The Missing Piece to the Puzzle

It’s so hard for me to keep up with the blog while we’re sitting stationary. We get into a different routine. One where I’m running around trying to take care of the daily grind. There are dentist appointments, weekly activities for the kids, friends to visit, cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, house issues, administrative crap and the list goes on and on.

Alaina’s art from art camp

Not to say that some of that doesn’t follow us on the road. But it seems it’s at a much smaller scale. The space is smaller and so is the cleaning. I don’t need to maintain as much so fewer things go wrong.

Then throw into the mix every time we take Perl on a trip we have to load everything up and when we return we have to unload and clean. It’s a double challenge because this must be done in no more than two days. We have to park her out front on the street blocking our mailbox. I don’t think the mail lady likes us too much. I which we had somewhere to store her at our house. But the perfect solution would be to just keep rolling on down the road full-time baby!

Oh, and then there’s the new puppy! Boy is he a lot of fun. But he also keeps me on my toes. Usually I’m snuggling with him at night instead of writing blog posts :-0. He always wants me to play with him or hang out on my lap. And I’m indulging him for the moment. But soon he’ll need to learn his manners and let mommy blog when she needs to. 

I can’t resist this little face!

As you loyal readers know, we’ve taken  Perl on a couple of weekly trips this summer. It seems that between those trips, I’m also working to get everything done before the next RV trip. For example, I had to turn the car into a toad. Not an easy task as there are so many pieces and parts required to make this happen (my blog post on this is almost finished, stay tuned). Then, when you have everything you need, it must be installed.

I constantly have to keep on top of restocking supplies in the RV. There’s toilet paper, paper towels, laundry soap, hand soap, dish soap, trash bags, ziplock bags, medicines, and on and on. We literally have two houses so double the needs. Part of it is because I’m not settled in the RV full-time yet. Oh, don’t get me wrong, we have most of what we need for survival. It’s just that I’m learning what items work best for our lifestyle and which ones don’t.

Another thing that I’m trying to get in order are the RV bays. I could write a whole other blog post on that alone, trust me. There is no good organizing product I’ve found to date to help me with this task. I’ll keep you guys posted when I finally get them organized in a fashion that will suit me.

The bike rack I’m considering.

Phew, it’s been a busy summer. It’s also been a ton of fun. Currently it’s crunch time for me! It’s ‘preparing for a trip’ time. We are heading to the Thousand Trails in Wells, Maine on September 12th. I want to bring the kids bikes this time so I need to order a bike rack. I’m looking at one that will hang off the RV ladder.

Remember that piece of the puzzle I was waiting to fit in? I think we’re almost there. It impacts fall and spring. I’m sure you remember when I revealed that we found out our daughter was fighting an eating disorder. We called off all summer plans and stayed at home to heal her.

It’s been a long hard struggle. There was therapy, doctors appointments and a LOT of long conversations and feelings shared. But I think we may be on solid ground now. I’ve found out that there is an ebb and flow to this disease. We move forward, then back a bit, then another step forward. But we are making progress and she has gained five pounds. The key is that she is working with us.

Alaina’s watercolor piece

So we now have future travel plans in place. They’re not exactly what I envisioned but life seldom grants that to us.  The twins strongly dislike this whole RV lifestyle. We believe the spring trip earlier in the year was a breaking point for her. With all the changes that were happening, food was something she had control over. And she grasped onto that full steam ahead. Regardless of the changes, the eating disorder would have surfaced at some point. It just came sooner rather than later. 

As a result, we decided to let them both have a say in their future. If things hadn’t fallen into place to allow this, they would have had to adjust. This trip is something we want them to experience and learn from. But since there are options now, we ‘re offering them up. Their options were as follows:

1. They could both come with me as originally planned and stay until we come back home next spring.
2. They could both come with me and fly back home together a couple of times for a small break. Then fly back out to me.
3. They could alternate who went. In other words, we would break the trip in half. One would stay home the first half the other come with me. Then we would swap out close to the halfway point.

So which one do you think they chose? They chose the third option. However, the person coming the second half will stay in the RV longer. We thought this was only fair because they get to stay home ‘first’. And it coincides with my husband coming out to Vegas at Christmastime through the first half of January. And neither would have to fly alone. 

Ah, but what was the missing piece to the puzzle? While the twins are coming up on 13, we wanted them to have supervision during the day. Especially since they’re homeschooled. Luckily, there were already plans in place for my husband’s parents to come from Beijing and stay with us for a while. We were waiting on results from a medical. The results came back and grandma is cleared to travel. The final piece is their Visa’s which will hopefully be issued on September 9th (my late mother’s bday)!

Isn’t it funny when the pieces fit together so well? Especially when they aren’t even planned that way. We, in no way, planned to have my in-laws arrive almost exactly when I’d be leaving. But alas, the universe has granted us a reprieve. My daughter can continue to heal and the journey shall move forward. 

I will post out our route and show you what our journey looks like. We have lots of fun stops planned. But I think my furry little guy is telling me it’s time for bed, he’s snuggled by my feet fast asleep. One more potty break, then off to dream land. Nighty night my friends!

It’s bedtime mom!

I really do appreciate any and all purchases you make by clicking on my AMAZON link! I’m trying to be self-sufficient in my travels and every little bit helps. Thank you!

{HUGS} from the Crew!