5-Month Update

November 21st marks 5 months of us living in our RV.  

How do we like it?  

Would we choose to do this again with what we know now?  

Do we prefer living in a house or the RV?  

How long do we plan on living in our RV?

Do we wish to stay in Florida, or would we like to go back to Ohio...

or pick a different state to call home?  

How does Henry like working from the RV?

How do the boys like being homeschooled in the RV?

How do I survive in such a small space with 3 boys!?!

So I asked the boys some questions to see how everyone is feeling.

"Do you prefer living in a house or the RV?"

Scott (age 5):  House.

Sage (age 9):  House.

Me:  RV

Henry:  House

"Do you like being homeschooled in the RV, or would you prefer to go to public school."

Scott:  Homeschool!  No, wait.  Ummmm....public school.  (And just so you know, he hates ANY type of school).

Sage:  Homeschool.  Duuuuuhhhhh.

"Do you prefer working in an office or working in the RV?"

Henry:  Office.  I would prefer working in a home (house) office instead of the RV office or office.  I like getting out and not being cooped up all day.  

"Do you like living in Florida better or Ohio?"

Scott:  Ohio!

Sage:  Ummm...depends on the terms.  If I had to pick today, I would probably say Ohio.  

Me:  Ohio.

Henry:  Florida.

"What do you like about living in the RV?"

Scott:  No.  

Sage:  The pool.  (Couldn't think of anything RV-specific)

Me:  I love the closeness and coziness of it.  For real.  I love that we have to be really intentional on what we buy due to lack of storage.  I love that it's so small and cleaning is a breeze.  I love that my boys have gotten closer since living in here.  They get along so much better now!  I love that we can move around to different places and travel with our home with us!  I love that we are experiencing this adventure together as a family.  I love that we knew absolutely nothing about RVs just months ago, and now we can teach others about this lifestyle.  I love that we learned all about it by doing it!  

Henry:  Didn't ask him this question yet.  

"How long do we plan on living in the RV?"

We still don't know the answer to this question.  We have renters in our house in Ohio.  Their lease is up June 30, 2015.  We have no idea if they will want to continue renting past that day.  We have no idea if we will decide to come back to Ohio.  If we decide to not come back to Ohio then, and our renters want to stay in the house, they will sign another lease for another year...at least that's what our current lease agreement says.   We are so very thankful that we found fabulous renters!  

"What ARE our plans?"

We have our current RV site reserved until February 28th....and that's all we know!  We don't know what we are doing after February 28th, and we don't know where we will be going.  MY plan...or my wishful plan...is to start our 'Going Out West Adventure' on March 1st.  Henry is worried about being financially ready at that point, though.  So...no plans are being made at this time.  Just getting through the holidays and winter for now!

"Knowing what we know now, would you still choose to live in an RV?  Basically...if you could do it all over, would you?"

Scott:  No.  I want a house.  Actually, I want to go places.  I want to go to California and see Evan.  (He LOVEs the little boy from Evantube on youtube and hopes to meet him!)

Sage:  Yeah, I totally would.  

Me:  Yes without a doubt.

Henry:  Yes, it's much better than I thought it would be.  

Boynton Beach, FL

Back in August, (yes, I know that was a long time ago now) 

the boys and I went to visit my mom in south Florida.

She and my step-dad own a condo in Boynton Beach.

They live up north, but travel down occasionally to stay at 

their condo.  She was in Florida in August because

her aunt passed away.  It also happened to be her 

birthday the day we went to her condo.   

(Her 57th birthday...she's still a young pup!)

We stayed from Tuesday, August 19th to Saturday, August 23rd.  

We swam 4 times in her condo pool, went to the beach once,

went out to eat twice, visited with her cousin, and went to a science center.

We had a great time! 

It amazed me how different south Florida is to north/central Florida.

It was prettier there...for real.  The ocean water was more clear.

The whole area was 'ritzy'.  

The part we were at instead of being 'touristy' with tons of 

condos/hotels on the beach, there were huge mansions

on the beach.  Even one of Oprah's old houses is there...

which looks more like a massive museum that would take

days to go through.  

We can now add Boynton Beach, FL to our 'saw and conquered list'.  

Follow us!

Since I'm unable to blog much due to extremely slow wi-fi at our campground, follow us on Facebook at 'Roadhouse 4 Us'.  I post almost daily on there!

Our campground for 7 months!!

On August 2nd, we moved to our current campground.  We plan on staying here through February.  I thought living in an RV in ONE place would be torturous.  So far, it's not torturous.  It's actually quite nice.  We have gotten 'settled' in the community.  We joined a homeschool co-op.  The boys classes in the co-op are Florida History, Astronomy, Geography, and Fun with Fruits.  Sage is in a Chess Club.  Scott is playing soccer.  We are taking Florida nature classes.  We are participating in a Florida history class at the library.   We are 15 minutes from Henry's parent's and sister's house.  We love hanging out at their house on the weekends.  We are 4 miles from the beach.  Our campground has a pool (which is the main reason we moved here).  We have visited the Orlando Science Museum.  We have farm field trip planned as well as a visit to an observatory.  We are also going to Legoland and the Tampa Aquarium really soon.  

 We are playing and learning and enjoying what life brings our way.  

You can barely see our truck and RV in this pic.

We nestled between the trees.

We have plenty of shade here! 

Both boys have learned to swim in this pool!

Walking back to our RV from the pool

We have since moved to a different site in this campground which we like better.  

Wickham Park in Melbourne, FL

Our first stop in Florida was Wickham Park in Melbourne, FL.  What a lovely, lovely place.  We stayed here from June 30th to August 2, 2014.  It is a public park.  For my Columbus, OH friends, you'll understand when I say that it's a park much like our Columbus Metro Parks.

There is about 400 acres of land which included swimming ponds, fishing ponds, baseball field, multi-purpose fields, amphitheater, archery range, equestrian barn, and frisbee disc golf.  When we were there, though, it was TOO HOT to do ANYthing outside.  We tried to play on the playground once, but lasted only about 5 minutes since it was not shaded.  (And there was NO way we were going to swim in a pond!)  The campground is all the way in the back of the park.

Ranger Office

One of the entrances to the park.

Baseball Field

The campground was located all the way 

in the back of the park. 

The drive back to the campground.

Bummed that we never saw any armadillos

in the park.  We have seen plenty dead on the 

side of roads, though.

We were surrounded by water. 

Never once saw an alligator.  

Drive back to the campground.

We saw tons of these guys!  

And tons of sandhill cranes.

And there we are!  

We had tons of space.

We never had any neighbors right next to us.

It was hot especially with NO shade!

We met some good people here.  

Here's Jake (in the middle of my boys).

We met him here at the campground.

He is a full-time RVer too.  

This is when we were getting ready to leave this 

campground to go to our next stop in Florida.

The boys were getting in all the play time they

could with Jake.  We were super excited just the 

other day to come home to find a note on our

door from Jake and his family saying that

they were probably going to be moving to where

we are right now.  Yeah!  We would love that!

2014-2015 Homeschool Curriculum

By George I think I got it...well, most of it!  Finally sat down to plan out the boy's curriculum for this upcoming year.  As all homeschool moms know, this is just our initial plans that are bound to change throughout the year.  We'll delete things along the way.  We'll add things along the way. In the end, though, it all works out to our kids learning exactly what they 'need' to learn.

I will eventually make this post all pretty with pictures and clickable links, but for now, plain text will have to do.  Just want to jot it all down here for safe keeping.

KINDERGARTEN PLANS FOR SCOTT

Math =  Spectrum K Math

Science = Astronomy at Co-op

History = Florida History at Co-op

Art = Character w/ Crafts at Co-op

Handwriting = Handwriting without Tears

Keyboarding = Keyboarding without Tears

Phonics = All About Reading, Bob Books, Phonics Boosters, Animal Antics, Phonics System, Phonics Boxed Set

Finance/Economics = Dave Ramsey's Financial Junior's Adventures

Religion = The Jesus Storybook Bible and Sunday School

Language Processing Practice = Earobics Home

Social Studies/Current Events = Scholastic News

And here's a list of a bunch of other misc. things we will be using and doing:  Calendar work, All About Me poster, Letterbooks, Bingo Sight Words, What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know, Do-A-Dot Painting, Go Fish, Memory, Fun w/ Phonics, Patternables, Mazes, High Five Magazine, Can You Find Me?, ABC Dot-to-Dot, and field trips around Florida.  

4th GRADE PLANS FOR SAGE

Math = Teaching Textbooks 4, Life of Fred (G-J), and 'Today's # is...'

Language Arts = Essentials in Writing Level 4,  Homophones by All About Spelling

Spelling = Sequential Spelling (I think)

Handwriting = Handwriting without Tears

Keyboarding = Keyboarding without Tears

Science = Astronomy class at Co-op

History = Florida History at Co-op

Geography = Geography class at co-op

Social Studies / Current Events = Scholastic News

Religion = Sunday School

Other misc things we will be using and doing:  Ted Talks, Youtube videos, Netflix videos, and 'What Your 4th Grader Needs to Know'.  Still deciding on art and PE.  

Chuck E Cheese

July 30th

I did something that I didn't think I would ever do.

I took my boys to Chuck E Cheese's.

I have resisted for 9 years!!

Really though, my boys never really cared about it.

Until recently.

Scott kept seeing commercials about it

and advertisements on the computer for it.

And then one of his best buddies went there 

and told Scott all about it.

And then I was desperate to find something 

for us to do inside away from the outside Florida heat.  

So we went.

And had such a good time!!!

Sage, who is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, 

had cheese pizza.  

Scott had french fries.  

He seriously would eat french fries for 

breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And snack. 

Neither boy was crazy about the weird, 

robotic Chuck E. Cheese.

This was as close as Scott would get to him.

So, the human Chuck E Cheese in costume

walked around with a sign that said, 

"Follow me to win free tickets!"

Most of the kids followed Chuck E Cheese. 

(Scott did.  Sage did not).

The kids had to do the 'Hokey Pokey' with

Chuck E Cheese.  Scott is all the way in the back.

He was soooo pumped!

Then they had all the kids sit down.  

I wondered how they were going to give tickets

to all the kids.  

They threw them up in the air and let the kids

fight over them as they flew to the ground!!

I was shocked that Scott made it out of the pile 

of kids with about 10 tickets! 

What an evil look Sage is giving me!

He didn't want to stop playing games

for a picture.

He just loved everything!!

This was their favorite game.

Mine too.

It was addicting.

Look at this sweet smile. 

Most of you know this little ride.

You get in, buckle your seat belt,

and it rocks back and forth ever so slowly.

Now look at this terrified face.

This truck was crazy.

You get in, there is No seat belt, and 

it goes up and sideways pretty high.

It scared Scott too death.

He is holding on for dear life saying, 

"I don't like this!  There's no seat belt!
There's no seat belt!  I don't like this!"

And I.was.cracking.up.

Bad mom!

I seriously was laughing so hard that I 

had tears coming down my cheeks.  

Gotta love air hockey.

So we stayed for 3 hours!  I love how there is only one entrance and exit.

I also love how they stamp everyone in your party with the same numbers, and they

check your numbers when you leave to make sure you all match.

We will definitely make it back one day!