much all have the same questions: How can you all live in such a small space? How do you and your husband have ANY alone time? Your traveling with a pet WHAT?!, etc. But the one I tend to hear most often is about how we school on the road full time. Well, aside from enrolling my children in a new school once every week or so as we move around, the only sensible option is homeschooling. Or as we full-time, RV-dwelling homeschool moms refer to it, "roadschooling." 

Roadschooling is fundamentally the same as homeschooling, only with the added bonus of seeing the entire country from the comfort of your home, visiting all of the major landmarks, and going on some of the most amazing field trips you can imagine! For example, this month we have been in Florida, and my kids have gone on an airboat tour of the Everglades and were able to pet live alligators, we've been in some incredible museums, been shelling on Sanibel Island, visited the Tampa Aquarium, explored the Tampa Zoo, seen dozens of historic homes and buildings, climbed the wall of a fort from the 1800's, and this past weekend we took a tour of the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. Not to mention the adventures we went on last month, including touring the Alamo, The Natural Bridge Caverns, the city of Austin (the capital of our home state, Texas), etc. Then on to Louisiana, where we explored historic New Orleans and introduced the kids to Cajun food and culture, and even got to eat in a restaurant that once was a favorite of my favorite author, Tennessee Williams. Yes, I did have a minor fan-girl moment. ; )  

Through our travel, our kids are gaining a sense of the world outside of our little Texas community, and are learning so much along the way. 

Aside from field trips, I use a curriculum I have pieced together specifically geared to each kid's abilities and interests. This is our third year homeschooling, so I have learned which types of curriculums and learning styles work best for our family, and for me as a teacher. Our boys are in Kindergarten and Second grade this year. After doing tons of research, I decided on the following for our curriculum this year: 

Abeka for Language Arts, Reading, Phonics, & Spelling. 
Apologia for Animal Science
Horizons for Math and Penmanship
The Light & The Glory for US History 
I've also added several other store-bought workbooks I pull from occasionally to supplement anything we may need extra practice on.

Our daughter is in preschool, so she occasionally colors a work sheet or practices her letters and numbers while the boys and I work on book work, but she generally sits quietly on my bed and watches an educational video or plays with her dolls during school time. 

We start our day with Bible and a devotion at the breakfast table, followed by prayer and the pledge to the flag. Next we do "circle time", which isn't much of a circle since there are only three of us in it. But both of my boys are used to circle time from preschool, and insist on having it. During this time we discuss that day's weather, the weather patterns of the month, the calendar, days of the week, months of the year, etc. 

After circle time, I generally sit Annie Jane down in the bedroom to watch her "school video" as she calls it, or on the kitchen floor with a sensory bin, then I get started on bookwork at the table with the boys. I'm still learning how to balance both of their work and needs for one-on-one teaching, so there are times when I have to send one of them to play for a minute while I focus my attention on teaching the other their subject at hand at the appropriate grade level. 

We generally spread our school day out throughout the whole day. Most of the time I let the boys do their read-aloud time right before bed. And we usually take a long break during the middle of the day to spend time in the pool or riding bikes together to burn off some energy, then we pick back up in the evening after dinner. After trying for a year to force the whole school day to happen in the morning, like I was used to with "real school", even with the promise of the whole rest of the day off, I've learned that is not what works for us! A little work here and there throughout the day is how my oldest works best and happiest, and I prefer it as well. I don't necessarily recommend working this way, but I do recommend finding what works for your family, and doing that. If you aren't a morning person, don't start school until after lunch! If you hate staying up late, get all of your school work done early in the day! If neither of those options sounds like the right fit for you and your kids, make up your own option. Do half after breakfast and half after dinner. Whatever works! All I'm saying is please don't feel the pressure to have a public school schedule at home. You aren't teaching in a public school! You chose to school at home for a reason: freedom to do what works best for you and your children. Even if it seems crazy from the outside looking in, find what works for you. When we first started homeschooling, I would have told you that you had lost your mind if you suggested schooling all day long, all the way up to bed time. Fast forward three years and we don't think a thing of it! It's just how school flows most smoothly for us.

Another thing we have discovered lately that works wonderfully for us is having the boys do school work while we are on the road. Closed in the truck and bored out of their minds, they are suddenly a captive audience and are just happy to be given something to do. Haha! I'm also a HUGE fan of Time4Learning.com. On days when we go on a field trip and don't have time or energy to sit down and do bookwork, I'm able to pull up this incredible website, and my children have an entire years worth of grade-appropriate lessons at their finger tips, complete with quizzes and tests to make sure they are mastering the subjects. I can't say enough good things about Time4Learning.com. They provide lessons in History, Science, Math, Language Arts, etc., and provide printable reports for parents on your child's progress. So if you are a homeschool parent, looking for a great online curriculum or a supplement for your current curriculum, check out Time4Learning.com! 

I'm sure I've left a lot of roadschooling questions unanswered, so if I've left anything out, hopefully I'll get around to it in another post down the road. But for now, I hope I've made the concept of roadschooling and how it works for our family a little more clear. God bless! 

- M

The Keys to Happiness

It's been a full two weeks! I honestly didn't even realize how much we've done until I just now sat down to think about it. On the 4th, Molly, the kids, and her mom headed down to Sanibel Island for the night to stay in a little beach cottage and go shelling the next day, while I stayed in Tampa to get some much needed "busy work" done. After wrapping up a couple of conference calls, I toyed with the idea of going to play golf since I was surrounded by beautiful courses and the family wasn't around, but my responsibilities won out and I made the wise choice of finishing up some work I had been putting off. While it was nice to have some peace and quiet in the RV, I found myself missing the sound of the kids playing in their room, and I was ready to head toward Ft. Myers the next morning.

I arrived around 1pm, just in time for Mikki (my MIL) to offload Molly and the kids at the RV and head out. It was nice having her here to give Molly and I some much needed time away from the kids, not to mention chauffeuring the family around while I was out working. The kids were excited to show me all of the amazing shells they found, and they found quite a few. Sanibel definitely lived up to it's name as a world class shelling beach.

After spending Wednesday meeting with clients, we planned to visit a local church for service that evening. Not knowing anyone in the area, I googled local UPCI churches. The church we found was small, and as expected, we didn't know anyone. As is typical, they had us fill out a visitor's form when we arrived. When the pastor stepped into the pulpit I could tell he was probably reviewing the visitor's card. He promptly looked up and said "I see you're from Texas; I just have one question - are you related to J.R. Ensey?" (If you don't know, that's my grandfather.) Come to find out, he had attended Texas Bible College during the time that my grandpa was the President. It's cliche but true, it really is a small world.

After I finished working Thursday, we went and looked at motorhomes. (Now, I'll pause because most of you reading this are probably thinking we're crazy since we just got a fifth wheel! While it's highly unlikely we would upgrade anytime soon, we actually have a few good reasons to look at them. We love our fifth wheel and have no complaints about the size and space, the only downside is when I need to make a quick stop by an office, I either have to find a place to drop the trailer and unhitch or park the trailer and then take a cab. While that scenario doesn't happen often, it would be nice to have a tow vehicle to unhitch and drive while Molly and the kids stayed in the motorhome. It's also much easier to boondock (park overnight without hooking up) in a motorhome since they have an onboard generator. And the best perk would be that Molly and the kids could be "in the house" doing whatever they wanted or needed while I drove us to our next destination instead of all of us being cooped up in the truck.) So, we went and browsed, and ended up finding one we really liked that would work! Now to figure out how to upgrade... :-)

Friday morning we pulled out and headed to Ft. Lauderdale. One thing we've discovered is that moving days are really draining, both physically and mentally. Something about packing up your whole house, going through the process of loading up, hitching up, then rolling down the road at more than 25,000lbs and 60' long through urban areas in tight traffic, then resetting everything up is exhausting. With that said, we pretty much did nothing Saturday.

On Sunday we were able to visit The Pentecostals of Cooper City pastored by Mark Hattabaugh. Although we hadn't met personally, he knew my family and I was aware of who he was. As he was making his way to the platform, he stopped to introduce himself (you get good pastoring points for doing things like this). He and his wife ended up taking us to a local hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant after service, and the food was only topped by the company. The Hattabaugh's are fantastic, genuine people, and it's easy to see why their church is thriving.

Most of this week was fairly mundane - me working during the day while Molly and the kids did schoolwork and then went to the pool. (Yes, I failed to mention that Molly started the kids back to school last week). We forayed out to eat Cuban food on Thursday evening, and it was very tasty.

Something else we've discovered is that living in a 450sq ft space and only having one vehicle means that we all need breaks. Molly and the kids need a break from the RV and RV-parks since they're stuck during the day when I'm not there, and I need mental break after spending several days in a row on the road visiting clients during the day then often continuing with my weekly workload in the evening. Since we were this close to the Keys, we headed out around noon on Friday and made the trek down to Key West. I had booked us a room at a small resort there, and we arrived around 5pm. It was a beautiful little place, covered in tropical foliage. We took the kids down to one of the four pools on site and let them swim for a bit while we lounged poolside in the shade. We had a little bit of excitement when Annie, who normally wears floaties but didn't have them, stepped a little bit too far into the pool. I had just told her less than a minute before to come back closer to the steps, but in-between the time when I said that and the time she stepped off, I had gotten a little distracted by Jack dunking Grey under the water. Sure enough, she went up to her eyeballs in the water; fortunately Molly saw her immediately and jumped up to snag her. Annie was fine, just a little shaken up. And hey, a little healthy fear is good. We wandered around Key West for a while, grabbed some food, then went back to the hotel to relax. We didn't want to waste any time since we weren't staying long, so we headed straight to the beach when we got up yesterday. After letting the kids play for a while, we packed up and headed to Bahia Honda, a beautiful state park. Our next stop was the Islamorada Fish Company. We ate out on the patio overlooking the ocean - alligator, conch, crab, grouper, and clam chowder - it was fantastic.

As we drove back home yesterday, I was drawn to the fact that in-between the work and play and church services and fun excursions, memories are being made, experiences are being had, and lessons are being learned - we're all growing. The kids are growing literally, both physically and mentally as every child does, but they're also learning some things locationally that they probably wouldn't have if we weren't traveling. Molly and I are truly learning patience (you try dealing with three kids under 7 for hours on end in the cab of a truck!) We're also learning how to depend on each other more than we ever have before; being "alone" forces you to do that. I'm also getting to spend some amazing quality time with my kids. Yes, I would still have spent time with them at home, but we had many obligations there that took our time; this journey is breeding a sense of closeness in our little family I doubt we would have otherwise. They say travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer; I would add that traveling with the ones you love makes you a wealthy man indeed.

~J