San Francisco

I am SUCH a procrastinator when it comes to blogging. Thank goodness I don't get paid for this. But in my defense we have driven over 1700 miles in the last two weeks. We've been kind of busy.

We are quickly coming to the end of our stay here in Acton, California so we are in that stage of making sure we don't miss out on anything while at the same time making preparations for our biggest move yet.

In addition to all this excitement, my three brothers have decided to make this the most joyous year of our family's recent history. Jerod and Mikayla are getting married in Oregon this month, Josh and Tiffany are having a little baby girl in Virginia next month, and Jamie and Kalli Jo are getting married in Texas in October! I am one happy sister!

So before we get back on the road in exactly two weeks, I need to get our recent little road trips "in the books."

"San Francisco's Golden Gate what a beautiful bridge you are...." If you have kids you know that if they learn a song it is most likely to end up on repeat in your own head for possibly months. I would think to myself...God please let another song replace this one soon.

It was beautiful. As a bonus we had un unexpected history lesson about Fort Point, a seacoast fortification that was built before the civil war.

Almost as beautiful was AT&T stadium- home of the Giants. And guess what- I got my wish about the song. In between innings they started playing "When the lights go down in the city and the sun shines on the bay...." by Journey which is totally fitting for San Francisco. That is the new song that is living in my head right now, along with this image:

We only spent two days in San Francisco so the only other thing we did was take a walk on the beach which suited the kids just fine.

 

 

 

This was actually the view from our RV park. San Francisco RV Resort is the only place we've stayed where you can do some whale watching and we saw several. Don't let the name fool you- it is a parking lot with hookups on the coast.

Some of the people that read this blog are other fulltime RV families. We like to read about each others' travels and a lot of the time will gain useful information about places before we go there ourselves. So very quickly here are some useful tips:

1. If you enter San Francisco via a toll bridge make sure you have plenty of cash. The one we entered on did not take debit cards so we are now waiting for a toll violation to come in the mail and will have to pay an extra $25 along with the $20 toll.

2. For fast cheap viewing of the Golden Gate Bridge take the last San Francisco exit off 101 and there are several little pay to park lots near a trail that leads to Fort Point and a Nat'l Parks Visitor Center. From that area you can also see Alcatraz out in the bay.

3. If you want to go "in to town" to eat out do your parking research first. Most of us drive ridiculously large trucks and this is not a town conducive to our parking needs. After driving around for a while we ended up driving out to Pacifica and eating at Red Lobster. However, the drive through the city was very interesting so that was not wasted time.

4. Parking for AT&T stadium is a good walk away and $30. That walk was also very interesting and a good workout so I'm not complaining.

5. Luckily we travel with our house in tow because I would not have thought to bring jackets. It was pretty chilly (in July). Take warm clothes!


The kids will be home from craft time with my awesome neighbor Denise soon so I'm going to wrap this up and save the Grand Canyon and Vegas for another day.

In the state these kids are in it was a miracle to get a picture this "normal". They've had a little sugar.
Thank you Denise for being one of my kids' teachers!

Happy Travels!

Bumps in the Road

This is my husband. He rented a Superman costume once when the kids were really little just so he could convince them that he was in fact, Superman.

In 2013 he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. It's one of the reasons that we sold just about everything we owned including our home and left our comfortable life in the community we'd been in for ten years. I think a lot of people have in their minds, "One day we are going to travel to (fill in the blank)." We had always talked about seeing the Pacific Northwest and Maine.
When you are diagnosed with MS, you can't say for sure what your retirement years are going to look like. He may still be going strong and I may still have to yell at him that we are NOT taking that "shortcut" when we go on hikes. Or he may be in the condition that he's seen some of his own MS patients in when he worked in home health.

We decided to make the changes that needed to be made to prepare for the future. So we are creating memories now. We are not waiting until retirement. He went back to school to become a Family Nurse Practitioner, which we believe will be less physically stressful than being an ER nurse.

A few weeks ago we took a trip back to Texas to see his neurologist because he'd been having some new symptoms. A new MRI showed new plaques on his brain and the doctor prescribed a medication with a cost like no other I've ever heard of. As I sat in the exam room with him, in the midst of this new information, we were laughing. I don't remember at what. But we were laughing so hard I was crying and hoping that the doctor didn't walk in and think I was crazy.

We laugh a lot. James just wanted to go get some Texas chips and hot sauce after that.

While in Texas he also suffered a back injury that resulted in other complications that had us sitting in a California ER for 6 hours yesterday. Talk about entertaining! Interesting place.

Everywhere we go he makes at least one nurse or receptionist laugh...like really laugh.

He is so great at navigating the bumps in the road and getting on with life. He doesn't sulk and check out of life.  He is the best husband I could ask for and my girls are lucky to have him for a father.

Happy Father's Day to our Superman!
 God blessed us with you.

From Washington to Southern California & Why this Isn't an Endless Vacation

I am in love with my current location... and I don't mean southern California.
I am in the back corner of the back room of the public library in the small town of Acton. When I look up, I see no one. I hear nothing. I'm kind of tempted to do nothing but sit here and enjoy doing nothing.

James is back at the RV Park with all three girls doing mountains of laundry and giving spelling tests.
He happened to have 5 days off in a row that coincided with a short break from his classes. So I thought I would jump at the chance to have a Mom's day away....at the library. I know, very exciting stuff.

I just want to set one thing straight. This is not a perpetual vacation. I know we all like to put our best foot forward in social media and I just want to make it clear that this isn't always easy. In fact, most of the time it is very hard. There are piles of dishes, but no dishwasher, piles of laundry but no washing machine, ENERGETIC kids, but limited space to go outside and play without direct supervision. There are days when I call my Mom wanting to  cry and I would give anything to run the kids over to her house for a few hours (or days). The last date night we had was when Mom flew to Washington....in January. We miss our family on a daily basis.

Having said all that, I wouldn't change a thing. We have been creating memories with our kids that will always be special to all of us. They are learning things in ways that I could have never imagined or planned for. Yes, we all make friends and then leave them but it is still worth it to have had those relationships while we did. Most of this post is going to be about our time in Washington and then some of our first thoughts about L.A.

While living in Washington we....

Went to Snoqualmie Falls

 

 

Had visits from family

 



 

 

Spent time with our new friends

 

 



 

Chris and Toni

Scott

Hugh

Andersons

Lucy and Alyssa

Carolyn and Curtis

It looks like all the other teams are distracted by Chris and Scott

Tom and Patty

Alyssa, Kelly and Addison

Patrick and Taylor

 

Every time we move we pray for good neighbors. It doesn't matter how nice a place is if you have unfriendly neighbors. The people at Lakeview were so welcoming. Many of the residents and some of the camp workers came to Taylor and Lucy's birthday party. Taylor makes friends with whomever she meets. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a kid. She bonded with Patrick over their mutual care of all the camp cats. He is probably still recovering from the experience of hearing a child talk so much. Her other friend Tom let her sit outside with him learning to make fires, whittle wood and play chess. Hugh, the camp host bought Taylor a BB gun and even gave her his 1st place medal from a national trap shooting competition. The first day we arrived at Lakeview we saw 3 little girls outside their RV checking us out to see what was going on. Our kids played with Kelly, Lucy and Zoey every chance they got. Carolyn may have cooked for my family more than I did and Chris and Toni opened their home to all of us to get together and eat. So I'd say our prayers where certainly answered. We had great neighbors there.

Found and played with various critters




Patrick told Taylor how mean people are to the cats during the busy Summer season so she made this sign for the office.

WARNING! Did you know slug slime is EXTREMELY hard to wash off skin?

 

 

 

Baked an apple pie....from scratch...in an RV oven....and did not burn the bottom

 

 

Experienced being around Seahawk fans at a Super bowl party near Seattle

 

 



 

 

Lived in a beautiful family friendly campground on Lake Tanwax



 

our last full day in WA
 

It didn't snow at the campground so Hugh brought a bit of snow back from Paradise for the kids to play with.

 

 

Went to the Washington State History Museum

 

 

 

 

Flew back to Texas for a busy 10 days

 



 

 

Explored the Olympic Peninsula

 

 

  Kalaloch Beach

 

 

 

 

 

Hoh Rainforest

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hurricane Ridge

 

He isn't attacking Addi he's just very into what he's teaching them. They are working on their latest Junior Ranger Badge.

 

Elsa in her native habitat...it was soooo COLD here!

 

 

 Somewhere on 101 ??? 

 

HWY 101 makes a huge circle around Olympic National Park which fills up much of the Olympic Peninsula. It is one of the most beautiful drives I've been on.

 

 

 

Port Orchard

Why this picture matters: Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove series is based on her home town of Port Orchard. One of the places the characters go to frequently is DD's on the Cove which is based on Amy's on the Bay. And that- is why it made our list of stops during our weekend on the peninsula. But they had delicious sea food too!

 

 

 

 Took a trip to Victoria, British Columbia

 

 

Fan Tan Alley

Back in the U.S.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So....there's that...and then there is Los Angeles. It's a bit different.

First of all, I haven't been able to convince any family members to come and visit. So if anyone will be in the L.A. area let us know! We'd be happy to have visitors! Maybe we can plan a successful outing. So far we are 1 for 3. You have to be very deliberate about your plans here. Plan around the traffic and tourist activity. We ate at McDonalds on Sunset Blvd yesterday because it was on our way to the Griffith Observatory. My kids weren't allowed out of my sight. I don't care if you are 10, I'm going to the bathroom with you. Also- people drive extremely fast here. Our truck is really a pain to park in big cities but we are both getting pretty good at it. We couldn't live without a backup cam.

We do have great neighbors though. The third day we were here Taylor opened the door during a break from school and found a gift for her from our neighbor Holly. Our other neighbor is Denise who travels with her husband who is a travel nurse! in the ER!

So wish us luck. It feels like getting into L.A. and doing something with three kids is more of an exercise in determination than a nice leisurely outing.