Buy Some Memories

If I had to describe this week in one word: hectic! The "hectic-ness" started Sunday when we had to wake up early, prep the whole trailer for moving, all get dressed for church, get locked and loaded, and make it from Onalaska to Conroe in time for the Father's Day service at church! As a side note - I wouldn't ever advise readying an RV for transport in your dress clothes, especially not when it's sweltering outside. Needless to say, I was sweated down after twenty minutes, and of course didn't have the luxury of re-showering or changing, not to mention that I also didn't have time. Since we weren't staying in Conroe, we ended up simply parking the truck and trailer in the Lowe's parking lot and having Molly's sister come pick us up for church. After an amazing service and dinner with family, my mother dropped us back off at Lowe's and we were off to Austin!

We finally rolled into our new RV park around 10 that evening. Although it was already dark, we all pitched in and were completely set up by 10:45. This park is a wonderful little place with lots of trees. It's also gated, which is great since we can let the kids ride their bikes and scooters without worrying about them. Best of all, it's only about eight minutes south of downtown Austin, which was convenient for me since I had business meetings to attend. After getting settled in, I can't tell you how happy I was to crawl into bed after that long day.


Monday morning I had to be at my client's office at 8:30 and was scheduled to be there until 5:30. That's important info because when we're on the road, we only have one vehicle. Fortunately, the park has a pool and nice play area, so the kids were just fine. Unfortunately, we hadn't had time to buy groceries Sunday evening, so Molly had to scrounge our very tiny pantry to keep the kid's hunger quelled until I got back home. Since groceries were at the top of the to-do list, we immediately went to the grocery store and stocked up, then came back to the trailer so Molly could fix dinner, which we ate outside because the weather was perfect. The next morning, I had to be at my client's office early again, and was there until 4pm. Even though the park is nice (and there was now plenty of food), by this time, just the thought of not being able to go anywhere was stressing Molly out, so we decided to get out for the evening. Over the past few years, I've come to love Moonshine, a great little restaurant at the corner of 3rd and Red River, so we went there for dinner. (Get the Green Chile Macaroni if you ever get to go!) Afterwards we drove around and showed the kids the capitol, then ended up at the Congress Avenue Bridge to watch the Mexico free-tailed bats come out for the night. It was almost impossible to get a picture of them, but it was definitely fascinating.

On the way home, we just happened to pass by a Krispy Kreme that just happened to have the light on, so of course I had to stop! The picture below only shows four in the box because two never made it past the checkout line...



Wednesday I wrapped up the last of our meetings at noon. However, a couple of months ago I had committed to helping our praise team for the Wednesday night service at Texas District Campmeeting, so as soon as I left the office, I was headed straight to Lufkin for our 5PM soundcheck, and barely made it with 5 minutes to spare. Unfortunately, this left Molly without a vehicle for yet another full day, but I think she managed to keep her sanity. After a fantastic service, I grabbed a quad-shot Americano from Starbucks to stay awake, a quick dinner to go at Whataburger, filled up at the gas station, then I headed back to Austin. Four hours later, around 2:45am, I finally made it home. Needless to say, I slept in this morning.

After not being able to go anywhere for the whole first half of the week, I wanted to make sure Molly and the kids got out of the trailer today and did something fun, so after I got some work done, we headed out to the Natural Bridge Caverns in San Antonio. If you've never been, it truly is pretty amazing. The walk through the caverns is about half a mile long and takes you roughly 180 feet below ground.

After spending a couple of hours here, we were off to catch the Alamo before it closed. Fighting San Antonio rush hour traffic felt like my own personal Alamo for a while there (and just in case you don't know me, I absolutely mean no disrespect to those who actually fought). We finally made it and ended up having to squeeze our giant truck into a very small parking garage. I have to tell you, I was a little nervous there for a bit. Not only was it narrow, but the ceiling almost touched my running lights on the roof. After squinching my way through five levels, we finally found a spot and raced down to the Alamo, thirty minutes before it closed. Being able to walk our kids through this historic site, something I'm proud of as a Texan, made me realize just how awesome this journey is going to be for our kids. They won't only be able to see historic Texas landmarks, but they'll be able to experience places similar to this all across America. In a time where freedoms are in question and history seems set on repeating itself, I'm glad I'll be able to share memorials like this with my kids, places I can point to and tell them of men who sacrificed for a cause they believed in, who gave their lives so that we could live ours freely.

Since we had such a hard time finding a parking spot, we went ahead and walked down to the Riverwalk to grab some dinner. On the way to San Antonio, Grey had seen a Buc-ee's, so of course we had to stop on the way back. I've seen big Buc-ee's before, but this one was massive. It had sixty gas pumps and the same square footage as some small supermarkets. With that last pit stop, we finally made our way back to the house. As I laid down this evening, my fatherly frugality reared it's head, thinking about how much money I had spent on our excursion today with the attractions, souvenirs, lunch and dinner, gas, and snacks. But then I looked over all the pictures we had taken and remembered a quote I read recently: "Memories are priceless so you should buy them." Today was a good investment.

~Jonathan

A First In the Third

We are currently at a beautiful RV park on Lake Livingston, in Onalaska, Tx. We arrived Sunday evening, in time to set up before it got too dark. My sister and her husband and kids were already here, so she watched the kids for us while Jonathan, my brother-in-law and I got the RV set up. My kids were super excited to see their cousins, so we decided to let all of the boys have a sleep over in our "house", and the girls went to my sisters trailer for some "girl time," as Annie Jane called it.

Monday morning, my niece and nephew had to leave for camp, so we were all pretty bummed to see them go. To get my kids over it, I had them in swim suits down at the beach by 9:30 in the morning! Ha! You do what you gotta do to keep them happy. The rest of our day was spent with the kids making trips in and out of the pool, at the splash pad, back at the beach a couple more times, and around and around the park on their razor scooters and bikes. Oh, and did I mention that our 7 year old learned how to ride his bike this past week?! Eeeeek! So happy. He's not super "outdoorsy," but since he learned to ride his bike, he's been outside most of the day, zipping all over the parks, which makes this momma super happy! That evening my sister fixed us some delicious slow-cooked pulled pork for dinner, so we all sat outside and devoured some tacos, laughed until we couldn't breathe, and swatted a swam of mosquitos while we watched the kids play, then we headed down to the lake one more time to watch the sun set. Not a bad way to end a wonderful day.

On a not so cheerful note, our cat, Hiccup, who we love dearly, decided to make a run for it last night. We looked for her today, but to no avail, so we are all pretty bummed. :( I'm hoping she's just hiding out here somewhere in the park and will make her way back home. But say a prayer for our kids...if we have to leave here without her at the end of the week, it'll be really hard on us all.

Some time around midnight on Monday night, a MASSIVE storm blew in. I was wide awake until around 3am listening to the wind howl, and the rain splat like rocks against the roof of our little tin can of a house. Somehow the kids slept through all of the lightening and thunder and the house rocking like crazy, like nothing was happening. I, on the other hand, laid awake all night just to be sure we weren't being blown off the slab and into the lake! That's what moms are for, right?! Being irrationally terrified and staying awake all night to "protect" their family from scary storms! Not sure what I planned to do if we did get blown away, but you better believe I was wide awake and ready with my flashlight! 
We found out the next day that a tornado had come thru the area and thrown trees through houses and caused all kinds of destruction! YIKES! guess we got lucky we didn't actually get blown off the slab into the lake after all!

This morning, Jonathan and I decided to take the kids to visit the Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin. Jonathan had work to get done, so I got to drive the new truck for the first time while he worked on his computer. Y'all, that truck is a beast! It's HUGE! Luckily Jonathan was looking down working the whole drive, because I'm pretty sure I nearly wiped a few small cars off the road making wide turns. Whoops! We finally made it safely to the zoo, which is great by the way! If you're ever in the area and looking for something to do, go check out the Ellen Trout Zoo. It's small but beautiful and shady, and has a lot of cool animals that you can see really close up! They also have about 100 peacocks that roam freely through the zoo and get close enough to touch. They are gorgeous (and loud!). All in all, we had a wonderful day and really enjoyed the zoo.

We ended our day back at the RV park. As the sun was setting I made us some sandwiches and we headed down to the beach to let the kids play before dark. They splashed and ran, swam, and even (tried) to ride their bikes into the lake. When I asked why Jack was riding his bike (which is falling apart, by the way) into the lake, he replied "Why not?! This bike is rubbish anyway!" He cracks me up. What 7 year old American kid uses the word "rubbish?" But alas, the bike is indeed rubbish, so I guess it's time to talk Dad into a new one! ; )

We're having a fantastic week here at the lake and I'll hate to leave once Sunday rolls around. My only consolation is knowing that leaving just begins our next adventure!

- Molly

Two Weeks Down

I would love to say that the past two weeks have gone by without any hitches, hiccups, or hardship, but if I said that, it would be a complete lie. Let me start from where we last left off...

Our first three days in the RV it rained. And rained. And rained some more. Enough so that our kids had a new "pond" to play in just outside our doorstep. And while this put a major kink in our move from the house to the RV, it provided them with a source of endless entertainment, so I guess it balanced out.

In spite of the rain, we only had until the end of the week to be out of the house, so we moved what we could when we could. You would be surprised at the amount of "stuff" we have accumulated over nine years of marriage! We had three garage sales, made at least 8 trips to Goodwill, donated several truckloads full to our church garage sale, gave items to a needy family who's house had just burned down, loaned out items to family and friends to use until we return, stored most of the clothing we aren't taking with us at my parent's house, and filled up our storage completely (at right), along with half of a storage that my in-laws graciously allowed us to use, and we still had items that needed to go. Needless to say, last week was a little stressful. But, after countless trips, we finally had everything we needed at the RV and everything was out of the house - we were officially moved into the RV!
This past Sunday, June 1st, was our first official day of being completely moved in. While getting ready for church, the hanging rack in our closet, which was apparently overloaded, completely pulled away from its mount and promptly dumped all of our clothes on the floor in the process. While I was pretty bummed that this happened right out of the gate, I was also a little excited at the opportunity to prove that I could in fact handle any repairs that would be needed. One trip to Home Depot, two early Father's Day gifts to myself (new drill and screw gun), and several packages of appropriate screws and nuts later, I had that bad boy securely mounted back in place.

Since we knew we would need the experience of breaking down and setting up, we had only planned to stay in the park we were at for a week, so Monday morning we starting prepping for our first move. While Molly was inside packing and making sure everything loose was stowed properly, I was outside draining tanks and making sure all of our hatches were shut and locked. Then we rolled in our slide-outs, hooked up the truck, raised jacks, retrieved parking blocks, and we were off! Ten minutes later we rolled into RV park number two. (Hey, I said we needed practice breaking down and setting up, not driving!)

While our first parking spot had been a pull-through, I purposely booked a back-in this time so I could gain the experience. Communicating over speakerphone with Molly helping in the blind spots, it went smoothly. Forty-five minutes after arriving we were completely unhooked from the truck, set up, leveled,  hooked up, and slid out.











While Molly worked on getting the house set back up inside, the kids immediately set about exploring their surroundings. The park is located right on Lake Conroe, and it has a small island that you cross a little bridge to get to, which the kids thought was pretty cool.















Here they are, just hanging around...

Our cat, Hiccup, on the other hand, was not thrilled with the change - I think she was confused, because the house was the same, but this was not the same place!

 

The rest of this week has gone by pretty smoothly; Molly has been working to get everything in it's place, and I've been in the office trying to wrap up loose ends before we hit the road permanently. Tuesday night Molly cooked our first dinner in the RV, chicken stir fry, and it was fantastic. I'm sure getting used to a tiny stove wasn't quite as fantastic, but she rocked it nonetheless. Our only other issue (so far) this week happened today, when Molly let me know that the lights in the kid's bedroom weren't coming on. After checking the breaker and fuse box, I discovered a fuse had blown. Off to the store I went. With the new fuse installed, everything was back to working order. 

While nothing major has gone wrong, the minor things we've had to deal with have served as a good confidence boost that we'll be able to handle whatever happens along the way on this journey. A little patience and hard work solves most things, in RVing and in life. :-)

~Jonathan