Just Another Day in Paradise, Washington

 

 

The last time we attempted this trip our truck ended up sitting on the side of the mountain for two hours before being towed one hour in the opposite direction of where we are currently living. Even good came out of that though because everywhere you drive in this area of Washington is just amazingly beautiful. So when Mom was here that day we ended up going to Morton, WA, a tiny little logging town,  instead of Paradise which is in Mt. Rainier National Park. But today we made it all the way there and it was definitely worth the wait.

 

We hiked the Nisqually Vista trail which is only a little less than 2 miles and great for hiking with little ones in tow. There are trails of all lengths and level of skill and you can also hire a guide to hike to the top. There is a great snow play area right by the Paradise visitor center for snow ball fights and sledding.



 

 Alyssa is way back there insisting she wants to walk down without any help.



the kids trying to slide down on their stomachs



 



Contrary to what these Texans might have thought, rubber boots are not good for hiking in the snow.

 

This is the fakest smile ever. I was peer pressured into sitting on the edge of this cliff.

Teachers

My children that went to public school before we started homeschooling have very fond memories of their teachers. They were great.

I love teachers!

I especially love teachers who are passionate about the subject they are teaching. I remember in high school that I wasn't very interested in history. I mean, not at all. But I can tell you everything you want to know about the JFK assassination because we had a history teacher that was so passionate about it he made sure that we learned about it from all angles (no pun intended).

Here is my point.

My kids (and your kids) have passionate teachers all over the country.

Before we started traveling, Addison, Taylor and Alyssa learned more about farming from the Williams family next door who were passionate about organic farming than they did from the botany text we studied for a whole school year. Dacia taught them about composting and let them help her plant and harvest the vegetables. When someone is excited about what they are telling you....you tend to listen and absorb it better.

So after we took to the road about 9 months ago, it only got better. We suddenly had teachers everywhere we looked.

At the Padre Island National Sea Shore we learned about sea turtles while talking to a park ranger who was releasing them into the gulf.

In Corpus Christi we learned about Indonesian culture while spending a few hours with two Indonesians who were smiling the whole time as they shared a bit of their language, their art and their history with us. On the USS Lexington we sat and listened to stories from a veteran who was actually stationed on the ship. He had been brought there by his grandkids to see it. We learned new art techniques from an artist who wanted to share her love for art with children.

In San Antonio we stood in the room of the Alamo where the women and children had huddled together during battle and listened as a man retold to us the story of how they were all marched out afterwards and given money and a blanket by Santa Anna's forces. We walked through caves and listened intently as a tour guide, whom you could tell was happy for this to be his job, taught us about the natives who lived in them years ago. At Cibolo Nature Reserve an employee stopped us to introduce himself and we had an impromptu lesson about area birds. Another employee later on talked with the girls about other area animals.

While driving towards Fort Stockton from East Texas we happened to look over and see this:

 

AAaaahhhh!!!! Stop the truck! (which was pulling our house behind it) Once, many years ago, James refused to stop at a multi-block long garage sale in the middle of a quaint little town somewhere in New England. He's never lived it down. But I digress. Anyway, he knew better than to pass this up. Since high school I have somehow morphed into a crazed history consumer. I just can't get enough.

 

So this had educational opportunity written all over it. After pulling in we learned it actually had a visitor's center which leads me to our next passionate teacher. We learned that Fort McKavett was a military post during the Texas Indian wars. Our teacher that day was someone whose job it was to know everything there is to know about the one thing we were learning about at that moment. You could see that she enjoyed interacting daily with people who were eager to hear stories of what had happened here.  Here are a few more pictures we took and a link to their web site.

http://www.visitfortmckavett.com

 

 

 

A few other examples of the people who help me teach our little girls-

 

 Taylor learned how to play basketball for the first time in San Antonio-where everyone is excited about the sport. Her coach was a patient guy.

If you are a traveler or a homeschooler you can check out National Youth Sports here.

 

 

In Tacoma, WA there was an older lady who kindly welcomed my kids into the Washington State History Museum and checked on them later on during our visit, offered information and asked if they had any questions. Here they are pretending to be volcanologists.

 



 

 

 A worker here at our current campground took a few minutes out of his day after a heavy rain to teach the kids about how earthworms breathe through their skin when he saw the girls collecting them.

 

 

 

Here Taylor is being taught about anatomy from a very well-trained museum worker at the Witte Museum.

 

 

 

We learned about music from San Antonio Symphony Associate Conductor Akiko Fujimoto as she welcomed an audience of children to enjoy THE PLANETS and took time in between movements to explain different musical terms.

 

 

 

We are on our third year homeschooling and first year traveling. We don't "unschool" because I am a box checker and I have to have our stacks of books and instructor's guides so that I feel like I didn't miss anything. But I can certainly see how unschooling families do it. There are educational opportunities everywhere you turn when you are out in the real world.

 

I'm so grateful for all of my kids' teachers and I look forward to meeting the rest of them.





Travel Nurse Housing Options + Announcing our Next Assignment!

 

     There are basically three options for housing when you are a travel nurse- receive a housing stipend and find your own short term housing, live in company provided housing or receive a housing stipend and travel in an RV. There are many things to consider in deciding which option to choose. There are great benefits of all three and in our short time traveling we have already tried each one. So here is what we have learned.
    In Corpus Christi, TX we chose to receive the housing stipend and find our own housing. I am a frugal person and love to see how little money we can spend so I was determined to stay under a $1200 monthly budget. That number is for furnished housing all bills paid. If you don't use the full amount of the stipend you just keep the extra. (Housing is never "free". No matter how the agency words it - it's all a part of the total pay package.) It took hours and hours over several days of combing through online sites to find our condo. And it wasn't even listed online. I got lucky and got the owner's number from someone else I had called. So that is one downside to finding your own housing. It can be very difficult to find a place that will do a three month lease and that is furnished. The owner we rented from was great to work with. Her condo had been updated within the last few years and it was right on the bay. The location was amazing. It wasn't the fanciest place but we are not fancy people and we enjoyed a summer of living like beach bums. It was, at the time, the smallest place I had ever lived in at 420 square feet. Two girls slept on bunks that were built into the hallway and one slept on a blow up bed in the living room. James and I had our own tiny room. Having the beach right outside and a playground and multiple tourist attractions within walking distance made it worth it. We took the good with the bad and I would recommend Villa del Sol to frugal minded people- at least the condo we stayed in anyway. We ended up spending $1100 per month.

 

 

 

    The plan was to do the same thing in San Antonio. I started weeks before the move looking for a furnished place that could sleep our family of 5 and that wasn't in a place that I'd be afraid to walk outside at night. I just couldn't do it. Everything I found was between 2 and 3 thousand dollars a month if not more. James' company has 2 amazing housing coordinators that are there for us every step of the way for any kind of help we may need. I called and spoke with one of them and she told me they had a relationship with an apartment complex in NW San Antonio- Mission Ranch Apartments. To get the cheapest deal the lease would have to be in the name of the travel nurse agency and so that's when we switched to company provided housing. Like I said before- it's all part of the total pay package and so $1700 a month was withheld from James' paycheck. Ouch. That's really the only complaint I have though. The apartment was completely furnished with a washer and dryer. There was a beautiful pool, workout room and indoor basketball court. It was a two bedroom two bath also so if you were traveling alone you could spend less and get a smaller apartment. These photos are from the Mission Ranch web site. http://www.missionranchapts.com/

 

 



 
 
 
 
 

  


    While we loved the apartments we didn't enjoy having to pack up our family of five every time we moved. We homeschool and so we have many, many books and other school supplies. We also liked the idea of our kids having their own beds and surroundings that could travel with them. Most people that live in apartments are not travelers and we liked the idea of living among other travelers so we decided to purchase a travel trailer. We switched back to the housing stipend and it more than covers our RV expenses and site rent. There are so many different options when it comes to buying a travel trailer or motorhome. We didn't want to spend a crazy amount of money on one because we don't know how long we will be traveling. So a motorhome was out. We chose this 35 foot travel trailer with a bunk room for the kids that has a slide out. They each have their own bed and storage space. They have each made their space their own with wall decals and various stuffed animals. With the slide out in their room they have more space than we do in ours. At the first RV park we stayed at we immediately met other families who live fulltime in their RVs due to the husband's job. At our current park we have met another "fulltime family" that travels because the dad is a travel nurse. For me that is a huge benefit of living in an RV. I love meeting other people and hearing their stories. The best thing is that our home stays the same but the view changes.



 
   
    Soon the views outside our windows (or near by) will include The Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Chloride Ghost Town as we travel through the American southwest on Historic Route 66 and then north through California toward our next assignment in Auburn, Washington. We are finally leaving Texas! I have, however, been warned by a few that once you leave Texas you will realize how great Texas really is. I don't doubt that at all but I am so looking forward to this next chapter of our adventure.A bonus is that we will be just a few hours from Jerod, Mikayla and Lila- my little brother and his sweet little family. I'm happy that we have chosen a travel trailer for our housing prior to our big trip so that we will still feel at home when we are so far away from home. Or as Taylor put it, "We are like turtles- we carry our house with us."