Tired, Crabby, and Maymont House

Jill's Journal: Oh, did we have tired girls today! Those who know me well know I’ve always been religious about routine and especially bedtimes with the kids. RE-LI-GI-OUS. I never wavered. The girls were in bed between 7 and 7:30 during the summers and 6:30 and 7 during the winter. Always. They might have gotten an extra hour on Christmas Day, but that was about it. Call me the Sleep Nazi, it’s okay. Not only did they thrive on routine, but I needed that quiet time without kids in the evenings.

With our new lifestyle, Rob and I agreed that we’d try a later bedtime. We’ve pushed it back to 8 or 8:30, sometimes even 9, and the girls love staying up, but they are not sleeping any later in the morning. The older two still wake up between 6 and 6:30 every morning (Victoria, to her credit, sleeps longer if I can keep her sisters quiet), just like they did with the earlier bedtime. I thought the big girls would start sleeping later once they got used to the later bedtime, but it hasn’t happened yet, much to my dismay.

Last night, they weren’t in bed until 10:30pm. Ridiculous. And when those little faces still greeted me at 6:30 this morning, I couldn’t help but dread the day because Mommy in all her wisdom knew tempers would be short.

I was right.

When the tight confines of a fifth wheel proved to be more than their crabbiness could bear, I loaded them up and headed to downtown Richmond and Maymont House per a friend’s recommendation (thanks, Mary!). It’s a Gilded Age mansion originally on 100 acres in what seems to be the middle of the city. I didn’t think the girls would be interested in the mansion adorned with original Tiffany stained glass, but a “Children’s Farm,” live otters, and wildlife exhibits including bears, elk, and bison sounded right up their alley.

I was wrong.

It was a trek from the parking lot into the main grounds and the girls were hot and sweaty by the time we reached the mansion. We decided to take a break from the hike and take a mansion tour to take advantage of their air conditioning. Much to my amazement, the girls were absolutely riveted by the opulence of the house (which contains almost all of its original furnishings). Built in 1893, the 33 rooms included five bathrooms with indoor plumbing and full electricity (both incredible rarities at the time). Each room was more lavish than the last and by the time we got to an ostentatious swan bedroom, the girls were completely won over and imagining what it would have been like to attend a tea party in the house.

We left the house with the tour guide complimenting me on my beautifully-behaved children (score one for Mom!) and headed toward the animals. On the way, Madelyn, who never simply walks (but absolutely must skip or run or bounce), fell and skinned her knee badly. She saw the blood and threw in the towel, wanting to skip the animals and go home “to show Daddy.” Victoria, who is always hot anyway and was melting in the heat, jumped on the bandwagon. Poor Erika had no desire to miss what we’d come for and I felt terrible for her, but if I’ve learned one thing about traveling with kids in these early weeks, it’s that I’ve got to be flexible. So, we called it a day and headed home for an early dinner and an early bedtime.

Now that’s my kind of luxury.

Settling In

Jill's Journal: Happily, we are settling into the fifth wheel nicely. The girls are enjoying their new space and love their bunk beds. The place is sparkling clean thanks to an insane amount of bleach and elbow grease. Everything is unpacked and in its place. And life is good!

Of course, we haven’t moved an inch yet since we have several things to wrap up this week in Lexington. But, with two very smooth nights and days of “camping” under our belts, we’re feeling pretty good about the future. And I must confess: we’re not really camping. Sure, space inside is at a premium. But with 1 1/2 bathrooms, a separate master bedroom, a four-bunk bedroom for the girls on the complete other end of the trailer, a decent-sized kitchen, a living room bigger than a New York studio, and even a washer and dryer ready to be installed, we could definitely have it a lot worse. It really is a “house on wheels,” as the girls call it.

The 36 hours before we officially moved in were filled with drama. The closing date on our house got pushed back for the fourth (or was it fifth?) time. We underestimated how much we had yet to do to finish moving out (doesn’t that always happen?). And some improper wiring leading to the RV blew out everything that was plugged in: our new refrigerator, microwave/convection oven, entertainment system, etc. Even little things like an alarm clock and drill were completely decimated.

But that was then and this is now. The good news is that we really did close on our house on Friday morning and managed to finish our move-out with minutes to spare! It was bittersweet to hand those keys over. It’s the only home all three of our little girls have ever known. Victoria was even born there, literally, so it will always hold a special place in our hearts.

More good news: although we do have to replace all those expensive appliances without ever having gotten a chance to use them, at least they can be replaced. It’s just time and money (and a few gray hairs). And if that’s the biggest hiccup we have on our journey, we’re doing just fine.

And one more blessing I have to mention: good friends. One of the hardest decisions we had to make was what to do with our cat, who has been a part of our family for 15 years and has seen other pets come and go. But my dear friend Roberta ended up making it easy for us. She willingly opened up her home and welcomed our old gray kitty on Friday. Roberta’s home is an earthly version of cat heaven…once our cat acclimates, I have a feeling she’ll wonder what kind of purgatory she was in with us for the last 15 years!

Welcome!

Jill's Journal: If only I had a penny for each time someone asked if we had a blog! We finally decided it was time to go public. I’ve been keeping an occasional journal of our preparations to travel with the intention of sharing it with our girls someday. (Because surely someday they’ll wonder what possessed us to pack them into an RV and hit the road). Since my typing skills are stronger than my handwriting skills, it seemed a natural to make it a blog and that way my parents could track our travels as well. And now it’s morphed into something a little bigger…we’ve decided to also share it with our friends and family.

If you’re just joining us, the brief version is this: we’ve sold our house (closing in a matter of hours!), have bought a fifth wheel, and plan to travel North America for the next three years. We have a loose itinerary that includes 49 states and parts of Canada. Rob telecommutes already and can work from anywhere, so we realize this makes us incredibly blessed and very, very lucky. Our three girls are young with our oldest just finishing kindergarten tomorrow, so I’m going to try my hand at homeschooling for a few years. We can’t think of a better education for them (and for us!) than seeing the country firsthand.

As people have learned about the adventure that awaits us, we realized how many either long for this type of opportunity or think we’re completely off our rocker. Either way, it’s clear many people are very curious. We thought this blog would be a way we could take everyone along for the ride.

Both Rob and I will post. His entries (like the one immediately below) are labeled with an “R.” Mine will always begin with “Jill’s Journal.”

It will take another week or so for us to completely wrap up things here in Lexington, Kentucky, and then we’ll be on our way. So, stay turned and join us on our journey if you’d like. And welcome!

Lead Us Not into Temptation…

Jill's Journal: Rob’s been back for about 10 days now from his 5,000-mile journey to pick up our fifth wheel. It’s wonderful to have him home and wonderful to finally have seen our “house on wheels,” as the girls call it. It’s not fancy, but it’s perfect for us. It’s incredibly spacious when all four slide-outs are used and so full of cupboards and drawers that I’m not one bit worried about storage. In fact, if we were just using it as the average family does – for vacations or weekends – I would truly feel it is excessive! But we’re not; we’re going to live in this thing full-time and it feels just right. I love it. And the girls are enamored with it! They want to move in right now. So do I. SO DO I. Waiting another nine months to hit the road is going to be even harder with it just sitting out there, tempting me…

Epiphany City…or Maybe Just a Bitch Fest

Jill's Journal: We’re going on day #11 now since Rob left to pick up the fifth wheel. Even though I’m not the one on the road with the hours of silence and nothing to do but think, I’ve still had a few minor epiphanies (or maybe complaints?!) here.

*I love being a parent, but doing it all alone day in and day out is not the easiest thing in the world. Worse still is that Rob was gone in Vegas for a week of poker in July and will leave again in early September for another eight or nine consecutive days. That makes more than a month of “gone time” in a span of 2 1/2 months. It’s going to wear on me at some point. The very fact that I’m writing this down may prove it already is! I’m so looking forward to our family being on the road together.

*Here’s a very personal one: A year ago, I was at a wonderful weight. Thin and feeling fabulous about my body. But I’ve gained close to 20 pounds since then and no matter how hard I’ve tried, it doesn’t want to come off. Some major things have happened during that time – I stopped breastfeeding, I went on birth control for the first time in several years, and yes, I’m getting older. All that combined means inevitable weight gain. I’ve clearly known this for a while, but this week brought a realization as I’ve felt some serious sadness about an old family friend who had part of a lung removed in a second fight with cancer. I realized after she is gone, no one is going to remember that she was always a little plump. People will remember her warm, welcoming spirit instead. So here’s my epiphany: I can continue to fight my weight and be miserable or I can embrace myself the way I am and be happy. I choose happiness. I don’t have the time right now to battle weight. And, I want to be the kind of Mom who bakes cookies with her kids and enjoys the moment; not the kind who eats like a bird and makes her children weight-conscious at way too young of an age. We eat healthy and should enjoy some of the good stuff too. So, a couple of days ago, I finally bit the bullet and purchased some new clothes that actually fit. Yes, they’re two sizes bigger than my fabulous post-baby body. But this body of mine has given birth to three amazing children and I’m grateful for it. This is me. Today I will be purging my skinny clothes. Seeing them in my closet just makes me sad, so there’s no point in keeping them. I’m closer in size to where I was before children and that’s okay. I embrace me! This positive attitude is right in line with what we hope to teach our girls through the grand RV adventure.

*And the final epiphany of the week: I cannot wait to homeschool. Driving 4 1/2 miles one way through heavy traffic twice a day (and past nine other schools until we get to the one we were assigned) is killing me! I know people do it every day and I used to too; in fact, I used to commute 90 minutes each way in the brutal Southern California traffic daily. However, I long for the simple things these days. Having to get three kids out the door at the crack of daylight and fight traffic under a time clock (since three tardies in a school year is considered truancy) in order to get one child to kindergarten causes me great stress! We’re only two weeks in and I’m miserable. I thrive on routine and schedule, but this is not the good kind! Thank heaven Erika is loving kindergarten. That makes it all worth it, but I still cannot wait to homeschool!

Huge Strides

Jill's Journal: Ridiculous strides have been made and at lightning speed lately. Rob has been the driving force behind it all. He promises to fill in the blanks, but for now, a quick synopsis...

*We pulled the trigger and bought a fifth wheel! It's absolutely everything we had been looking for, with the grand exception that it's currently located about 2200 miles away in Poway, California. We absolutely cannot wait to get our hands on it.

*We bought a truck. A big truck. A really big truck meant to pull said fifth wheel. A Ford 550. See photo.

*Rob literally just left a few minutes ago in said truck to pick up said fifth wheel. Long journey for him and although I know he is more than completely capable, I still worry about him. Erika started kindergarten this week (another big step in our lives!), which means the girls and I are tied down here and couldn't go with him. I nearly pulled her out and started homeschooling a year early!

*And in other news, Rob told his mother and sister our plans. It did not go well, as we expected. It's the only negative blip in what so far has been (and will be!) an incredibly positive life experience for our whole little family.

Continuing Research

Jill's Journal: We went to an RV show at the Horse Park a couple of weeks ago. Tomorrow we're heading to car lots to see some of the possibilities for trucks to pull our future fifth wheel. Our research marches on!

Launch Day…One Year Away

Jill's Journal: I have begun looking at our RV adventure as very long-term. I’m seriously thinking in the five to 10 year range. I’m in no hurry to settle down – we’ve got our whole lives to do that, but only this short window of time with all our kids young enough and schooling flexible enough and this wonderful work-from-anywhere ability in Rob’s career…it’s just perfect. The only hard part is waiting another year.

Our “soft launch” date is May 1, 2010. In an ideal world, we’d like to have the house sold and be moved into the RV by that point, living the following month at the Kentucky Horse Park. It gives us a bit of time to work out the kinks, get fully accustomed to living in a fifth wheel, finish up Erika’s kindergarten and Madelyn’s first year of preschool, and say goodbye to everyone and everything local. The school year finishes at the end of May and we’d like to be on the road by June 1st.

Northside RVs

Jill's Journal: A delayed anniversary babysitting gift from my sister and brother-in-law netted us a few glorious child-free hours on Friday afternoon to spend as we pleased. We turned it into a great fact-finding mission at Northside RVs in Lexington, which claims to be Kentucky’s largest RV dealer. The number one thing we learned? There’s so much to learn and so many options!

We’ve looked at literally hundreds of blueprints online and in catalogues, but it was so incredibly helpful to actually see some in person. The manager of the place seemed to be a straight-shooter, always a welcome thing in a salesman, and spent nearly two hours with us. He took us into about 10 different models, a nice mix of motorhomes and fifth wheels, so we could really get a feel for our different options. We have so much to think about.

At dinner afterward, Rob put it eloquently and perfectly: “A motorhome is the sexy option, but a fifth wheel is the smart option.” And that’s what we’re thinking. As much as we’d love a Class A motorhome with the accompanying bells and whistles, we can get the same square footage in a fifth wheel for a fraction of the price. And these next two years on the road aren’t about living in luxury and comfort. They’re about enjoying life with just the basics and being comfortable enough. A fifth wheel fits the bill just fine (and a fancy fifth wheel gives us a bill of about one-third the price tag of a basic motorhome!).