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Life update….I went back to work this fall! My favorite type of nurse job I’ve done is being a postpartum nurse. Praise Jesus that I was able to find a PRN postpartum gig! It’s been a great fit.  So we’re still home schooling and Chase takes the lead on that when I have to work and it’s been a sweet little new rhythm to get into here lately. 

I was at church last week and I had a moment that’s just had me thinking this week. In Revelations 22:6 it says “And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” Jesus talks to the lady at the well in John 4 about giving living water to the thirsty, and anyone who drinks of it will thirst no more. 

Well if there’s one thing I can attest to in life it is that we’re all thirsty. I see it every night at work. The screaming raging second night babe. Her insides have woken up, she’s peeing and pooping, she’s empty and needs filled. She’s hangry. She’s thirsty. 

And while I think we drop some of the outward screaming and raging pandemonium as we all mature I think there is still an inner thirst raging inside. The world offers us all sorts of different pacifiers to try satisfy it but there is only one who can do that. There is no amount you can travel, no politician you can vote for, there are not enough dogs you can rescue, there is not enough sour dough to bake, there is not enough you can save in an account, there is not the perfect number of kids to have nor the ideal zip code to live in, there is only one thing that can satisfy the thirst! 

This time of the year we think about him as a babe laying in a manger. If you don’t know him I’d encourage you to give him a try, He can satisfy and bring peace like nothing in this world can. And if you do know Him, here is your friendly reminder to calm down and bask in his life giving water. 

♥️✨Merry Christmas ✨♥️

Christmas morning 2023 🤣

Recently our home school co-op started another year of school. The kiddos and I did this last year and they were all so eager to get back to it again this year. 

I had the hankering to try to make all (47!) mamas a little bouquet of flowers to take home on the first day. I just thought it could create some smiles and some feel good feels!

What I did not know was how God was going to use this sweet imagery to stir my heart. So I got all the glass vases (spice jars, candle holders, salt and pepper shakers etc) and cut my greenery and my flowers and started putting them together. It made my heart so happy. I had a huge, wet, beautiful mess in my kitchen and then was a bit perplexed how I was going to get all this to its final destination. Could I get all of them in one container to transport them?

I found a crate and one by one started putting them down in there and it was just beautiful and then more beautiful and even more beautiful. And when they were all there together it was so so so sweet. God just laid on my heart the beauty of togetherness. Yes each of these separately were cute. But them all together, they were stunning. A small glimpse of the church, Jesus’s bride. Believers together. Doing things for Him, for His glory, for His kingdom. That is stunning! Together can draw attention, together can turns heads, together can get people talking, and with His light shinning through it all….big things can happen! If you feel like you are trying to do all the things on your own I’d highly encourage you to step out and get plugged in to a church, look into a co-op, investigate a small group or maybe even go meet the neighbors….there’s so many ways to fellowship!

Life is just more beautiful together. 

Bike rides. Parades. Rocking on the porch. Baseball and tee-ball with Tongie Rec. Scrunched faces. New teeth. New house. New town. Library programs. Our first Vacation Bible School. Thursday Farmers markets. Swim lessons. Family fair run. Homemade pies. Swimming pool days. Library reading program. Bonnets. Canning. Caprese salad, and lots of it. Super hero masks and capes. Bath time for all three at the same time. Sewing. Maelee’s first zoo trip. The ice cream man. Painted baby toe nails. Our 10th wedding anniversary. Chess. Eating solids. And it has ended with us joining a co-op for homeschool, just to name a few! It’s been a grand summer, I literally can’t believe it started with us in camper and has ended with us in a house. What a season! 

Our room: 

Chase is no longer sleeping on a camper queen sized bed with his shins hanging off. 🙌🏼 A camper queen size bed is five inches shorter than a regular queen size bed. We did this for over a year and it was okay but now having a true size queen it’s definitely an upgrade! This new mattress is longer than the bed support so I built some shelves to support the mattress and then turned them into shoe storage as well! We gave up a narrow walking space between the bed and the wall, but we’ll take the longer bed and shoe storage any day!

And yes we did get more wallpaper and covered the door! So now it’s a whole wall of beauty 😉 

The kitchen/living area: 

The kitchen faucet has been replaced…again! RV replacement parts are usually plastic and just do not hold up as fell as your normal household items. That’s what happened to our first faucet. I had replaced it when we moved into the camper. The pressure was fading and the finish was peeling off. I had contacted the company and they sent me a new one about 6 months ago but it started peeling too. It was plastic 😬 So out with it and in with the new! The one is more of a normal residential faucet, hoping it holds up longer! So far so good on that aspect! Also changed the color now a matte black vs the previous brushed nickel…goes better with the table we had put in! This also led to new handle hardware too! Because you know it’s just all a domino effect! Merrick loved helping take off the old handles and I appreciated the help! 

We had a tad bit leftover wall paper from our room that I put around the door, the big slide out and around the wall of cabinets. Lightened all those spots up a bit and brought it all together. 

Boys room: 

Merrick got a big bed!! You can’t super tell in the pictures but it used to be a crib mattress on the floor which did the trick….but it was time (since he’ll be FOUR next month!!!)! Now he has a mattress the full length of his slide out. The mattress is from the bunk above him (our storage space) and the wooden drawers and frame are scraps from some the apartment/office that was remodeled. To date he has not rolled off 🙌🏼 and sleeps on it just fine! With three new drawers full of storage space underneath his mattress, it’s a camper dwellers dream.🤣

Cost: 

Mattress- Christmas Present (thank you Mom & Dad!) 

Mattress support/ shoe shelving- free scrap wood I found in the barn

Faucet- Christmas present (thank you Brad & DeeAnn)

Handles- $31 ($26 on Amazon for 30….but I needed 31 so I went to the local hardware store and paid $5 for one more 🙈) 

Merricks bed- free from the scrap pile

Total: $31 😉 and I suppose we could turn that into $21 since someone did buy the old faucet for $10 on market place!

We get questions about how we cook/eat in the camper a decent amount so without further ado…. let me tell you about it!

I’ve always been the gal that buy 5 pounds of hamburger cooks it all at once and then divides it out for future meals. That browned hamburger then turns into: tacos (which those left overs can turn into nachos, chili, quesadillas and taco soup), sloppy joes, spaghetti (which that left over sauce turns into bagel pizzas, homemade pizza, and lasagna), hamburger pie, goulash, Mongolia beef and noodles, sukiyaki, Asian lettuce wraps….you know stuff that you use hamburger in. After I’ve cooked the 5 lbs. of hamburger we use it for that one meal and then freeze the rest into meal size portions that I can turn into any of the above without having to start from ground zero–this also helps with limiting my onion cutting to once a week or so 😜. The base has been built and then it is just easier to add to it. (I do the same with ground sausage and turn into- biscuits and gravy (that left over gravy can turn into breakfast pizza), biscuits and gravy casserole, zuppa soup, sausage babies, breakfast burritos and or skillets…etc).

We do the same with chicken breast. I buy a large quantity I put x amount into the crock pot and shredded it. And then I cut up the rest of the chicken so its ready for meals. Shredded chicken turns into: BBQ chicken sliders, chicken mango wraps, chicken salad sandwiches, alfredo, white chicken chili, chicken tortilla soup, chicken fried rice, buffalo chicken dip, coconut chicken curry…. stuff like that. And then the cut up chicken is something that has to be cooked and made into a meal… often times- chicken fajitas, chicken veggie skillet, chicken marsala, chicken rice casserole, chicken parmesan, good ole fried chicken….you know just meals with chicken.

When I’m making a meal say like pork chops… and I have to cook the meat…..I typically cook veggies/sides one two ways 1) right in with the meat….turning it into a skillet, we eat it that way or in a tortilla as a wrap or 2) roast all the veggies in the oven. When we eat pork chops or steak etc then diced sweet potatoes, carrots and broccoli all go into a 9×13 pan in the oven while and cook them selves while I cook the meat.

This has pretty much always been the way I’ve cooked. When I started buying meat it is obviously cheaper buying in larger quantities. And I think when I worked nights and was cooking before work….I wasn’t trying to be fancy, I was trying to be efficient with my time and healthy as I could. It has streamlined a bit in the camper because we don’t… ummm have a deep freeze. Some places we’ve lived 30ish minutes from a grocery store, so we started making weekly meal plans at our first place in North Carolina and have continued to do so. Then it’s a lot easier to make sure 1) you have what you need and 2) you can make spaghetti on Monday and turn that left over sauce into lasagna on Friday and its really easy.

Some camper folks say they can not get their oven to bake right and they actually use it for storage. Thankfully that hasn’t been the case for us. We use it all the time just like a normal oven. We bake cookies and cakes, fresh bread and money bread, we roast our veggies and can cook a frozen pizza all in the oven. We also use the crock pot for you know crock pot-y things….regular roast, Mississippi roast, soups etc. We have a griddle and make pancakes and French toast. We cook bacon. We eat different types of fish……and I don’t know why but my brain pairs fish with seasoned rice so you better believe earlier in the week we made rice for x meal so that all I have to do is get the left over rice and season it and put in the pan with the fish when it’s done cooking and we are ready to eat.

So when I cook rarely am I “cooking” 3 or 4 things at one time and using multiple pots and pans at once. I’d say most times there are 1-2 things being cooked on the stove top and maybe something in the oven. Cooking in a camper really doesn’t feel very different than cooking in a house to us.

Hope that was insightful, if you have more questions just let me know and if you have some favorite meal ideas we are always open to try new things!

What does our life/work look like here you ask? 

Projects we’ve worked on: 

• Online reservation capabilities! We have initiated an online reservation platform. The campground used to be phone and paper reservations. It was a tad bit crazy. I was scared when a gust of wind came in we might literally lose a reservation. None of that any more. The website still needs a facelift and then there will be a link where guests can book themselves online. Right now most people still call and we put them into the system. 
• Keeping up with the grounds! On a weekly basis there is something to do around the park. Can be as simple as walking the park and picking up trash/ dog droppings 🙈. We have cleared some fence off that was very over grown. Trimmed trees. Trimmed brush along our roads in the park. Painted caution poles. Snow removal. Maintenance type things.
• The Air BnB apartment! The old owners lived on site in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath living area connected to the office. After walling off the office from the apartment space there has been loads and loads of remodeling and the apartment now has tenants! It will be more of an Air BnB for nightly or weekly guests this summer. We unloaded boxes galore, getting it up and ready! The boys loved that part! 

On a weekly level of work there’s collecting quarters from the laundry machines and vending machine. Rolling said quarters, and making deposits at the bank. Refilling the vending machine. There’s cleaning the one public bathroom and the laundry room area. Chase has mastered propane refills for guests. A majority of our guests are monthly stays so electric meter reading and rent collecting is always a happening at the beginning of the month.

Each morning we try to do a bit of school for the boys. We’ve focused hard on reading and math for Mac. Letters/sounds and numbers for Merrick. Last February we started a reading program with Mac and he recently finished the last, 100th lesson which we celebrated! We deem him a reader! It is still slow and he sounds things out but it’s reading!

Also, can I just point out how tricky the English language is?! Why don’t give and hive rhyme?! Or said and laid? “When two vowels go walking the first one does the talking”… well yeah that works with the word road…but what about weigh, bread, earth and noise?! So to anyone who has ever learned to read….kudos to you and to the human who taught you!! (And thank YOU for choosing to read this! 😉)

This truly might be one of my favorite places we stumbled upon during our travel days! Waterfalls, cliffs, hiking trails, bugling elk, crystal clean rivers…it had it all! We had no idea it would have ALL of this. Good ole Jasper Arkansas- population 742. We expected some as it is in the Ozark National Forest but it exceeded our expectations by a long shot.

We visited Jasper for about a week on our way here for the manager job. We missed the peak fall colors by about a week being there the 3rd week of October. But we did get to witness elk during the rut doing some bugling and it was amazing.

We had NO idea there would be a wild herd of 500ish elk in the national forest. I thought those guys were only out west in the Rockies. But no sir-ee we saw them! The boys were thrilled, Chase and I loved it. The best time to see them was dawn and dusk so we went out twice and tried to find them and man on man it was just amazing!

I was surprised at the quality and quantity to trails in the area. We tackled The King’s Bluff trail (home of Arkansas’s tallest waterfall), the Goat lick trail (amazing views!), Round top trail (mediocre) and Lost Valley (great for all ages and abilities!) and wandered around by the widest waterfall (could have spent all day!). We went spelunking (for about 70 yards…until one child wasn’t enjoying himself) and hung out at the river (clean, clear and beautiful!) and had a picnic lunch in a cliff cave. So many memories!!! And there was still a ton more we didn’t do.

We hear the area is heavily populated in the late spring and summer with people floating the Buffalo River, the first nationally protected river in America. I’d love to see down there in every season. The dogwoods in the early spring, the waterfalls during high river season, the trees during the peak of color, a snowy winter walk in the woods. Jasper and its surrounding areas were just a little treasure to find and explore! And who would have thought it is only a little over 4 hours from KC!

Campground Review:

Dogwood Spring Campground

Nice smaller campground, had weekly rates. $335.61

Laundry facility and play ground. Very close to grocery store.

Was a good middle ground spot getting to all the pretty places we got to see!

We did it, we had our first Christmas in the camper! Last year was sweet in it’s own way as we were with family and at their houses during the holidays. But this year we are living in the camper… in the winter…. in the midwest and were able to celebrate Jesus’ birthday camper style.

We decorated a bit (thanks to Target $5 section!). We found a little tree there that fit in the camper just right. We got some of our own decor out that we had in storage and it was just right to make it feel a little Christmas-y. A wreath outside, a tree, the manger, Mary, an angel and a Shepard.

Our little manger is from “The Giving Manger” a book with the idea about giving/serving/being kind. When you do something you add a piece of straw to the manager, with the goal to prepare the manager/our hearts for the season. Its been a sweet thing to do with our kiddos. It helps us all see and recognize acts of kindness and gets them excited to do them. (It’s been such a good thing for us that it’s stayed out when the rest of the Christmas stuff has gone back storage.)

We did winter baking! We made cookies in the camper (chocolate crinkle cookies might be my new favorite!). We made pretzel sticks in the camper. We delivered goodie bags to guests for special Christmas treats. We can do all the same things we’d do in a house…but it’s just on a smaller scale.

With the limited space in the camper the boys were both given bags and asked to fill it with things they didn’t want anymore so if they got any presents we would have space for them. They were 100% on board and easily filled two bags and with my help filled another! It was a good time too to chat about giving and getting and our attitudes about it all.

We hope that you had a great Christmas and were able to reflect on how much God loves you and how precious His gift to us really is!

If we had to sum our experience in Utah with one word it would be relationships. We’ve been on the road almost a year now and we have never experienced relationships like we have here. 

We have neighbors/coworkers, that turned into friends, that we shared a meal at least once a week. We have been invited to a 3 year olds birthday party from church and that turned into a multiple visits and lots of memories. We have spent a holiday with a crew of friends. We had workers come help in the garden that transformed into genuine friendships. In our other spots we met people, yes, but here it was truly different. It’s been one of the sweetest parts and makes it one of the hardest parts to leave. (That middle pictures is Merrick clocking out with a friend…that could be my twin!)

We’ve seen birds, big horn sheep, lizards, coyotes, bison, bobcats, tons of animals like no where else. The views with the red rocks and little green sage bushes popping out are so unique, truly impressive. The slot canyons and caves are a gem, almost feels like a set from a movie! 

In 13 weeks we have not turned on the TV once. We have not FaceTimed, made a phone call or sent a text while in our home (had to walk over to the laundry room to do so). It’s been good to have it gone and we can see where we don’t want it back ie: meal times, unintentionally, in the bedroom…you know just those times when you don’t need it. But technology isn’t bad and I’m soooo looking forward to be able to make a phone call or send a picture in real time whenever we would like. 

We are sad to leave but excited to leave all in the same moment. We’ve had lots of talks about emotions with the boys. We can have multiple emotions about the same thing. And all four of us could have different emotions about the same thing. Teaching moments ALL the time! 

We always thought we’d do this a year and with the year mark coming it just doesn’t feel like it’s time to stop yet. We don’t know where we are going to be working next. We are prayerfully figuring that out. But we have 6 weeks of traveling and seeing family and friends! And then we’ll take to the road again and try our hand at officially homeschooling a kindergartener!