Two Year Full Time RV’ing Anniversary, Living The Dream!!!

It’s official!!!!  We are now tried and true full time RV’ers as we’ve been living our dream for TWO straight years!!  That’s right, we’ve been living full time in our RV since May 2012 and WOW! have we had some amazing adventures!!

In 2 years we’ve logged 50,000 miles and been to 32 states and Ontario, Canada.  We’ve welcomed our youngest child, Coby, into our family while living in the RV. We’ve seen our daughter Kady make it to the finals in the ICF Freestyle Kayaking World Championships. We’ve done birthdays and First Holy Communions and Confirmations in our humble abode.  We’ve Marched at two March for Life’s, made countless lunches for the less fortunate, and really stepped outside ourselves in this journey to re-acclaim life.

We’ve paddled so many different rivers, boarded down so many beautiful mountains, caved in some of the most elusive spots, climbed some of the most spectacular rock faces, seen the most amazing sunsets and counted more stars than we could have ever imagined.

 

We’ve met so many amazing people, from Bob Dotson of The Today Show to Billy Bob in Western TN.  We’ve been welcomed into the homes and churches and communities by the most wonderful individuals — it has left us speechless.  These people couldn’t have come at a better time, we were losing faith in humanity, living where we were living.

But then Jeremy invites us into his home, Dina & Matt make us honorary members of their incredible family, Kristine invites us all to dinner, Brad offers his 2nd home to us whenever we are in town, Paul does the same, Edith brings us freshly baked cookies on a cold winter afternoon, Patrick quietly pays for our donuts after mass, Lucy invites us all to the weekly church dinner, Laurie is always there with a kind word on Facebook, Shannon makes a special trip to drive us home from Confession after meeting her daughter that very night and hearing we walked because our RV was DOA, Dani and Maggie meet up with us at the March for Life, Scott & Nikki invite us for a BBQ and give us a warm shower and place to crash, Mindy calls a friend who is a SAHM who also happens to be a pediatrician because Coby is running a fever … man I could go on and on and on.

I hate that I’m skipping people, but my kids aren’t patient enough to wait while I mention everyone.  🙂

Many of you might take a kind word or a small gesture for granted … we don’t, none of us do.  A simple, “Good job” or a high five, or even a “hey!” is likely to make it to the dinner conversation!  It’s what the simple life does for a person.  It takes you out of your comfort zone, your place amongst all your stuff and your busy lives and puts you right into the human aspect of life.  It’s amazing, it really is.  Our minds, our hearts, and our souls are de-cluttered.  We see things that are truly important, we see the gift of humanity.  Isn’t that just incredible?

It’s made Dan and I better spouses, better parents and better friends.  We are no longer “too busy”.  You see, we aren’t bogged down running the kids to a gazillion after school activities, sports and meetings.  We don’t rush home at 8 and stuff dinner down our throats, frantically get through homework and fall in bed at 11 with barely a word spoken. We have time to stay connected to each other.  We have time to stay connected to our children, and they, in turn, have time to stay connected to themselves and to all of us!  We are always physically and mentally present.  Our minds don’t wander because we are exactly where we want to be!

Now we spend our lives engaging in the things we love to do together, as a family.  I can’t imagine a better way to spend our days, I really can’t.  Our kids are thriving. They are free.  Free to actively learn about themselves, their strengths, and their passions.  I can’t believe how blessed we are to give them this childhood.  And, I can’t wait to see how the next 2 years pan out … where we’ll go, what we’ll see … it’s bound to be extraordinary!!!

And, on that note, we are all about meeting people this year. If you know of any event, festival, party, ANYTHING, that you think is a “Must Attend” event, we want to know ALL about it.  Leave us a comment here, on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram.  You can drop us a Tweet or a SnapChat or an email.  We’ve got LinkedIn, Text, Snail Mail … well, you’ve got the idea, we are pretty easy to track down!!  LOL  We read everything ya’ll send us and would love to try to fit your shindig into our travels!!