Mmm Motorhomin'

This morning in the shower I was humming along to that catchy new country song about motor boating- but instead my lyrics are motorhomin'. Today is the day we have been waiting for for months. We got to pick up our motor home we found 2 weeks ago. If it were up to us we would have brought it home the moment we saw it, but one of the two owners was on a vacation in Texas so we had to wait until she was back home. This motor home- worth the wait!

Jaimie and Brian joined us tonight while we picked it up so that we could ride home together as a family in it. We started with dinner at Chili's and then a quick trip to the mall to kill a half hours worth of time.

The couple that we bought it from are so sweet. They took their own family all over the USA in it and took amazing care of it. The miles are low, the condition is great, and the price was just right. We are so thankful that everything worked out exactly like it did. Thank you Papa Family, Thank you.

Faith

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

 Today was our day off and we wanted to do something special. We wanted to do something special because we have a rough couple of days. Our little Lola took a nasty fall and we thought she broke her jaw. Her lips are swollen, her teeth might fall out, and just looking at her breaks my heart. So something special: a train ride through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

The girls stamping their National Park Passport

The ranger waiving to everyone as they passed by in the train.

At a stop to look at the canal.

Waiting for the train.

Our view from the train window.

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The girls were happy riding on the train and we were happy getting to our first of many national parks over the next few months. We even bought a national park passport book and the girls enjoyed getting the cancellations on the page. They also had a fun time talking to a woman about her spinning wheel. They learned how it spins by tapping her foot, what the wool feels like, how she dyes it to get the color she wants, and why her spinning wheel doesn't look like the one that Sleeping Beauty got hurt by.

Family Feet at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Chili Day

Its a chili day here and it makes me CRAVE fall. Leaves turning colors, sweatshirts, pumpkins. Ryan and I are on the same page because right now he is in the kitchen making a big batch of Chili for dinner tonight.

I finished all of my work this morning and while the girls are taking a nap I'm working on the quilt that I plan to raffle off for gas money for our big trip. I really dislike the cutting stage of sewing projects. I just want to be sewing. But its not that the air is crisp and people are out doing other things today because it gives me time to cut so that soon I'll be able to start sewing it all together.

Fun Tif Bit: The Grand Canyon

Over 1,500 plant, 355 bird, 89 mammalian, 47 reptile, 9 amphibian, and 17 fish species are found in the Grand Canyon.

Home Education

Today I mailed my letter to the school district telling them we will be homeschooling Sophie. I have to say how great it felt to put it in the mail box and send it on its way. I also sent my check to my home school group and joined the home school legal defense site.

Tomorrow the Oak Meadows curriculum giveaway happens from the mothering.com site. How AMAZING would that be if we were blessed with our first grade curriculum? Keeping my fingers crossed! But if the giveaway happens and we aren't lucky enough to win then I will order it in just two days. Sophie cant wait to see it and look through it with me. http://mothering.com/all-things-mothering/education/win-a-homeschool-curriculum-from-oak-meadow

For Lola with preschool I have so much I think the hardest part will be picking through it all and deciding what will work best for Lola. Both girls are still asking for book bags so I will be taking them next week for some "school" shopping.

Devils Tower

Devils Tower is a National Monument Sacred to the American Native Indians.


CheyenneThe Cheyenne call Devils Tower "Bear's Lodge," "Bear's House," "Bear's Tipi," and "Bear Peak."
The Cheyenne camped and hunted at Devils Tower in the winter. ¹
"This (Devils Tower) was a very holy place to us." ²
The Cheyenne people have a sacred narrative or legend on the origin of Bear's Lodge. ¹
"A band of Cheyenne Indians went on one of its visits to 'Bear's Tipi' to worship the Great Spirit, as did many other tribes before the white man came. The Cheyenne braves took their families with them as they felt that would be safe, as Bear's Tipi was a holy place." ²
Devils Tower is where Sweet Medicine died and it is his final earthly resting place. Sweet Medicine is the great culture hero of the Cheyenne who brought the Four Sacred Arrows to the tribe. The Four Sacred Arrows' sanctuary was located within a secret cave on the south side of Bear's Lodge. ¹ Sweet Medicine also founded the Cheyenne Warrior Societies, tribal government, special laws, and ceremonies. As Sweet Medicine lay dying in a hut by Bear's Lodge, he foretold a dark prophecy of the coming of the horse; the disappearance of the old ways and the buffalo, to be replaced by slick animals with split hoofs the people must learn to eat (cattle). He told of the coming of white men, strangers called Earth Men who could fly above the earth, take thunder from light, and dig up the earth and drain it until it was dead. <sup>2



Tif's Bit fun fact: The Lakota call it Penis Mountain. I think I found my tribe :)</sup>

The Mammoth Site of South Dakota

I am so excited for all the amazing things we will see as a family but I cant wait to see the girls faces at The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs South Dakota. This is the worlds largest mammoth  research facility. Exploring fossils, touring an active dig site, and 60 mammoths! I think Aunt Heather is going to be jealous of all the digging and exploring the girls get to expierence :)

Check out the official website to see more of what we get to look foward to when we visit South Dakota: www. mammothsite.com

Magic

Fun Tif Bit: Redwood Forest

Did you know a redwood cone is the size of an olive. Each cone contains 60 to 120 seeds. One tree may produce 10 million seeds but only a few will reach maturity. If a seed settles in just the right place it may grow into a tree that will live more than 2,000 years.

www.nps.gov

Fun tif bit: Mt Rushmore

Did you know that Mt Rushmore was started October 4, 1927 and finished 14 years later?
The sculptor Gutzon Borglum died just months before it was finished and his son, Lincoln, finished the the last day of drilling October 31, 1941.

90% of the monument was carved from dynamite. No one died during the carving of it. The total cost  $989, 992.32 .

These fun tif bits came from nps.gov

Gas Money

Now that we have our beautiful motor home our next challenge will be to save up every penny we can for gas money. The more gas money we have the more road we will discover. I'm planning a big garage sale here at the campgrounds in September, it will also be a craft show. I have been sewing up a storm for crafts to sell. My sister is also donating some things for me. I plan on letting the girls have their own table with baked goods that day too.

Another way to raise some gas money: I am raffling off a quilt. I'm in the process of piecing it together now and I hope to have it done very soon. I want to be able to raffle off the winner at our annual Halloween party.

My garage sale/craft show will be here at the campgrounds Sept 15 from 9 am to 5 pm. Rain or shine. Please come out and take a look around I will be selling aprons, make up bags, make up roll ups, bean bags, household items, and the girls will be ready with baked goods.

Lets see where the road takes us.

Have you had that moment where your driving and you think "what if I could just keep going?". I did. Just a little over a month ago my husband and I were in our car on our way to celebrate our anniversary and he said to me at almost the exact moment I was thinking the same thing, "Tif, what if we just drove and see where it takes us? Do you ever think about that?" My reply was simple and instant, "All the time."

That opened the door to a lot of conversations; which lead to today. But I'll get to today in a little bit. First lets start with once Ryan said it out loud I couldn't stop thinking and talking about it. He was concerned because usually its him that is jumping without looking. I'm usually the more lets plan it out, think about it, save for it, think of pros and cons- instead this time it was simple. We have to do this. We have to go. We have to try. We have to just leap. Even if we fail- even if we don't make it to half the places we want- we have to try. Ryan agreed but I'm guessing he thought I was having a moment and it would pass, but it didn't and it won't.

I started printing off things from the web- about Mt Rushmore. Then about Grand Canyon, and the Redwood Forest, potato's in Idaho, Yellowstone, the worlds biggest frying pan, the best places for BBQ in Texas... and yes I could keep going on and on. I'm pinteresting everything I can. I stop at AAA and grab as many free brochures as they will let one person take. Soon I notice Ryan starting to look at trailers for sale, ones he can pull and ask what our budget will be. I knew as he was googling trailers for sale that he was starting to let himself imagine the fun that we will have as a family.

I will say this there are many reasons this trip shouldn't have worked out-

Reason number one: we have school age kids. My daughter S is going into 1st grade and my other daughter L is ready for preschool. However I have always wanted to home school my children. Last year when S was getting ready for Kindergarten I had a job offer that would keep me busy over the winter so we decided to send her to public school. But I hated it. The drama, early mornings, the cost, the extra stuff she was learning, the crazy moms and their drama. Public school is just not for us. So yes I feel fantastic and proud to say I am homeschooling my children- and the amount they will learn on this trip is going to monumentally surpass anything the school could try. Also just for the record- if you disagree with homeschooling- if you want to debate with me about our choices- feel free to never come back to this blog- and defriend me on facebook. Because honestly I don't want to hear about your issues. Period.
My children missing to much school because of a long road trip across the USA- not a problem when you home school.

Reason number two this trip shouldn't have worked out: I should be pregnant right now. We had a devastating miscarriage in June. I was pregnant and now I'm not. So going for long road trips- not an issue anymore. I cant believe I'm even typing this but just for the sake of that one ignorant person out there- yes, I would rather be pregnant any day vs taking a road trip and no I didn't do anything in anyway to end this pregnancy for any reason. If you think that- seriously do not come back to this blog ever again.

Reason number three this trip shouldn't be possible: renters. We have fantastic renters that rent our house. They informed us they would be leaving in August and we knew that would make money tight. We wanted to try and sell the house but with this economy we were not looking forward to it being on the market. Anyways long story short our renters decided they were going to stay and not move away and we did the happy dance. Money no longer tight.

Reason number four: Vacation time with jobs. Most people I'm going to say 90% of people have jobs that they get limited vacation time. We work seasonally but opted to have our pay spread out through out the entire year. So we have from Mid October thou March season basically "off" work. Grant it there are still phone calls, billing, and some winter maintenance but mostly we are not working in the typical sense. While we are traveling we don't have to take time off work- or rush to get back. We have our winter season for ourselves.

Reason number five:  Shit happens.  So far we shit hasn't hit the fan. People die, bad news strikes, vehicles break down, your savings gets spent when your fridge decides to no longer stay cold. But as of right now we are shit free. Fingers crossed that we keep going with that.

Yes there are plenty more reason but those are the main ones. I really feel like we have moments in our life where we make a choice and it dramatically changes our story- our thumbprint if you will. Ryan could have not said what he did out loud that day, we could still be pregnant, I could be the type that would never consider homeschooling, our renters should and could have left for another place and money be tight, we could have "normal" jobs that wouldn't let you leave for months at a time BUT that's not our truth. 

I firmly believe things fall in or out of place for a reason. If we are to scared to follow through because of the what ifs ,the chance of "failing" ,or because of concern about how others will react or say about us- then shame on us. We will regret that for the rest of our lives. But taking this opportunity and seeing where the road really takes us- there is no regret in that.

We are traveling across the USA as a family. To bring us together, to learn as much as we can together, This winter season in our thumbprints will help define what directions my children take in their lives. It will help us stay bonded as a family, as a married couple, and help us in our faith.

I plan to use this blog to keep a journal of our journey. To share with friends and family where we are and what we are learning. If you love and support us please follow along. If your reading this and finding yourself being judgemental of us- I'm sorry your in that place, but don't feel the need to keep reading. I will be honest. I will be blunt. I will be me. In the last few months I've realized that some people are just never going to like me- and they actually want for my marriage to fail- or want for my reasons to be happy to go away. Instead of be upset over this and trying to get them to like me I've decided to let them go. To separate myself from them and protect my children from their negative issues. Ryan and I are going to live our dream. We are going to be together as a family and teach our children values, love and respect. Misery loves company and we are not your guests.

To finish this first post I will say we have been searching for just the right trailer for our family. At first we thought we would take the car, sleep in a tent when we could and hotels when we couldn't. But then we thought about how nice it would be to have a trailer with a toilet to help avoid lots of bathroom stops while on the road. Then someone pointed out pop up trailers and tents were not allowed where we are planning to go because of the bears.

Bears. Yes, we forgot the bears. That helped us decide right there that we really need a hard back trailer. Because nothing ends a magic journey like bears sticking their heads in our tent looking for food.

We have been searching for weeks for just the right trailer for us. After a very frustrating few days I came home from our last camper dealership and went to bed. Mid afternoon. Just said screw it. Ryan woke me up and told me I would never believe what he found. In our very own office hanging on the bulletin board was a motor home for sale. This motorhome has been for sale for months and its picture hanging in our office and here it is in our price range, low mileage, looked beautiful. He called and set up an apt to look for it. We had our fingers crossed that it wasn't to good to be true.

Today we bought a motorhome. A beautiful, well maintained, low mileage, perfect for our family, in our budget, dream ideal motorhome.

God is good. The fact that everything is really falling into place and working out this way. We are grateful. We are blessed. We are taking a trip across the USA.