Moving in One Million Directions!!!

So, we’re home, for one week … and no-one is particularly excited about it. Living in an RV this summer just very well become permanent as it’s hands down the most bonding, freeing, amazing, life-altering, extreme thing we’ve done to date and that’s saying a lot! We are not your typical family, and certainly not your typical large family. Just when we think we can’t fall off the edge of society anymore, we find yet another way! But, seriously, selling our home and all our “stuff” has to be the final step, right? I can’t even fathom a next step! Of course, our end goal is Dan being free of his job and if my book, “Raising a Badass Family” continues to grow as it has, we’re on the fast track!!! A quick plug, if I may and I may because this is my blog … I have sold 191 copies since July 5th!!! Holy Crap — who would have ever thought? So, we have high hopes that by the end of the year, Dan will no longer have to work for someone else. So, click here: Raising a Badass Familyand go purchase my book, homies!! 🙂

And so, today I will contact a friend who is a real estate agent, I know Obama has wrecked the economy worse than Bush even, but I think it’s worth trying to sell. Surely being free of a mortgage payment will enable Dan to quit sooner and it will enable us to live the life that is unraveling before us. I can’t say with 100% honesty that this step is without hesitation. As far as houses go, ours is your run of the mill, purchased in the height of the housing bubble, crappily built home and our only neighbors suck. But our location is THE best you can get in our town. We are on top of a hill and the views are breathtaking, we back up to BLM land that stretches all the way to Steamboat Springs, we have utter privacy and our kids scour the mountainside year round! We can play paintball up on the mountain, we make terrain parks in the winter and mountain biking trails in the summer. We ride just down our street to amazing dirt biking trails. We have all you could ever hope for in suburbia … even a whitewater park and a ski resort.

So, what the heck would incite us to move? I mean we are living the life right? Yep. But, this might sound weird, I think, we think, God is leading us in this direction. In all honesty, the only way we were able to buy our kick-ass RV is God’s intervention. No lie, I won’t go into details, but it should not have been possible. Next, had God intervened prior to last October and “given” us the RV we could have easily lived in the RV, kept our home and continued our lifestyle as we were accustomed. However, He did not and so we have an RV, a crazy mortgage, a 20% paycut, 60% increase in our health insurance premiums (don’t get me started), and a few kids with a fierce desire to compete for a spot on the World Kayaking Team — which means being East for 5+ months. Trials are in April 2013 and we plan to be on the road from November through April for training. I don’t think a World Team aspiration is out of their reach. They have been kayaking for 2 years, this is their first year competing and they blew even my expectations out of the water. They are learning at a ridiculous speed and are loving every second of it!! I can’t get Grady out of the water, despite calloused, bloody hands, a pulled shoulder, pain in his back and tailbone … he just keeps at it, I’ve never seen him so focused and obsessed with anything in my life. Brody, while less obsessed is no less enthused and driven to a World Team spot. The only thing they really need is experience!! Grady threw an amazing ride at the National Championship Prelims and really had a shot in finals. He’s throwing McNasty’s in both directions, Phonix Monkeys, Huge Air Loops, blunts, and even nailed the biggest AirScrew EVER! He needs experience to pull this off everytime — two years ago he and Brody were just starting to run rivers and participated in the Junior Kayak League — an amazing program run by Nick Wigston that pretty much takes any class boater, even class II’s as they were, and makes them class IV boaters in a matter of 2 weeks! I could use some JKL!! LOL!!

So, I think the fact that money is tight and we saw our dream of an RV realized, God must be telling us something. Be free, live free, perhaps? But then I think, 12 kids plus me and Dan in an RV full time. Who in the world would even contemplate something so ridiculous? What could God be calling us to do that we can only accomplish fully in an RV? Or perhaps he’s merely protecting us from something, or by closing one door He plans to open yet another that is filled with His glory? Who knows? But neither Dan nor I are above blindly making life-altering decisions and living in an RV is something we’ve been doing for the past 6 weeks, hence, it is do-able. The hardest part for me hands-down, is the complete lack of any down time. In MT and ID it did not get dark until 10:30 pm and the kids were on a wacked schedule. I literally had no peace, no break, no quiet from 7:30 am to 12:00 am!! That’s 16.5 hours everyday!! I would find this difficult at anytime, but I’m 6 months pregnant. I was falling over dead, an emotional wreck in MT, by ID I’d become somewhat accustomed, so pulled it off with only a minor hitch. God Bless Dan. He’s a saint. That’s all I’m going to say!! LOL. The other difficult part of living in an RV is the bathroom situation and water situation. I am sick to death of walking 1/2 mile to a bathroom! And, being pregnant and having little kids I make this trek over 100 times per day, no lie! Surely you’re thinking RV’s have bathrooms, right? Yes, but we will NOT use ours. No way, no way and no way!! We have an issue with a smell in the shower that must be taken care of, I am not going to venture into black water dumping. No thank you. And then water. We run out of water FAST, very very fast. The biggest downside for Dan is he has to work! 🙂 He has to get up super early and stay up even later than midnight, to get stuff done because the pull of the river and the kids and, of course, me, is wayyy to strong! But seriously, if these are the only troubles I have found after 6 weeks of travelling, puhleese. It’s a cake walk. The perks far outweigh the difficulties and we are all-together…the biggest perk of all.

So, look for big changes on the horizon for us as we embark on this wonderful, unknown journey. Oh, an a wrap-up of USA Freestyle Championships in Cascade, ID?? You want to hear about that? Ha ha … Cadets: Kady, 4th; Dally 3rd and Kenny, 1st. Kenny is beyond stoked to have won a Jackson Kayak of his choice and since he’s been borrowing Brody’s Shooting Star, that’s what he’s going for … despite the fact that he’s Jonesin for a Little Hero, and a Duo — his biggest dilemma is color choice. Jr Men’s … Grady had a 4th place finish … he was bummed, but stoked for his friend Evan who placed 3rd and landed on the podium.

There ya have it. We’re heading to TN next week after a few grueling house readying projects, guaranteed to make the downside of RV living look glamorous!! 🙂