First off here's the RV tour I promised. I filmed it a month or two ago. We are at a different campground now with a much nicer site and loads of lovely green grass. (Cue angels singing) Anyway of course it's still the same RV and pretty much everything is set up the same...so check it out here.
Let me catch you up a bit since my last post didn't even elaborate on our journey up until the point at which I was writing it! We left the house at the end of February, and spent the first month in Ashland, Virginia at Americamps. What it lacked in greenery and landscaping it made up for in community. We met a bunch of other full time families there and enjoyed free waffles almost every morning. I should say, when we were not quarantined. Unfortunately we spent a good amount of time SICK. Two respiratory viruses and one (possibly two, it was hard to tell) stomach bugs made the rounds in our "tiny house" within a month. This culminated in one of the toughest weeks I've had camping anywhere at any time. We had moved to Thousand Trails Williamsburg by then, newly acquired by the company and rumored to be the most run-down facility they owned and sorely in need of updating. We found it tolerable, except for the lack of grass (hey lots of shade at least!) in our sloped campsite. (Which took us 3 hours to park in) It was this beautiful site away from the noisy pool area and really spacious. Wooded. Lovely. No sewer. Wait...
Yes, no sewer. Aforementioned stomach bug was in full force and the sewer on our "perfect" site was completely blocked up. According to long-time campground members it had had issues for a few years. While waiting for the site next to us to open up, we proceeded to fill up our black (toilet) and grey (shower, sink, etc.) tanks fairly quickly despite efforts to be conservative with water use. One symptom of the second stomach virus making its way through our family was severe abdominal pain. Poor Liam (the 4 year old) was writhing in pain throughout the night, literally every 60 minutes. The only way to relieve it, it seemed, was a warm bath. Then he would stop moaning and calm down enough to go back to sleep for another hour or so. This went on for several nights. Justin was able to drain the grey water somewhat by going very slowly. Then one afternoon when Liam was in the tub again, he had an accident. The kind of accident you have when you are 4 and experiencing severe digestive distress. It was in the tub and on him and I was sick at the time as well. After putting on my game face and doing what Moms have to do and getting him cleaned up, I grimly reached into the tub to pull the plug. Nothing happened. The contaminated water didn't budge. The grey tank was full! Justin was at work and I was hesitant to try and drain it on my own because I was sure I'd overflow the sewer and it would drain onto our neighbor's site. Soo...the I opened the bathroom vent, turned on the fan, and locked both doors. Thanked Jesus our camper had two bathrooms.
I suppose sharing that little episode might give you a negative impression of "tha camper life". It's really not that bad. Awesome actually. I'll leave all the "whys" for another post. So we spent 4 months at Thousand Trails, while the kids enjoyed the dirt, worms, woods and bugs. I did also, (in a Mom watching her kids play happily kind of way) but not quite as much. I was ready to move on. Then I heard about a place called Rockahock. Actually I had looked into it before and written it off because it had a reputation as a party place. A place where people come to go boating, listen to concerts, drink beer. Not so terrible, but not a place I'd want to live with 4 young kids. A friend then told me the manager had become a Christian and banned the drinking/partying stuff. They were even hosting a kids Bible camp the first week of August and a Christian bluegrass festival in September. The pictures online showed large, flat, grassy sites. From that point on I keenly wanted to go there. Ohh, grass! (And family friendly, that too. But grass!!!) Only we had to wait for the house to sell.
The house closed on August 1st! Anyone who has been in the situation of paying two mortgages because their house hasn't sold, or of renting out a house that cannot be sold at the time you are moving out, who has been responsible for getting it fixed up to sell, and then had to pay for repairs and maintenance far more than you expected to need to...can relate to the joy and relief we are feeling now that this albatross is free from our necks. Praise God the house is sold! We moved here to Rockahock July 26th at the end of our monthly term with Thousand Trails. We will be here until mid-October. So far it's great! They did host a Bible camp that the kids all attended right here in the campground for a week. The campground paid for all of it and it was staffed by volunteers from local churches. Not only did the kids have a great time, they took home substantial woodworking crafts (think stepstool, birdfeeder) and were fed lunch every day. The adults were even fed "grown up food". So awesome! In the summer they run a "fun zone", which is a bunch of bounce houses in various configurations set up underneath their large domed amphitheater . There is also a jumping pillow, a pool, a river to fish from, and restaurant on site well-known locally for its amazing Italian food. We love it here, so there's a strong chance we'll come back for an extended time at some point.
Before I ramble on too long let me give you a glimpse into our daily life:
6:30ish am: Arabella wakes up and I leap out of a dead sleep to get her, to prevent her crying waking up Liam, who does NOT wake up happy if it's too early.
6:30-7:30am: I cuddle with Arabella in our bed, watch cartoons, try to sneak out and make some coffee. Sometimes there is another child in there if any of the older three have come to join us in the night due to a "bad dream" or something of the like. Some parents may frown upon our leniency...but my take on it is eventually they outgrow it and I won't have cuddles like that anymore. And it's waay easier than getting up out of my cozy bed to soothe a scared child back to her bed. Nope, I just pat the pillow in the middle and roll back over to snooze. ;)
7:30am: Wake the others. Plop them on the couch to watch a movie while I get my first or second cup of coffee and a round of chocolate milks. We don't have internet strong enough to play netflix here. The only kids channels on the cable are nick and cartoon network...which tend to have shows I don't like my kids to watch. So out comes our dvd collection every morning. We are working on expanding it due to having watched every kids movie about 20 times now.
8am: Chores and start school. Someone takes Joey out to his tie-out so he can go to the bathroom and then yelp intermittently until he is let back in. (Taking him for an actual walk is another chore later in the day) School consists of all the children using these great lapdesks and workbooks in the morning, various subjects.
I go back and forth between them, helping them along and hoping that Arabella stays content. Sometimes she is not content so she is on my hip. Or I get a child who has completed one or two subjects to take a break and play with her. This is much better than last year when she was a young toddler and only wanted ME. And cried. And tried to grab the school supplies. Now she will sit at her own little desk and do "school work" with crayons and old coloring books. :) At least for a little while. Another strategy I have is putting Arabella, Liam or both of them in the master bedroom watching a preschool prep DVD. This series is great! Totally lame (Barney the purple dinosaur kind of lame) but it completely fascinates them AND effectively teaches them shapes, colors, letter recognition, etc. Win win!
12pm: Fast forward to lunch time. The morning was spent pretty much working on school and giving the kids a 30-60 minute break at which point I do dishes and throw in a load of laundry. That's the most housework I will do on a school day, and there's really not much else to do besides that. Once a week we do the "weekly" chores like wiping down surfaces, cleaning toilets, mopping, etc. The rest of the time it does not take much to keep a small space clean! If you can keep up with the clutter produced by 6 people in 480 square feet. That's just...challenging. So anyway at this time of day we eat, and Arabella goes down for a nap. The kids can't access the playroom while she is sleeping. So they either do school, a quiet activity or play outside.
12:30ish: We do some history read-alouds and complete a science lesson or project if it's science day. (two days a week) We do whatever book work did not get finished in the morning.
1:30/2:00pm: Done with school! A chore or two and then they are free! We relax, watch tv, read, play, and wait for Arabella to wake up. When she gets up we do something fun together. Most days it's the pool (it's so freaking hot right now), sometimes it's the jumping pillow and playground, or the WISC (really cool indoor sports complex with amazing kids play zone), or a friend's house, You get the idea. I love that I don't have to stress about getting things done or leaving things undone to spend time with the kids. We just go...and be together. Sometimes I sit outside on a camping chair and watch them splash in the toddler pool, chase dragonflies, squirt each other with the hose. It's lovely. (When it's not a heat index of 117 that is. This heat wave needs to stop now.)
5:00pm: Justin's loud diesel truck rumbles up and Arabella (the 2 year old) squeals "Daddy home, Daddy home!!" Followed by the other kids running outside to greet him. (Unless one or two have been sucked into media of some type. I honestly do strictly regulate it, but we don't have a certain time of day it happens/does not happen.)
5-7pm: Usually Justin cooks unless I have a recipe planned. He's more the throw things together type and he's good at it- so long as I provide him with a type of protein to cook, and some veggies or other type of side options. When I cook, I use my instant pot much of the time. I highly recommend this handy gadget that actually does several different types of cooking! It replaces several appliances so it's perfect for RV's. Anyway, so during this time Justin or I cook, the kids run around the campsite or watch tv depending on the flow of the day.
7-10pm: This is our getting the kids to bed time. (Hangs head in shame) It needs fine tuning. Part of the reason is because of the RV. Three kids sleep in one room and the two oldest of the three have to wait until the youngest is fully asleep until we can sneak them in there. If we are on top of our game we get them down efficiently, about 30 minutes per child and they are in bed by 8:30. We do jammies, teeth, stories, cuddles. Then there's Cade. The ten year old. He hops in our bed after the other three are asleep and tries to hang out. As if he's above bedtime now. Sometimes he is offended that we do not want to spend the rest of our evening with him. Sometimes he just needs some extra coaxing or a firm tone. Once we get him moving, I read him a chapter or two while we snuggle on the couch. Then he brushes his teeth and climbs up to his bunk. I climb onto a stool and cherish the fact that he still asks for me to sing to him, stroke his head and pray for him. I don't know when he'll outgrow it but it almost makes up for the fact that I'm often doing it at around 10pm. Some nights it's better, more like 9 or 9:30.
10pm-11pm: We get ready for bed and veg out until someone passes out (usually Justin).
See, this is sounding pretty normal isn't it? The little things like running the AC fan all night to keep a white noise on for Cade, making sure another load of laundry goes in and also a load of dishes. (small capacity)...they don't even make it into my narrative because we've adapted to this life. This feels like home. It IS home. Maybe I can do a pros and cons post for those seriously considering this lifestyle. We'll be doing this for at least another year. The current plan, unless God leads us in another direction, is to purchase some land in New Kent (conveniently located between Williamsburg and Richmond) and build a house on several acres. We will have chickens, a garden, maybe some bees, a trampoline, and either a mini-cow (yes! there are miniature cows!) or a few dairy goats. We'll aim to start building in March so that we'd be moving into the house in the early Fall of 2017.
That's a long time in this camper. So yes, it's home. I'll post some pics of our recent improvements and try to share some adventures or funny moments on my next post. I added a subscribe button so if you want to just have my random but totally awesome (maybe just sort of great...ok mildly entertaining?) posts sent to your mailbox just put in your email there. :)
If you've read this far, I'm impressed. Thank you for your interest in our life, and my rambling thoughts.
Here are a few more pics of our campground days and some adventures the past six months:
Fossil Beach York River State Park
Busch Gardens
Playing in the mud
Caught first fish
concert at Busch Gardens
The time the tree guy almost smashed
our awning (and possibly child)
National Zoo
lots of hammock cuddles
Building a deck to avoid the mud
Picking raspberries
Beach day
Campfires several nights a week
Campground 4th of July parade
Sent Cade off to camp for the first time
Rode the ferry
Virginia Beach Aquarium
Jumping pillow!
Fun Zone!
More fun and crazy and challenges and amazing-ness to come! :)
