Final stretch

To say we are stressed would be a pretty big understatement right now.  Mark and I have been in the mad rush to get this house finished so we can list it May 1.  We only have a couple things to do yet and really one thing to do (baseboards) before I can take pictures of it for the listing.  We have one week to get it done, but looking around it seems like an almost impossible task.  I don’t know how I’m going to declutter this house enough to make it look decent in pictures, or where I’m going to find the time to shuffle everything from one room to the other while I take pictures without swings, and pack and plays, and high chairs and car seats and billions of toys, etc in them.  Just shuffling stuff to take pictures is going to take a solid day, especially if I have the “help” of the kids.  I’ve been paying a sitter to come 1-3 times a week to keep the babies entertained for a few hours a day so I can pack and clean and declutter.  We’ve already taken 3 trailers over to the storage shed, but it doesn’t even look like I’ve made a dent.  This is exhausting.  We were supposed to go to Disneyland this week but we decided to postpone that until after we have the house sold and more time on our hands.

So we’ve decided that once we sell the house we’re going to try to live in our 29’ travel trailer at the famcamp on base between when we close and when we move in early November.  I am already rather nervous about this because this 2700 sq ft house seems too small for all of us sometimes.  I’m not sure how we’re going to cram us with 4 kids into a tiny trailer for MONTHS.  I am not a minimalist and I like my space away from the kids.  When we are in the trailer we tiptoe to the bathroom in the middle of the night and we are confined to our “bedroom”, which is pretty much our bed with a foot on either side of it after we get them in their beds.  It’s going to be an adventure for sure.  And adding to my stress, my parents absolutely refuse to take our weina dogs for a few months while we live in the trailer.  They will take the huge 105lb Golden, but they “don’t like little dogs” and the weinas “won’t fit into their lifestyle”, so they are pretty much screwing us over big time.  I can’t stand their asshole dog either, but if they were having to live in a tiny travel trailer for a few months, we would suck it up and keep him if they asked.  And I would do that for any of my friends as well if I had the space for dogs.  I mean, when we lived in PHX I would watch friends dogs all the time.  It wasn’t for months, no, but I would have if they’d needed it.  My friend in Italy who had a 3 year old and no pets watched my dogs for a month while we were back in the US and I didn’t have to beg her.  It frustrates me that my parents think they’ve already “done their time” as they put it and it’s just way too much to ask them to keep my little dogs for a few months.  They would rather me send them to my friend in IA that has 2 dogs, 3 horses, a 3 year old and twin 5 month olds than keep them.  Apparently she hasn’t “done her time” yet and it would be much more of an inconvenience on my retired parents.  <Insert eye roll here>

And adding to my stress is that I will most likely home school Abbie and Ben for half of the year this coming school year.  I am not a “home schooler” by any stretch of the imagination.  Again, I like my time and space and if I can get my kids out of my hair for a few hours a day, I will.  But I don’t think it’s fair to them to put them in a new school on base in August, home school them Nov-Dec and then put them both into ANOTHER new school in January.  Its too much for one school year.

On top of it all I think I’m getting carpal tunnel or something.  My left wrist on the inside has been hurting or aching quite a bit.  I usually hold my phone with that hand when I’m feeding Josie, so I’m sure that doesn’t help.  Both of my arms/hands have been tingling and numb sometimes, and I think that’s because I have pinched nerves somewhere.  My knees ache every time I try to get up.  My arms and hands usually only fall asleep or tingle when I’m sitting in one place in for a while.  Hopefully it’s just pinched nerves and overuse and not something more serious.

I hope to God life calms down quite a bit after we get this house listed and sold, but when that happens we also get to move all of this into storage ourselves too because the military is fun like that….  So maybe not.

First camping trip

Last month we bought a travel trailer (2016 Keystone Passport 2920BH) and this month was the first time we got to use it!  We wanted to go somewhere not too far away so we could work out the kinks and just get our feet on the ground with it before we try a longer haul.  We decided to go to Kernville and we stayed at Rivernook Campground and it did not disappoint.

 

We learned a few things about camping, met some nice people in the campground, partially froze our butts off and made a list of everything else we still need for the trailer.  The whole reason we wanted to get a trailer was to get our kiddos outside and up close to nature.  The entire ride up to Kernville they talked about how they were very nervous because of the bears.

One of the things I discovered is that when camping, it’s okay to over pack.  I was trying to not over pack, so I brought the kids outfits for each day and then 2 extras and they were both through 3 outfits in the first day.  Ben fell in the stream about 10 minutes after we got up the first day and soaked his only pair of shoes.  (Just got him a pair of rain boots for camping now.)  Abbie likes to play musical outfits on any given day anyway, so she changed 3 times the first day too.  Next time I’ll bring more clothes for both of them, plus more shoes.

 

The scenery at the camp ground was gorgeous.  There’s just something so refreshing about being out in nature, especially when you add water to it.  This camp was along the Kern River and then had 3 creeks running through it and one was right behind our camp site.  We had fun wandering the grounds taking it all in.  The kids can NOT go for a walk without bringing half of the things they pass back with them.  Leaves, sticks, shells, pine cones, moss, grass, dirt.  You name it, they pick it up and bring it back with them.  And our little Jamison is apparently a natural in front of the camera.  Every time he saw me take a picture of him he’d get a big cheesy grin on his face.  Mark says it’s in his DNA.  I think he’s just too cute!

    

There were a few walking trails north of the camp ground that we walked along.  Fall is my absolute favorite time of year to travel.  It doesn’t matter if you’re in Europe or the States – the fall colors are amazing and I love the cooler crisp air.  The fall colors along the river didn’t disappoint.

 

The first time we saw these little rock towers was in Santorini, Greece.  They were all over the volcano there.  They are known in Canada as “Inukshuk’s” which mean “You’re welcome here” or “You’re on the right path” so Mark made a little one.

One of my requirements for the trailer was to have an outdoor kitchen and I’m so glad we have one.  It’s nice to be able to cook outside and not stink up the whole trailer.  I just wish our outdoor sink had a drain.  Instead it’s just a “sink” that you dump out when it gets full.  At least there’s running water out there.  We also got an outdoor rug for under the canopy.

Kernville is just south of the Sequoia National Forest so we decided to take drive north and check it out.  It was BEAUTIFUL!  Thank God my husband is patient and stops the car every mile or so for me to jump out and snap photos.  I might print a few of these.

Seriously, every time I pointed the camera at him, he grinned.

And a few more from around the campground and the Kern River.  We’re hoping to come back in the summer!

 

 

Here’s to the first camping trip of many!!

 

Our new toy

            

A few weeks ago we got stuck down in LA.  We went to the beach and when we tried to come home we discovered there were mudslides on all the roads we could take to get home.  So we decided to amend our plans a bit and instead of driving home and then coming back to LA two days later to go to the RV show, we just went and found a hotel by the RV show and moved those plans up a day.

We have been researching buying a travel trailer for almost a year now.  We had originally wanted a bunkhouse with double or double bunks.  But then we found the Cruiser RV Radiance that had a separate room with 4 single bunks in it and it was under our requirement of having the dry weight be under 6000lbs.  We decided we really wanted that one, only to discover they don’t make a 2016 version of that – it was switched to a Shadow Cruiser model.  No biggie.  Still basically the same thing, just with a different model name.  So we went to the show wanting to see the Shadow Cruiser for the first time in person and most likely buy it.

However, we didn’t even make it over to that side of the show.  We got stuck at a Keystone dealer who had a Passport Grand Touring bunkhouse that we liked even more than the Shadow Cruiser.  It had a wrap around dinette instead of just the two seats and we lived the pull out couch a lot better in the Passport.  The only thing we liked better in the Shadow Cruiser was that the kids room would have had a door and there was a little more storage beside the TV in the living room area.  But I think I can put up a curtain to separate the kids room and we’ll deal without the extra storage.  We need to keep it light anyway.

We’re pretty excited to start exploring more of CA in this!  I’ve been looking at campgrounds for months too so it’ll be fun to start checking them out!  There are a ton of them!