Picture of the Week - 4/7/2023

 I wish I could go back to this time last week...  We were on the verge of our first camping trip with the doggos last Friday.  It did not disappoint!

Happiest thing

Getting all of our boys together - even if it was just a short visit to see Grandpa Bob and Grandma Phyllis for dinner.  Having them all together is not something I ever take for granted anymore.  I even remembered to take some pictures this time!

Scariest thing

Easily the first 3 hours of the drive on Saturday morning.  There were storms forecast to hit our area early Saturday.  Our original plan was to wait out the worst of them and then hit the road.  When we woke up we learned that the cold front had slowed down and was going to throw off our whole schedule.  So we decided to get moving (quickly) and try to get in front of it.  We failed by about 30 minutes or so and ended up driving WITH the storm for a long time before we finally got out in front of/south of it.  It was white knuckle driving in heavy rain and winds.  First time in weather like that with Harvey.  Bob did great.  I sprouted a dozen more grey hairs.  We all made it out without damage, but it was stressful!

Most annoying thing

I'm not sure I was really annoyed by anything.  I'm far more annoyed by many many things on the regular than I was on this trip.  If I had to pick something, I guess I would say that with the dogs and kids and us in and out of the camper, it was impossible to keep the floor clean.  We tracked in a lot of dirt and grass (even with the outdoor rug we have).  We need to figure out a better solution for trying to capture the muck coming into the camper - or we just need to embrace the broom every evening.

Most interesting thing

Tough one.  We continue to learn SO MUCH about the whole camping experience.  I find every experience we've had to be really interesting.  On this particular trip I think the most interesting thing I learned was probably at the Statesboro campground.  This was a small little campground without any frills.  It had maybe 50 all-grass sites with full hook-ups.  The most interesting thing was probably how many of the sites were filled with full-timers.  We met one neighbor who was living there in a teeny little camper and working in Savannah - a good 45 min drive each way.  He was doing it to save money and simplify his life.  Campground people are pretty cool - and pretty interesting.

Most heart warming thing

There were a million little things that just made me love the whole experience - and my little family - so much!  Watching the boys play together.  Watching Bob throw the football with Zane.  Watching the dogs hang out together.  Watching the dogs hang out with the boys.  Everyone just got along - no fighting...  do you even know how rare it is for Zane and Beck to not bicker for 4 straight days???  Sigh...  I wanna go back.

Nicest thing

Downtime.  I haven't just SAT and done nothing as much as we did on this trip in a long time.  I think this is, honestly what I have looked forward to most about these camping trips.  There's no expectation of constant activity.  There's nothing that "needs" to be done around "the house" and the goal is really just to BE STILL.  That's the best!  I even pulled out quilting and finished a whole handful of Granny's Garden squares on this trip!

Easiest thing

I purposely picked campsites that were pull-through sites for this trip.  There was no backing up required!  #winning

Most surprising thing

Maybe how fast the dogs adjusted to the camper life - and how well they did in the car.  Gable loves car rides.  Brutus is more anxious about it, but is a super easy traveler - he just never really relaxes.  The first night the dogs were so exhausted from the trip and all the NEW things everywhere that they crashed really hard.  Gable fell asleep on the floor and never moved when we went to bed.  This is unusual because he always sleeps on our bed with us.  At some point in the middle of the night he woke up, was freaked out, and started crying.  When he realized we were all still there he ran around the camper wagging and kissing everyone and was just SO happy.  Then he crashed on the bed with us for the rest of the night.

Luckiest thing

I'm going to say the weather - even with the really bad storm we dealt with at the start of the trip.  The rest of the trip was basically amazing.  It rained a couple of times during the weekend, but never caused us to change plans or anything like that.  The rains came at night and really didn't cause us any grief.  And the temperature was basically perfect.  We were able to leave doors and windows open for much of the weekend!  Since it is still so early in the season, the bugs weren't bad.  The humidity wasn't bad.  It was just so pleasant!  I'm not 100% sure how the camper/kids/me/dogs will do when it's blazing hot, but I am now sure that we are REALLY big fans of spring camping!

Second scariest thing

So we decided that we much prefer driving on back roads than on the interstates.  Maybe this will change as we get more comfortable, but on this trip we were not in a hurry to get anywhere on any of the legs of our trip and we intentionally picked routes through quiet little towns and along picturesque roads.  It was a different pace for sure - and it was awesome!  Except when we realized we needed gas and there really aren't a lot of great options conducive to pulling a 34 ft camper through in the middle of Mayberry.  We got slightly panicky about running out of gas and even discussed needing to find a place to park, unhook, get gas, get hooked back up, etc.  The unhooking and re-hooking process is not insignificant...  We finally found a gas station that looked like it would work.  Filled up and then realized we were basically stuck.  It took some maneuvering (which we really still aren't very good at) and maybe relocating a cardboard sign a bit (oops) before we could get out of the parking lot.  Yikes!  Learned a lot of lessons through that experience! 

Tastiest thing

We cooked 4 meals on the new Blackstone grill.  We did smash burgers, pancakes and bacon, chicken fried rice, and steak hoagies.  All of the meals were delicious and fun to make!  2 thumbs up!  Also - we bought ice cream for a treat one night and it was not only delicious, we were pleasantly surprised that it stayed mostly frozen on the trip back in the freezer!  

Most exciting thing

We have more trips in Harvey planned to look forward to throughout the summer and fall!  This is just the start of something awesome!

I have added a bunch of pictures from the trip.  I hope you enjoy!  I can't wait until the next one!

Picture of the Week - 3/31/3023

 Sooooo close!  We are so close to our spring break - and our next adventure.  I've been looking forward to this one for a long time.  

Originally, when we first bought the camper, we thought this trip would be our maiden voyage.  There's a very small and very flat campground just outside of Georgia Southern that (to my untrained eyes) looked like it would be easy to get/out of and would be perfect for our first trip.  (Then we pulled the trigger on Perry last month...)

This trip is the first one with the dogs - and our plans have morphed a little bit - and all of the changes and updates have made me so excited and anxious to get going tomorrow morning!  But also - so. much. planning!

We also bought a blackstone grill.  We knew we wanted to get one and had originally thought we would wait until our big trip to Missouri to get one, but then we came to our senses (maybe when we saw how nice the weather is going to be this weekend) and decided it would be great to get one now.  And Walmart to the rescue!  We got one on SALE even!

So this week we spent time getting the blackstone seasoned and took it for a drive making dinner the other night.  We made breakfast burritos and homemade corned beef hash.  :)  I case you were curious!

We head down to Brunswick tomorrow for a visit with Bob and Phyllis and are pretty darn excited that both Spencer and Quinn are going to join us for a visit.  Spencer can't stay the night, but I've enticed him with a promise of smash burgers on the blackstone!  YUM!  On Sunday we are going to relocate camp up to that initial campground that I really thought would be our first hookup.  We are staying a few nights there - and it'll give us a chance to see how the dogs do with the set-up we will have over the summer.  We bought them a dog fence to set up around the camper door and will see how it goes!  MANY firsts with this whole experience - which makes it fun and interesting - and gives my "planner brain" more than enough to worry about!

Stay tuned for more details and pictures and reports on how our trip goes!  Yay for spring!!

PS - I bought this fun pillow for the couch in the camper, but that's actually probably going to be Quinn's bed this weekend.  It IS funny though!

Picture of the Week - 3/9/2023

 Time to catch you all up on our really great weekend last week!  

We took Zane and Beck to the Georgia youth state wrestling tournament - and we took the camper!  It was kinda nerve-wracking on multiple fronts!

Punchline - planning and preparation worked for both wrestlers and campers!

The drive down was one of those "waiting for the other shoe to drop" experiences.  We started out fine and then we got onto the interstate for the first time ever.  All was fine.  Then we got into traffic.  All was fine.  Then we went through all like 10 lanes of downtown Atlanta.  All was fine.  Then eventually we got out of traffic.  All was fine.  We even stopped at a rest area.  Guess what, it was fine!  

Good even!

The site I reserved was a pull-through (no back-up required!) and sorta unlevel, so we had to use our levelers for the first time.  It was fine!  

There were many many firsts with that thing over the weekend - and some minor inconveniences, but nothing major.  We learned a lot.  Figured out a few MORE things we needed to get - and we are already looking forward to our next trip.  (3 weeks from now)

And then the wrestling.  I mean, to say I'm proud of the boys is a huge understatement.  We knew this year would be rough for them.  They are both on the young end of the age groups.  And then we bumped Zane UP a weight class around a month ago.  Most kids DROP weight classes at this time of year, but he's in the middle of puberty and I'd much rather let him GROW than restrict calories for a youth wrestling tournament.  Zane got an unfortunately draw in the first round and lost to a kid who was not as good a wrestler, but WAS a stronger kid.  And sometimes that matters.  He won his next one and then lost the 3rd to a kid who was a better wrestler.  It happens and we aren't sad about it.  It gives him something to work toward next year.

Beck faired a bit better and won his first match, which made the whole bracket easier.  In his second match he was losing in the 3rd period with around 25 seconds to go.  He threw the kid, who was a good bit taller than Beck, into a headlock.  Took him down and scored 2 points with 11 seconds left to win the match.  It was pretty awesome!  He lost his next match to place 4th, but it didn't really matter.  He was the only kid from the West program to place at state and I couldn't be happier for him.  Next year, after another year of training and growing and getting stronger - both of these boys are going to be super fun to watch!

The return trip was equally uneventful.  Actually, check that...  it was more fun because we totally stopped at Buc-ees and bought FAR too much junk food and munched all the way home.  

It was a really good weekend!

This week we took off completely from any practices of any kind.  It's been a long time since we had downtime like this.  Bob and I feel disconcerted about the whole thing.  I think Bob's nearly finished a whole book this week.  Next week we will get back to work, but taking a breather was pretty nice.  

Quinn comes home tonight and Spencer comes home tomorrow night for their spring breaks.  I am looking forward to having them home for the weekend.  I love having them all in one place - even if it's just for a little while.  

Have a great week everyone!  I'll be here cuddling on dogs and hugging boys.  Life is good.

Here're the action shots from Beckett's big take-down.  :)  Notice the time left on the clock when the ref throws up the TWO in the last picture.  

Picture of the Week - 1/20/2023

 What. A. Week!

Lots of work - mostly - stuff took up all my brain cells this week!  

But in the middle, Bob and I took Wednesday off to go pick up Harvey, the RV!!  To say we were stressed about this experience may be an understatement.  I mean, we have never even towed a row boat!  

I am very happy to report that we had no issues.  Bob reports that towing it was more comfortable than he expected on our hour-long drive home AND (maybe even more impressive) we didn't even argue while trying to back into our storage space the first time.  Ha!  #winning!

We have a bit of work to do inside before we will be ready to travel.  This is very similar to getting a new apartment ready to go!  We need bedding and kitchen stuff and bathroom stuff and a whole bunch of new camper hook-up stuff.  And I am certain we need stuff we don't even know we need yet.  Amazon loves us!!!

Here's a selfie of me and Bob at pick-up.  And a picture of the doggos checking out the couch (which is in the back in front of the bunk beds) during a quick stop at the house on the way to storage so Beck could see it.  And finally a picture of the successful parking experience at our storage spot.  

Our first trip is scheduled for the first weekend in March.  We have a campsite booked in Perry GA for Kids' State wrestling tournament.  Now we just need at least one boy to qualify to get to state!  

This weekend we are traveling over to Dallas, Ga for the All American Slam tournament.  I'm excited for this one.  There are 4 guys in Beckett's bracket and 11 (!) in Zane's.  That's a pretty big tournament and should be a lot of fun.  It's far enough away that I think we will see a whole different set of Georgia wrestlers.

Other than wrestling and camper shopping...  we are just plugging our way through January.  Hope all is well where you are!  

Picture of the Week - 1/5/2023

 Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a really wonderful holiday season.  We had a really nice, relaxing Christmas and a fun New Year's Eve - even with the Buckeye loss.  

The re-entry to "normal" life after a nice vacation is never fun, but this week...  oy vey.  It's kicking my tail!  Work, kids, house, wrestling.  All the things...  and they keep wanting me to make dinner.  It's only been 3 days back to work and already I need another break!

This is the current state of my dining room.  It's serving as a staging area for 1) Christmas decoration packing 2) wrestling backpack distribution and 3) tournament hospitality room preparation.  It's a hot mess...  boxes and bins and stuff everywhere.  I have never been one to fret over clutter, but this is a bit much even for me!  Ever so slowly, we will reclaim some order and peace and calm...  I hope!

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In other news...  (If we are connected on Facebook, this will be old news.)  Bob and I finally bought a travel trailer on Monday.  We've been looking for ages - almost a full year, actually.  We've been to many dealerships and in/out of dozens of different brands and floorplans.  We even took that trial trip a few weeks ago to try out the camper lifestyle.  

I'd be lying if I didn't share that I'm a little nervous about it.  It's a pretty big purchase (although, surprisingly it costs about half what we paid for Bob's Yukon) and a pretty big departure from what we are used to.  Neither of us grew up camping - so culturally, we have a lot to learn.  It'd also be lying if I didn't say I'm pretty darn excited about it too.  I'm really looking forward to some peaceful, relaxing trips - and hopefully a way for us to see some parts of the country you can't see from a Hampton Inn.  Stay tuned for more.  We pick Harvey (as the boys have named the camper) up a week from today.  Our first trip will likely be to Statesboro to visit Quinn over spring break.  (Unless we decide to hit up a wrestling tourney in FL in Feb...  which is a possibility!)

If you are interested in what we got - here's the link.  It's a 2022 KZ Sportsmen 281BHSE https://www.kz-rv.com/products/sportsmen-se-travel-trailers/281BHSE.html They have some nice walk-through videos and pictures.