12/14/08 UPDATE

It is so hard to believe that Christmas is only 11 days away!!!  I think what might be even harder to believe is that this is our second Christmas in the motorhome. Unreal.  Our little “let’s try this for 6 months” adventure has become much, much more!  We arrived today at my (Kelley’s) parents’ house and we will stay here until a few days after Christmas.  We are really looking forward to spending time with friends and family, and we are slowly adjusting to the cold Pennsylvania weather. It was such an odd feeling to see all the RV’s on the road heading south...and we were heading north.  Somethings wrong with that....

Last week Marty had to work in Vermont.  Since they don’t have campgrounds open this time of year (silly, huh?), we drove to Raleigh, NC then Marty flew from there. We chose Raleigh for the SOLE reason that it is where my friend from high school lives. :)   I recently reconnected with Adrienne on Facebook (sort of getting addicted to that) and we thought hey, it’s warmer there and I can visit my friend, yup, let’s pick there! It was SO GREAT to meet her family, and spend some time catching up. It’s so hard to believe that it’s been over 20 years since I’ve seen her....oye.

So what did we do prior to that? Wow, all can say is “What a month November was!!!”  At the beginning of the month, we spent two weeks in upstate NY with Marty’s parents. The first week, the girls and I stayed there while Marty drove to the city for work, then the 2nd week he was there with us. We had a nice visit, worked on school, and played with cousins. click for pics We took one day and went to the Saratoga Battlefield National Park with Grandma and Poppa. Samantha was SOOO excited to go there! The girls have been playing a computer game where they write for a newspaper and have to interview people at different battle sites.  One of them is Saratoga, so they knew all about it and helped tell us the names of people who were important there.  It was fun having them be the teachers! click for pics

One evening we were starting to look through our campground information to find a campground near El Dorado, Arkansas. We weren’t having much luck. Marty’s Dad happened to be working on his laptop and he came across a place called “Bar - J Ranch”.  He said they listed having a few RV sites so maybe we should check it out. Well all we can say is “Thank you, Poppa!!”  Marty called to find out what was there and had a huge smile on his face when he got off the phone.  He just looked at me and said, “You’re not going to believe it.” He said he spoke to a very nice lady named Barbara and she told him it was a working guest ranch with horses, lessons, trail rides, you name it.

I don’t even know where to start.  We had such an amazing time there that after Marty got done with his job in El Dorado, we decided to stay another week! They made an arrangement with us to pay a daily rate and the kids were able to basically just “live the ranch life.”  Work in the morning and ride in the afternoon was the rule, though sometimes we rode in the morning, the afternoon, then again in the evening!  Wow, were Marty and I sore! Of course it didn’t seem to phase the kids, though I must say they slept VERY WELL at night. The girls learned how to saddle their own horses, sometimes after going to chase them down in the pasture to bring them in.  They knew all the horses by name, knew what to feed them, climbed up the stable rails to feed them hay, and had the schedule of what had to be done down pat.

Though there was a schedule, we never knew what each day was going to bring. They did everything from mucking out stalls, to feeding chickens, to rounding up cows on their horses.  Oh, and they even went possum hunting one night!  Since it is a working ranch, crazy out of the ordinary things sometimes need to be done.  Over the weekend one of the horses needed to pull a covered wagon during a town festival. The horse needed practice pulling and practice being around people.  Before we knew it one evening, we were heading out off the ranch for a (2-3 hour?) ride into the neighboring town to get the horse used to things.  Yup, a whole crew of us riding along side the wagon, which was full of kids singing Christmas carols, down the roads of the town past people’s houses. It was long and cold, and we could hardly walk when we got home, but it was SO MUCH FUN!!!

We all progressed in our riding while there. Sara trotted right off the bat, then got very comfortable with a canter (or lope, as they call it down there), Samantha got very comfortable with trotting, I made it to a canter but was terrified and not nearly as smooth as Sara, and Marty meant to learn to trot, yet his horse decided to canter - he  looks like he’s having a great time in the pictures, but was in fact white as a sheet!  The girls became fast friends with the kids who lived there - Lauren (“Little Red”), Jordan (“Tick”), the twins - Samantha and Preston, and with Brittney who was often there for lessons, etc,.  They also became fast friends with the ranch hands they worked with every day - Toby and Will, such nice guys and great teachers.  Marty and I became fast friends with all the grown ups, too, and we just felt like family by the time we left.

Since we were there for the second week, that put us to Thanksgiving and the ranch owners, Daryl and Barbara, generously asked us to celebrate the day with them and Daryl’s family. We had a wonderful day, which is no surprise because they were all wonderful people.  Their warmth and faith in God was an awesome thing to be around.  We felt truly blessed to be given the opportunity to spend that time with them.  I must say it was like no other Thanksgiving though, in that after lunch the kids changed, ran out to the pasture to get horses and rode the afternoon away!  What an awesome life, huh?! I’ll just apologize for all of the pictures - it was sooo hard to choose!

Sooo.....you can imagine the tears when we left. Nobody wanted to go (though we were secretly all looking forward to sleeping late and “burnin’ some serious daylight” :-D) and we’ll be counting the days until we can go back again.  If you are ever in the El Dorado, Arkansas area, be sure to look up the Bar J Ranch www.barjranch.biz. You won’t regret it! click for pics

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9/23/08 UPDATE

Well, our whirlwind tour of the West has come to an end. As we are back on the east coast, in South Carolina, I have to say I’m bummed that we had to leave the incredible beauty of that part of our country. Having said that I am really happy we don’t have to go down anymore 8% mountain grades in this rig! click for pics It must be the big windshield.  Sometimes I just felt like the brakes were going to give out and we’d fly right through the front!  I’m sure Marty is glad to be done with that, too. I have to admit I was a bit of a nervous wreck on those “little adventures”!

After a week in Wichita, Kansas, where Marty worked and the kids and I did, well, nothing (except school!) we got the opportunity to go to Salt Lake City, Utah.  Marty’s office is located there and he’s flown there several times, but we never thought there would be any reason for us to get there in the RV since he’s basically “the east coast guy.”  But it worked out.  He had to be there the following week for some training (for him, not him training others) and since we were already halfway there in Kansas, we got to drive there.

The drive was somewhat interesting.  We had trouble getting out of the campground b/c the rig’s airbags wouldn’t fill.  Mr. Fixit Marty got that working so whew...here we go. A little ways down the highway we hear a strange sound, then the girls say, “The awning is flapping over the fan cover!”  What? The Fantastic Fan cover is in the middle of the rig!!  So we pull over and sure enough, the awning cover must have gotten flipped somehow in the wind and the awning had started coming out!  Oye. click for pics OK, back on the road. Has to come in threes...right?  We’re soon getting waved down to pull over. Marty stops and would you believe one of our baggage doors was flapping open!  Thank goodness a car didn’t come by and slam it right off! Yes, we check all these things before we leave, but wow...we missed something on this one!!!

We decided to spend Labor Day weekend in Moab, Utah and visit the National Parks there. Day one was Canyonlands NP, which just had absolutely breathtaking views.  We mostly just did the loop drive and a few short hikes.  I don’t even know how to describe these places so it’s going to just be pictures! click for pics Day two we went to Arches NP.  We spent a little more time there, did some hiking and the girls did the Junior Ranger program. We got pretty close to a jackrabbit and some deer whose coats almost completely blended in with the green-gray of the sage brush.  We didn’t do the big hike to Delicate Arch, but did the mini-hike which gave us a good view. We also did the hike to see where Wall Arch had just fallen recently, but mistakenly stopped short at Landscape Arch because part of that had fallen, too, and we listened to some people talking about it - we got confused. Oh well, I guess there wouldn’t have been much to see at a fallen arch! Too many arches...too little time! A storm was on the way, which made for really cool pictures, but we got caught in it on our hike back to the truck.  It wasn’t long but wow they were BIG raindrops!  Samantha didn’t like that AT ALL! They did hurt! It was an unbelievably beautiful place and we would highly recommend visiting there if given the chance. click for pics

We had a pretty good time in Salt Lake City. Our campground was a little loud because, oh I don’t know, we were next to train tracks, close to the airport AND the Utah State Fair was happening next door! My was it a noisy place! One night we could clearly hear the girl who played Gabriella in HS Musical (don’t remember her name) and another night we heard Christian artist Natalie Grant, so that was pretty cool. Well, until we were trying to get the kids to bed. Thank goodness for our sound machine!

Since we were there for two weeks we had the chance to wander a little. On Saturday we drove up to Park City where the ‘02 Winter Olympics were held. THAT was SO COOL!  The ski jumpers were there practicing so we got to watch them for awhile. But wait, you may say, there was no snow....how did they practice jumps?  Well, they jump into water, silly!  Who knew??? They would fly down the ski jumps, do all their crazy flips and twists, then land in a huge pool! Right before they hit the water, someone hits a switch which makes the water bubble up. This was not only to keep them from sinking too far, but it also helped them gauge their landing - if the water was clear they wouldn’t be able to judge where the surface of the water was.  After being amazed by them, a little adventure was in store for Marty and the kids. Marty and Sara did a zip line (Samantha wasn’t quite big enough yet so she and I took pictures :-), then Marty took both girls on the Alpine Slide. I could hear Sam screaming the whole way down (not scared...just a lot of yippee! woohoo! type screams!)  They had a great time and maybe next time I’ll go on them... :-0 click for pics

On Sunday we moved to a different campsite that was bigger and had a patio complete with table, chairs and a swing. It was so nice!  We felt like we were on the deck in the backyard.  It was great to be able to sit outside and swing in the evenings, and the kids also enjoyed being out there to get school done. click for pics In the afternoon, OK....are you ready for this?....we went to an art museum!  Yup, I know it’s lame that we haven’t been to one with the kids, but we haven’t. We’ve recently started studying various artists, and the museum had a traveling exibit of some of the Impressionists we’ve been studying (Monet, Renoir, Manet) so we were actually pretty excited to go (even Marty...shhhhh!)  Aside from trying to skirt the girls around all the naked pictures and statues (they can “appreciate” them when the get a little older), we had a great time.  Oh, and I almost forgot, we went to the Capitol so Samantha could gaze upon what are becoming her favorite buildings to visit! click for pics

Then so began the whirlwind tour.  We left SLC on Friday afternoon and made it to Bryce Canyon National Park that evening.  On the way into Bryce, we went through a really pretty area called the “Red Canyon.” click for pics When we got to the park, we went in to to watch the sunset and saw some amazing views that reminded us of the Fiery Furnace portion of Arches NP. We tried desperately that night and the next morning to connect with some friends (Bill and Grace Thrift) who were staying there in the Lodge, but due to VERY spotty cell service we missed each other by minutes. They even tracked us down to our campsite, but we had already gone back into the park thinking they already left.  We tried!!  Well, we had a short visit into the park on Saturday before we hit the road again. click for pics We trucked on down to the Grand Canyon, which was quite a drive down Rte. 89 through the mountains. Once we got to the park boundary it took what seemed like an hour to get to the Trailer Village Campground inside the park, but it was sooo worth it.

As we drove to the campground we got small glimpes of the Canyon and we just couldn’t believe it! It was great staying at that campground because they have shuttle service to the Village (where the main visitor hub is) and to a bunch of the overlooks. There was also a bunch of deer and elk that wandered through the campground (we only saw the elk from the trolley, not up close). The Canyon was really an amazing sight, and so quiet. The girls did the Junior Range Program again, which always makes it so much more interesting for all of us.  We learn things I know we wouldn’t otherwise pick up on. We attended a Ranger Talk on the California Condor, and almost as if on cue, two Condors flew overhead. They were HUGE! You can’t really appreciate it in the pictures, but they stand 4’ tall and they have a wingspan of 9’.  We only saw such a tiny portion of the Canyon.  Maybe someday we’ll get to go back and do the Creation-based 3 day rafting trip! Woo hoo! That would be fun!  As an added note, this was the only National Park where we saw a Bible verse posted and they had the Creation based book “The Grand Canyon, A Different View” in the bookstore.  Apparently George Bush had something to do with that. Wouldn’t it be nice if all NP’s had more than just millions of years propaganda???  It’s also interesting to think that we were all admiring the beauty that resulted from God’s judgement (Noah’s flood). Maybe it should be seen as a symbol of hope for the beauty that can come out of tough times....click for pics

Monday we left the Grand Canyon and headed to Mesa Verde NP in Colorado, but we had to make the requisite stop at the Four Corners Memorial.  We each stood on a state and held hands for a pic and the girls each put hands and feet in the different states.  It costs $3/person to go up to the Memorial spot and there’s a bunch of Indian craft booths.  It certainly is in the middle of NOWHERE but it’s pretty cool to stop there. click for pics

Mesa Verde was really cool.  Once inside the park boundaries, we took a narrow, winding, steep road up to the top - almost 9000ft. There were several hikes we could take but we did the easiest one to Spruce Tree House since we only had a few hours and Samantha wasn’t feeling good that morning. The girls did the Junior Ranger program again, so again we learned so much more than we would have if we just wandered.  It was amazing to see how people actually could live in those cliffs!  We went down a ladder into one of the “Kivas,” which was sort of like a basement, or their meeting place - the first small group area, huh?!.  It was also amazing to learn how they had to climb the rocks and dig their own finger and toe holds into the rock for those who came after them. Talk about living green! click for pics

So there ya have it. After making the LONG drive back east for a week in South Carolina, life as we know it is back to “normal”!

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9/1/08 UPDATE

“Storms....huh....what are they good for?  Absolutely nothin’...say it again...” I can say with absolute certainty that we are quite sick of storms.  While in Baton Rouge, LA, it stormed every afternoon.  We could count on it, though we never had anything too bad.  The biggest scare during those storms were the kids’ fear that the black and white swans in the campground’s lake would get pelted and not survive the hard rain. I assured the kiddos that “Midnight” and “Snowflake” were used to this kind of weather and they would be just fine.  Now here I am writing this on a day that Hurricane Gustav is pounding New Orleans. Our little storms don’t seem like such a big deal now.

Our two weeks in Baton Rouge were fairly uneventful as we sort of took it easy. click for pics From there we went (very far) north to Minneapolis, Minnesota (stopping to see a place in Iowa called “Windmill City.”) click for pic Marty had to work at the airport and we stayed in a little town called Cannon Falls.  It was a nice area, but again, storms.  Ugh.  Shall I repeat my little song from the beginning? This was the first time we actually ran to the laundry room because of a tornado warning, complete with the shrieking of the towns’ sirens. Yup, that was fun. The kids got pretty freaked out, and we learned what “quick grabs” were important for them in such a situation.  I was feeling pretty good because I had a little bag packed with water, snacks, card games, the weather radio and a comfort item for each of the kids.  Nope, grabbed the wrong doll for Sam! It was also kind of cool to know that the things they would have wanted with them were their journals and their Bibles....can you sense the little tear in my eye? :-)

After Minnesota we headed back down south to Branson, Missouri for a “Defending Your Faith” conference for families.  Wow!  That was an amazing experience!  It was put on by Answers in Genesis www.answersingenesis.org, but there were also other speakers: Doug Phillips from Vision Forum www.visionforum.com and Voddie Baucham (who we LOVED!)  www.voddiebaucham.org. Every session was so informative, intense, and funny all put together. The kids did great sitting through the sessions, but they also had a chance to go to a Buddy Davis session where they did some hands on learning about dinosaurs and the Bible. During some free time we visited a place called, “The Butterly Palace,” where we were able to walk through a huge number of butterflies and even had a few land on us! click for pics We came away from the conference saying that we had no idea there was so much information out there to defend the Bible, having no idea that the Bible is the most corroborated historical document.

We left Branson and did quick stints in NJ and Connecticut, then off to Marty’s parents’ house in NY.  The funny thing was, we got there on Saturday and the kids left with Marty’s parents on Sunday to go camping in New Hampshire with their Aunt Tracey, Uncle Glen and cousin Cayla.  We would have loved to go with them, but they were going to the mountains and Marty had to do virtual training that week, so we decided to just stay at his parents’ house where we knew he’d have good internet access.  They had a great time and Marty and I were actually alone for a week!  We didn’t know what do with ourselves!  After getting over the initial feeling of wow, we can sleep all we want (!) we decided to just putz around and get some things done.  Defrost the refrigerator, you know, all that exciting type stuff.  Unfortunately there were no movies playing that we wanted to see, but we did have a “dinner date.”  We had a nice week together just reconnecting and relaxing. The following week we celebrated Poppa’s birthday and just hung out with the family. click for pics

Well the kids got some serious grandparents time because we left NY for two weeks in PA with Kelley’s parents. Marty had to do some flying around - Alabama, then Wisconsin - so the girls and I stayed there, after a fun ride through the truck wash with Uncle Steve and Katrina. click for pics I think these occasional two weeks in a row flights for Marty is what keeps him wanting to drive the RV all over the country!  The poor guy. Yet again, he had a horrible time with weather, delays, airplane malfunctions, you name it.  It amazes me how he can fly home late on a Thursday night, then jump in the RV and drive for two days to Kansas! But that’s to be discussed later...

Despite the crazy running around to much needed haircuts and doctor appointments, the girls and I had a great time.  We went out with Mom and her friend Carol one night to a show called, “The Taffetas,” which was all about the music of the 50’s. Mom and Carol had a great time reminiscing, while I’d realize “hey, I know that song” and the kids just had fun with all the silliness. We also went out for dinner to celebrate Uncle Steve’s birthday and spent a day at the Catoctin Zoo in Maryland, where we enjoyed a VERY bumpy safari ride and got up close to bison, zebras and other amazing creatures. Unfortunately Samantha and Katrina got a little too up close and personal while trying to feed some animals - Katrina was bitten by a weird bird with a really hard beak and Samantha was bitten by a zebra! Hey, how many people can say they’ve been bitten by a zebra??? The day culminated with the three girls getting to enjoy a camel ride. Who knew such things could happen in Maryland! click for pics

Aside from the animal adventures and toe tapping 50’s music, it was awesome to spend time with Dad and see in person how he’s doing with his cancer treatments. I’m telling you, the guy is kicking it!  He’s getting some feeling back in his face and his swallowing muscles are slowly getting stronger so he is able to swallow some pills and pureed food. It’s a start!  I was able to take Dad to one of his chemo treatments and he certainly has a great place to go and awesome people taking care of him while he’s there.  The best news came after we left, though, when Dad had an appt with his heart doctor. He was able to come off most of his heart meds which seems to have made his recovery from this chemo treatment a little quicker.  Yippee!  Keep it up Dad!!!

6/22/08 UPDATE

I’m sitting here in the humidity of Louisiana, watching Marty and the kids fish in the 17-acre lake (complete with two swans) just off our campsite.  Lake, way cool. Humidity, ahem, not so cool! So to cool me off, I’m choosing to sit and write about the not so humid weather of the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains we just left.

Our Smoky Mountain adventure began in a small town called Candler, just west of Asheville, North Carolina. Marty had to work near Asheville, so we stayed at a KOA where we met a great family. This family had just bought the KOA a month before along with a bunch of their extended family.  They all convened there from Texas and El Paso to run the campground together.  How cool is that? One family had a daughter a little older than Sara, so they had a lot to chat about.  Her family full-timed in an RV for awhile before buying the campground, so homeschooling and RVing were both things the kids had in common! click for pics

Our first adventure was visiting the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. Construction began on the 4-story “house” in 1889.  Six years later it was still under construction, but George Vanderbuilt opened it anyway, and lived in it through six MORE years of building!  They had their own brick factory, woodworking shop and three-mile railway spur to get materials to the building site. Their little abode has 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. The basement has a swimming pool, gym, changing rooms, bowling alley, kitchens, and of course, a place for the servants to sleep! As if that’s not enough, it sits on 125,000 acres of GORGEOUS gardens, fields, and trees.  It was really breathtaking! click for pics

Our next trip was to watch an Indian Pow-Wow in Cherokee.  I have to admit, it wasn’t what I expected.  For some reason I thought we’d be in a big field standing in a big circle. Nope, we were at the fairgrounds, sitting in covered bleachers watching the dancers on stage. I had no idea it was a dancing competition!  It was really amazing to watch adults all the way through little, tiny kiddos dancing in their amazing outfits. The music was also amazing.  The drummers sang in such high pitched voices, then some would squeeze their necks to make the pitch go even higher - their faces would turn red and it just looked like it hurt! The backdrop of the Smoky Mountains behind the stage was breathtaking. Actually, talk about breathtaking, when we drove back to the campground, we decided to drive part of the way on the Blue Ridge Parkway. WOW! What a beautiful drive! click for pics

After Asheville, Marty didn’t have to be anywhere for work, so we decided to cross to the other side of the mountains and stay in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  We had heard about it but had never been there. It’s your basic vacation spot with the traffic filled main drag (ugh!) with shows, amusements (including Dollywood Amusement Park), restaurants and shopping. We all agreed it’s a fun place to go if you don’t mind the traffic.  We stayed at Creekside RV Park, which was a nice little, quiet campground with paved roads and LOTS of ducks! Mommy ducks, Daddy ducks, fighting ducks and cute little baby ducks.  Oh, and some sort of obnoxious insect that bit the heck out of Samantha’s leg.  It swelled up and had a lovely red ring around it, so 9:30 at night we had to head for the ER! We never found out what did it, but they reassured us that it wasn’t from a tic and gave us some meds for her. Oye.

We had to keep reminding ourselves we weren’t on vacation, so our only big outing (aside from church!) was going to see the Dixie Stampede Dinner Show. Way cool show! Half of the place is the North and half is the South, and contests run all through the show.  We sat in the front row which gave us an awesome close up view of the all the horses. Oh, and you don’t get any silverware with dinner, so you eat soup, bread, a whole chicken and other goodies with your hands!  We thought that was pretty fun, well, except for Samantha...she didn’t like that part too much!  I’d have to say, though, that the highlight of our week was Sam learning to ride her bike without her training wheels!!!!  Yippeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! click for pics

From Pigeon Forge, we were scheduled to be in Baton Rouge two weeks later, so we decided to spend the following week in Biloxi, Mississippi. After about an hour on the road we stopped at Walmart to get Sam’s Rx filled.  When I got back out to the rig, Marty told me that Baton Rouge was cancelled!  That’s the first time we’ve ever been cancelled en route to the destination. So, with nowhere to go, and gas prices out of control, we decided not to go any farther and went back to Pigeon Forge.  We even ended up convincing Marty’s parents that their first trip in their new motorhome should be to Tennessee.

We ended up spending a total of 4 weeks at that campground.  While Marty’s parents were with us we took a drive through Cades Cove Loop in the Smoky Mountains National Park. It’s a beautiful drive where you stand a good chance of seeing plenty of deer, wild turkey, horses and maybe even a bear (which we didn’t...bummer.) The week before, though, when the four of us drove through, we saw a Red Fox, even though the brochure said we most likely WOULD NOT see one! click for pics We took a drive on the wild side at the go cart track, and Marty’s parents also took the kids back over the mountain to Cherokee, but this time they went to the Indian Village.  They got to see a bunch of demonstrations including weaving, pottery, weapon making and even a canoe being carved out with fire! click for pics Unfortunately Miss Sara got sick around lunchtime and they had to make the trek back to the campground. Both kids were sick for the next week :-(, but overall we had a great time!

5/27/08 UPDATE:

Memorial Day Weekend.  Wow, the campgrounds sure do fill up on this weekend! It’s the official start of camping season, the pools are finally opening up, and the girls get to see KIDS at the campgrounds!! They really enjoy meeting new kids, and it’s fun that they are making contacts all over the country...how cool is that?

So where have we been? Hmmm.....I often wonder where we ARE...but that’s a different story! After Texas we spent 2 weeks in Stone Mountain, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta (where Marty had to drive into for work every day - what fun!)  What a cool state park!  This was actually the first state park we’ve stayed in - weird, huh?. Since we have to be so concerned about Marty’s internet access, we haven’t really been able to put ourselves in out of the way places.  We met another family with four kids, who was also there for two weeks, so the girls had a great time playing with the other kids. click for pics Stone Mountain would make a great vacation spot. There’s the quietness of the campground with a beautiful lake, with plenty of shopping, dining, mini golf, etc. just outside the park limits.  There’s plenty of activities at the mountain including a gondola ride to the top, a “western village,” duck rides, shows and a new thing called the “Sky Hike” that’s looks AWESOME!  Check it out at www.stonemountaincom.

After Stone Mountain, we did a short stint in Owensboro, Kentucky, where we arrived in the SNOW! They had 4 inches on the ground and said it’s the most they’ve had in years!  It melted the next day, but since the site numbers were on the concrete site pads, it made for an interesting chore trying to brush the snow away to find our site! We didn’t do much there, because, well, there wasn’t much to do there, and Kelley was sick for the first time since we’ve been on the road!  I was in bed for 4 days - wow, not fun. click for pics

From Kentucky, we had to head on back to the south to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  We called Marty’s parents because we knew they were heading back east from their trip to Las Vegas, so they actually met up with us there!  We decided to take a plantation tour at the Houmas House. We used our GPS (“Lola”) to get us there ...and....well....let’s just say you can’t always depend on your GPS!  We were driving along the river on the other side of the levee, when Lola told us to turn left.  We drove up over the levee and boom, there was a dock to catch a ferry that looked like it hadn’t been used in awhile! It didn’t do us much good, but it sure was a pretty view! Then a huge barge passed by us, so that was pretty cool. Unexpected adventures! We trudged on and found our way to the plantation...without technology - imagine that!  The plantation grounds were beautiful, and we had a hysterical tour guide who was quite entertaining, in words and at the piano.

We also toured the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge, which looked like a castle from the outside.  Inside, the girls were able to try their hand at using a teleprompter and we even got to watch a student mock senate. A little civics lesson, anyone?  click for pics

Our next trek took us back to PA to be home in time for Easter, which was also Kelley’s parents’ anniversary. It was great to be home to celebrate that with them, and spend some time with family. click for pics While we were home, Dad ended up in the hospital after his first chemo treatment, so that was a little crazy.  He has since regained all his weight, gotten some energy back, had his 2nd treatment and he’s doing much better than the first time!  He’s working hard to kick cancer in the you know what. :-) All the while, as the girls and I stayed in PA, Marty was flying all over the place - Arkansas, then Wisconsin - just as the stories were breaking in the news that airlines were cutting flights due to mechanical problems, etc. Let’s just say he was not a happy camper away from his camper! It reinforced his preference to drive all over the place instead of fly!

OK, now here comes the “quick I’m determined to get this current so I’m not explaining much” paragraph!  After leaving PA, we had to go to St. Joseph, Missouri (which afforded us another stop at the Creation Museum in Kentucky!), which is about an hour north of Kansas City. Not much to say because there wasn’t much there, but we did experience our first hail storm in the RV! Thankfully, it was just tiny hail and didn’t do any damage.  From there...the perfect example of our crazy life...back to Reading, PA! We stayed at a really nice RV resort called, “Lake in Woods.” They had really cool places you could rent to stay in - a teepee, covered wagon, double decker bus, boat house - really neat. click for pics From there, we zipped up to NY to see Marty’s parents (where the kids decided they wanted to make their own dug out canoes - those darn books they keep reading sure do create projects for us!), click for pics back to PA to go the the big homeschool convention in Harrisburg, then to Gettysburg, where we stayed at Artillery Ridge Campground.  We definitely want to go back and stay there sometime because they have horses at the campground, and you can take guided tours into the battlefields on horseback - WOW!

I did it!  I’m actually up to where we were last week! Until next time....

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3/21/08 UPDATE:

Ahhhh, Texas.  Everything’s bigger in Texas, right?  Does that justify how big this entry is going to be?? Haha! I am so determined to get this log caught up!

Well, our first 2 weeks in Texas were spent in Livingston. A little town in Polk County where the Escapees service calls home.  We stayed at a campground on Lake Livingston. The campground was small, there was no playground and the pool was closed (still a little chilly down there!), but we had a great time.  The roads were paved so we had a great place to ride bikes.  But the best part was we were in a “pull-in” site, meaning you drive in instead of back-in (not to be confused with a pull-thru), that looked out over a huge grassy area in front of a beautiful lake.  The sun rose over the lake every morning and the kids had so much room to run and play. 

While there, we decided to take the plunge and become Texans!  We signed up for the mail service with Escapees (awesome!) and changed our driver’s licenses, plates, etc. over to Texas.  In the process, Marty learned that he needed to get a non-commercial Class B license because our new rig is over 26,000 lbs. Didn’t know that - oops!  He had to take a written and a driving test, which he passed just fine...whew!  I’ve decided to put that off for a little while...maybe the next time we’re in Texas...:-) Marty’s parents decided to be “snow birds” this year, so they drove down (from upstate New York) and met us at the lake, then we all drove to Austin from there.

Click for Livingston photos

Austin was fun but the traffic was CRAZY!  We must be getting old because we’re really starting to like quiet, calm places.  Eek!  What’s happening to us??  Over the weekend we visited the Texas State Museum which was really awesome.  One thing we noticed quickly is that there were stars (as in the Lone Star) EVERYWHERE!  We could really feel the Texas pride everywhere we went.  During the week while Marty worked, we went with Grandma and Poppa to the  State Capitol Building and Museum. We all really enjoyed wandering through the building, but Samantha seems to have developed a real fondness for capitol buildings! Sara quickly realized that she loved Texas because it was all about horses and cowboys.

Click for Austin photos

From Austin we moved on to Corpus Christi. My initial thoughts about being there are “wind” and “birds.”  It was soooo windy there! The locals told us it’s always like that. The campground we stayed in was not only full of snow birds, but really, really LOUD birds, too!  Wow, I have never seen and heard so many birds before!  One of the highlights was being able to go to Mustang Island and drive on the beach. We drove for quite a ways, then ended up where we had to put the car on a water taxi to get back to the mainland!  We visited the Aquarium, where we watched an awesome dolphin show and got up close to them by the tank.  We also toured the USS Lexington, where we all got a taste of what it was like for BOTH grandfathers who served in the Navy. While on board the ship, we noticed a plane that was a pretty cool surprise, that was pretty timely on the political front.  One of my favorite things, though, was before we left, we got up early one morning and drove back onto the beach to watch the sunrise.  Wow, it was so beautiful. You’ll notice, though, that we had our winter coats on! It was cold! I guess that’s why some of the snow birds start in Florida, then move to Texas after it warms up a little!

Click for Corpus Christi photos

The following week was on to San Antonio.  Marty had to fly to Iowa (still too cold to take the rig there - brrrrr!), so the girls and I stayed under the comforting watchful eye of my in-laws next door!  Before Marty left, we were able to go to the Alamo. We’ve heard that it wasn’t very big and it’s sort of weird how it just sits right in the middle of the city, and we’d have to agree.  It was still awesome to be there, though.  We also visited the “River Walk,” which was really a neat place.  We took the boat ride down the river and through the city where we were able to get a good overview of all the stores, history and restaurants along the river.  The next day we had plans to go to the San Antonio Rodeo, but poor Marty got really sick so he had to stay home and miss it. It was amazing watching all the  real cowboys walking around, clinking spurs and all!  We watched the Palomino Parade, Mutton Bustin’ (little 4 and 5 year old kids trying to hang onto sheep!), Bronco Bustin’, Calf Ropin’, Barrell Racin’ and Bull Ridin’. It was pretty cool since none of us had ever been to a rodeo.

During the week while Marty was in Iowa (where he was FREEZING), we took it easy, then did some more wandering when he came back.  Our last day there we visited the San Antonio Missions National Park.  The Park actually consists of four Mission churches that are within driving distance of each other. The park gives you MUCH more to see than going to the Alamo.  We visited the Mission San Jose and the Mission Concepcion, where Sara and Samantha worked through their Junior Ranger booklets, making it so much more interesting for all of us.  I highly recommend the Junior Ranger program! The Mission Churches are actually still active catholic parishes.  While we were at the Mission San Jose, we were able to look in the open door of the church and see a baby getting baptized, and we also saw a bride getting pictures taken around the Mission grounds. Great place to visit.

Click for San Antonio photos

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3/3/08 UPDATE:

As I sit here in Georgia ready to type away, I think, “Do you remember us? It’s been awhile!”  It’s amazing how if I let myself get out of the routine of updating the website, the time just slips away!

Since I last wrote we’ve had some “ups” and some “not so ups.” We spent 10 days in Disney World - definite “up,” but found out my (Kelley’s) Dad has a large tumor in his head - definitely “not so up.”  Dad was misdiagnosed with Bells Palsy two years ago, but was given the news that it was actually a very large tumor. He finished his radiation on Friday, and chemo will start sometime in March. Mom and Dad are handling things really well, Dad has PUT ON significant weight (on purpose - he was getting to be a little twig...sorry, Dad!) and the doctors have been very pleased with how his body is handling it all.  God has been so very good!  He still has a ways to go, so we always appreciate additions to our prayer warrior team!  Dad is an amazing guy and God can do amazing things!! My cousin said if Dad’s will is anything like his handshake, he’ll be fine!

Disney was awesome.  We met Marty’s parents and our buddies the Bakers and had a great time.  One of our favorite rides was “Soarin’” in Epcot. What a cool ride!  But the big contender would be Mount Everest...not for the faint of heart as it changes and goes backwards halfway through the ride! We collected oh so many pins for the kids’ lanyards and Sara and Marty had some special “date time” on a horseback ride around Fort Wilderness Campground.  The parks were decorated for Christmas already so they were beautiful, especially at night. The castle was decorated with so many little white lights that it looked like it had icicles all over it! Little Miss Samantha was just beside herself with glee!

A couple of the highlights were breakfast with the Princesses in Norway/Epcot and  Thanksgiving dinner in Cinderella’s castle.  The castle gave us some unexpected giggles when the Fairy Godmother, as she was singing to the whole dining room, decided to come by and rub the top of Marty’s head...twice!  What was that all about?!  We celebrated Marty’s parents’ 40th anniversary at the Coral Reef Restaurant in Epcot - really cool place with a floor to ceiling aquarium in the dining room, complete with scuba divers.  We also loved the Lion King show in Animal Kingdom. When I first heard we were going for 10 days, I thought, “Oye, I don’t know if I can handle 10 days of Disney!” But I then realized it was really nice to be able to go in and out of the parks at a more leisurely pace, and not feel like we had to rush to squeeze everything in.  It also afforded us a day to take off and go to Kennedy Space Center and see the shuttle on the launch pad ready for take off. That was way cool.

Click for Disney Pictures

After Disney, we trucked on up to PA to visit my (Kelley’s) parents for a little while. The girls and I stayed there while Marty had to do some flying around the country. It worked out great, because the places he had to fly were COLD and the campgrounds were closed, and we got to spend a lot of time with Mom and Dad. We celebrated Christmas there, the girls got some sledding time in with their cousin Katrina, and some snuggle time in with Grandma and Grandpa. Then we drove up to NY to spend about a week with Marty’s parents, where we celebrated Christmas and Sara’s birthday with them.  The girls got in more awesome sledding time (and snuggle time :-) so they were pretty happy!

Click for Christmas Pictures

The start of the new year brought a trip south to Florida....bummer, huh?  Marty had to work in Juno Beach, but the campgrounds were so crowded the closest we could get was Port St. Lucie!  LOTS of snowbirds!  Juno Beach was really beautiful. We visited the Loggerhead Marine Life Center, where they care for sea turtles. Sara got the long awaited chance to get out the new sewing machine she got for Christmas, and we had the “wish we could have waited longer” ceremonial first shaving of her legs. What’s happening to my little girl?

After Florida we had to head to Texas. We were excited because we had never been to Texas and we had been talking about changing our domicile to Texas.  On the way there, we decided to travel down by the gulf coast.  We ended up at a BEAUTIFUL place called Navarre Beach.  Ahhhh, the sand was so white and the water was so clear.  Sara wanted to run down and “put her feet in the Gulf water”, so since it was a beautiful day we thought, why not? After wandering on the beach, we decided to drive down the Gulf Islands National Sea Shore.  We were told it was beautiful with white sandy beaches on either side of the road. Yeah, oops,  we must have missed the sign that said the road was out due to hurricane damage. We approached a fence and realized we were going to have to turn around. After unhooking the truck and watching Marty do an impressive 3-point turn in the rig, a couple on bikes rode up and said, “We were laughing back there wondering how you guys were going to get turned around!” I’m glad we could be someone’s entertainment for the day. It sure looked pretty on the other side of that fence...we’ll just have to go back someday.

Click for Florida Pictures

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11/9/07 UPDATE:

Snow showers!  Oh my gosh, get us out of here!!! We just drove through the Gettysburg Battlefield on our way out of the area. OK, it’s more like just rain, but I can see little white things flying around so it’s definitley time to go south!

Goodness, it’s already been a month. Where does the time go?  I really need to get back to the one or two week updates! Our next “work stop” was Canandaigua, NY. Since that was about an hour from where we bought our rig, we went out to the dealer and had our booth dinette installed. It’s so much nicer for us to have that. Samantha loves sitting there when we go down the road, plus it gives us a place to get schoolwork done when we’re driving...way cool! While waiting for the installation to get done, we decided to go over to Niagara Falls for the day since we were so close.  Marty had been there when he was a kid but, the rest of us hadn’t been yet.  It was really a beautiful time of year to be there with the trees all changing colors.

The NF State Park was a nice place to wander around and have lunch.  They have a trolley that you can ride all day for something like one dollar. We went out on the observation deck, which allowed us to see a little bit of the Canadian Falls (Horseshoe Falls) as well. It was weird looking across the river and seeing Canada just sitting there. After the deck, you can take an elevator down to the gorge area.  We put on blue ponchos and walked up the steps to get as close to the falls as possible. We got SOAKED! The tops of us stayed dry, but our pants from the knee down and our shoes were completely drenched. It was fun though. My pictures were all blue because I took them from under my poncho!

There was a Discovery Center that was only a couple dollars to get in. I had a sad discovery there. Maybe I just missed this because we haven’t been to a natural history museum in awhile.  I kept seeing “B.C.E.” after all the dates and I kept thinking I know the BC stands for “Before Christ,” but what is the “E”?  I asked one of the staff and they said B.C.E. stands for “Before Current Era”. I asked what that meant and he said basically B.C., but they’re not allowed to use the word Christ in their descriptions. I then asked him, “What is the defining moment that designates the start of the “Current Era”?  He sort of whispered, “the birth of Christ.” Unreal.

We spent the week at the KOA in Canandaigua, which was a really nice campground.  There was a stocked pond and an obastacle course (complete with zipline!) for the kids.  The owner told me that they are doubling the size of the course for next year so it will be awesome.  The town of Canandaigua was really cool.  It’s loaded with old architecture and main street pretty much runs right into Lake Canandaigua, one of the Finger Lakes. It was a gorgeous area.  We ate at a restaurant called Steamboat Landing. The back of the restaurant is all windows looking out over the lake. You can also sit on an expansive back patio right on the water. With the fall colors and the sunset, wow, it took my breath away!  I was kicking myself that I didn’t have my camera. Marty took a couple pictures with his phone, but you know, it’s not the same. :-)

When the week was over, we headed to Marty’s parents.  We were scheduled to go to New Jersey for the weekend but that got cancelled at the last minute.  Such is life on the road! We had a great week. The girls and I went to a Pumpkin Patch in Saratoga with a bunch of the family and it was really fun.  There was an awesome hayride, a hay mountain to climb on, maze and all sorts of other fun things.  We also took an evening and went up to a rec field to shoot off a rocket we’d been hanging onto since we started our travels. But the highlight of Sara’s week.....

Have I ever mentioned that Sara loves horses?  I mean LOVES horses!  She has read so many books and can spit out just about anything you want to know about the different breeds, how to care for them, etc. She’s recently discovered that you can get a horse trailer that has a living area in the front...that was it...she’s determined that she will have one! Grandma and Poppa’s neighbor happens to have horses. Poppa made arrangements for Sara to go over and help them out a little.  She got to muck out a stall (which we learned is called “digging for apples”), groom one of the horses and lead him around a little bit.  She was SOOO excited! I don’t think she stopped smiling or came down out of the clouds for a couple of days!

Marty helped his dad get their new toad vehicle all set up for towing. He’s getting to be a pro at these things! They’re all set now to meet us in Disney World soon....

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10/11/07 UPDATE:

Rain was not our friend there for awhile.... We’d had problems from day one with two of our slides leaking, but we were pretty sure we finally had that fiixed. As we were driving back east from South Dakota, we decided to go through Iowa and visit the Winnebago Plant for a tour.  It just so happened to be during the time when the upper midwest was getting pummelled with rain and we drove through a huge rainstorm just before arriving at the plant.  When we came back out to the rig after the tour, it smelled so bad and we couldn’t figure out why...we checked the trash, the frigde, everything. Samantha walked to the back of the rig and yelled, “Mom, the floor’s all wet.”  She wasn’t kidding. The bedroom floor was SOAKED!  Our best guess was that somehow the rain came up from underneath, because nothing on the walls/slides were wet.  We dried it out as best we could and decided that if we’re really going to keep doing this, we better start looking for a more reliable rig.

We found something worth looking at in Hamburg, NY at Ballard’s RV.  What an awesome place to deal with.  We talked with the owner and told him everything that had happened to it. He seemed confident that any issues were fixable and ended up giving us an amazing value on the trade, and an awesome deal on a new rig. We were able to get to Marty’s parents’ place and unload most of our stuff from the Damon.  We ended up buying a leftover 07 Newmar Kountry Star and we LOVE it!  It’s much more “homey”, the kids now have their own beds, and the quality of Newmar is obvious.  We had heard they were great, and now we certainly agree.

So after driving back out to Hamburg to pick up the new rig, off we went back to Marty’s parents’ place to load all of our stuff. Anytime we got remotely tired of moving stuff in, we reminded ourselves it was SOOOOO much easier than moving houses! :-)  Our plans were to head to Lancaster, PA for Labor Day weekend with Marty’s parents, so we trucked on down there and met up with our friends the Bakers.  We had a great time going to Dutch Wonderland, relaxing, and just enjoying the fact that we had gotten rid of the flood mobile....

After Lancaster, we spent a couple weeks in Carlisle, near “home” and took care of haircuts, doctor appts, etc.  Marty had to fly out to Utah to visit his corporate office, so Kelley and the kids survived in the rig alone for the first time! Kelley was able to visit with some friends she hadn’t seen in awhile and after Marty returned from Utah we were able to hit the Hershey RV Show, which is HUGE.  It was nice to go and just wander this time, without the pressure of checking them all out.  We attended a full-timing seminar (which made us feel pretty good that we sort of know what we’re doing!) and a maintenance seminar with the RV Doctor, which was very interesting.

Marty had to work in Charlotte, NC two weeks later, so we decided to head on down south for the week in between.  We first stopped late Sunday night in Virginia, but the campground was truly in the middle of nowhere, on top of a mountain, and we couldn’t get internet or cell service.  That sort of puts a damper on that job thing that Marty has to do every day.  The campground  was gracious enough to understand our plight and on Monday morning we moved on south to another campground in North Carolina, the  Statesville KOA.  We planned to stay there for the week, but as we were sitting outside eating dinner we heard a huge crash. We were right off the highway so we knew there was a bad accident. A little while later we were informed that it was a tanker truck that flipped and the campground was being evacuated due to hazardous materials! That campground was also gracious enough to refund those who weren’t coming back.  If you get the chance to stay there, maybe you can help make up for the hit they took that night!!  Soooo, off we drove again, and arrived at the Charlotte/Fort Mill KOA (which is actually in South Carolina) around midnight. It had been two days and we were in our third campground!

I’m happy to say we were able to stay put for the next two weeks through Marty’s job. We went to a really cool church, Mecklenburg Community Church. The kids had a ball and we heard an awesome message.  We liked it so much we went back on Wednesday night for their “Family Night” and had a great time.  I’m so glad Sara and Samantha are so willing to go to new churches, it really is nice to be able to do that!  It’s interesting, Marty and I often talk about wondering what God is preparing us for.  It’s just so crazy that we ALL love being in the motorhome, and we adjusted to it so easily. Is He preparing us for something more? Marty was talking about this with another friend and he said you know, it may have nothing to do with you (meaning Marty and I), but maybe we’re preparing the kids for something THEY’LL do when they get older.  I get so excited when I think about it!

Our history lesson for the trip came from Historic Brattonsville, South Carolina.  We went as a family over the weekend and learned about “Huck’s Defeat,” during the Revolutionary War. Captain Christian Huck was a staunch Loyalist, and especially disliked those in the South Carolina backcountry, who the British called Whigs or “rebels.” In July 1780, Huck was sent to capture Captain John McClure and Colonel William Bratton, as they were expected to be home to check their wheat harvest and gather up more soldiers. On July 11th, Huck arrived at McClure’s home, found him to be gone, and proceeded to terrorize his family and burn his house down.

Later that afternoon, Huck arrived at the Bratton home, found Bratton to be gone, and threatened his wife, Martha, to tell him where Bratton was.  A Loyalist officer actually intervened and saved Martha’s life. It is believed that Martha sent a trusted slave named Watt to find Bratton and warn him about Huck and after she served them supper, Huck moved on to their neighbor’s house. He helped himself to the field of oats for his horse, then they bunkered down for a night of sleep.  The Whigs arrived and surrounded the house during the night, attacked at sunrise, and ultimately killed Huck.  This was a significant win for the people of South Carolina.  Prior to this, a British victory seemed a sure thing, but after this battle, the Whigs rallied and things started looking up. Larger victories followed, resulting in the British surrender in Yorktown in October 1781.

On a “non-history” note, the Homestead at Brattonsville was where “The Patriot,” starring Mel Gibson, was filmed. We walked up on the front porch and I kept turning around looking at the front yard.  There was a costumed interpreter there watching me and she said, “It’s not the same yard.”  I kept thinking it didn’t look right because it was too small, and she explained to me that the yard shots were filmed in the next county! We really enjoyed this visit, and the following Tuesday, Historic Brattonsville was hosting a Homeschool Day. I returned with the kids and it was PACKED! The girls were able to participate in a military muster, play colonial era children’s games, and meet the animals used to keep up the farm.  What a cool day!

The weekend after SC we spent in Maryland, where my cousin, Michelle, got married. MARRIED! MY LITTLE COUSIN!  Well, she’s not a little kid anymore, but it’s was still a shock to me! It was a beautiful outdoor ceremony at a Mansion, and it was an awesome day.  It was the first wedding Sara and Samantha had been to, and they were just beside themselves. They were so excited to get all dressed up and dance at the reception. Congratulations Michelle and Johnny!

Last week we spent in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, had beautiful weather, and a nice, quiet, relaxing week.  Well, at least the girls did, Marty had to go to a client every day! We’re well into our new school year and the girls are really enjoying their studies (I LOVE that!) They are amazing students. They have developed such a love for learning and God has blessed us tremendously.  I thank Him often for giving me such amazing kids to care for...