Count Your Blessings

Cyndie and I are stuck inside on a cold, blustery day. We're doing some real estate work, working on some travel plans, and generally trying to stay warm and dry (and hoping that Tim's game this afternoon is moved inside the dome instead of being outside in 50 degree weather with 25 mile per hour wind and rain).

On a day which could be a bit of a drag where we're limited to 300 square feet (or the local coffee shop), we are choosing to count ourselves blessed. Looking around our little house on wheels makes me so happy. I am literally smiling as I write this. We are living the dream! Is it everyone's dream? No way. But this is something we've been excited about for a while. We have a lot of flexibility to pursue those things which are important to us (travel, experiences, family). We have almost all of the things we really enjoy in life with almost none of the negatives. And more exciting things (overseas travel, catamaran!!) are on the horizon.

What is the moral of the story? Pursue your dreams. Push your limits. Make goals for yourself. Set steps toward your goals. Execute them. Everyone has different priorities. Pursue what you value. Don't let someone else tell you that your dream is dumb or unachievable. Don't get stuck living life the same way you always have just because.

Our society likes to tell us what should be. Don't accept that. 

Think outside the box. You are worth it.

So a thing happened?!

 Yes, it's been a while since I posted. Bad me. Life is great. We are loving RV life and I can't fathom how I ever worked a job given our busy we are?! We've spent the last several months doing lots of exercising, watching soccer, visiting family, meeting new people, and exploring the upper/western side of the Midwest. It's been great.

And now we did a thing.

*not "our" boat, but the same year and model

There is a fairly length story behind it, but we are on contract to buy a Leopard 44 sailing catamaran!? This has been a dream of ours for a while and the fact that it is so close to reality is insane. There are still a lot of steps (get the boat to the US, do a survey and sea trial. Oh and learn to sail). But the biggest one of finding the boat is complete. More details to come!

These pictures actually of "our" (soon to be) boat.

On the Road

 Well, it's official. We're on the road. The journey has begun.

How did we get here? Lots of packing, last minute projects, enjoying some last Lake Geneva fun, and good byes with friends and family.

Packing went about as smoothly as it could. We had earlier in July filled a 20 yard dumpster with

20 yard dumpster

"stuff" that had been floating around our house for 17 years, so we were not dealing with quite as much to sort through. But moving from a five bedroom, 2800 square foot home to a 35 foot fifth wheel is no small thing. In this case, the tortoise was successful, and little by little we got moved. As of this writing, we have not really needed for anything!

Our rig "Haven" parked in the driveway awaiting packing.

Getting packed, bedroom edition

Our girl was a big help in getting us ready to go

We were able to get out on the lake a bit despite some engine issues with our boat. We (and especially Cyndie) will totally miss time on the lake and skiing. But alas, despite our best attempts, we have not found a way to do everything, all the time, every where. Meaning that our boating season of life has come to an end for now.

Tim

Emma

Cyndie aka "Ski Babe"

Tim navigated the week before college in typical fashion, soccer, workouts, and getting as much time with friends in as possible. He was able to get some quality hang out time in with all of his various friends including one last overnight with the three amigos. What a blessing these guys have been to Tim. I really hope that their friendship continues as their stages of life change!

Two amigos sleeping

Tim's adult league team - league champs!

And then we left. After a weekend of final prep, cleaning the house, and general chaos we were sent on our way by a lovely group of people on Sunday night. We slept, and hit the road at 6a on Monday driving Tim's car full of his things and our rig 8 hours west to Western Iowa.

My driving partner

Threatening Skies over Iowa

After an uneventful trip* we arrived at Dordt University to get Tim checked in and ready for soccer pre-season.

*Uneventful is probably relative. We got a decent amount of rain and it was pretty windy. At this point we're extremely happy with our decision to buy a one ton dually (GMC) to pull our fifth wheel. We had 20 MPH winds all across Iowa and I barely felt them.

Dordt University's #24, Freshman Tim DeVries

We've now left the land of KwikTrip and entered that of Casey's*. Whatever will Tim do?

*In driving around his college town, Sioux Center, we did see a KwikStar (the Iowa branch of KwikTrip) being built. Perhaps life will go on.

And now we're settling in to a new phase of life. We haven't found a new normal yet. That will come in time. We're at a beautiful little county campground right on the Iowa/South Dakota border where we are the only people (thus far through the first three and a half days we've been here) here in our loop. We wake up to a lake view and sunshine with our coffee. We enjoy the trails the campground has with the goal of walking at least five miles a day. We're enjoying the slower pace of life. We're enjoying being outside a lot. We're finding ourselves on our phones a lot less and rather passing the time reading, watching the water, and being together!

"Our" campsite on the Eagle View loop

Swimming hole at Eagle View Campground

Railroad bridge over the Big Sioux River, the border between SD and IA

Haven

We're official!

Things we've learned this week:

• Leaving is harder than we expected. Even though we'll be back in LG frequently, it will not be the same. We'll miss places. We'll miss our friends. We'll miss our family. Leaving Emma and Connor in LG is probably the hardest. The two and a half months that they've been back have been a ton of fun. It's great to like your kids, but it's even better to get to know them as really awesome adults!
• Goals are good. We talk to so many people who want something similar to what we're doing (flexibility; financially, geographically, etc). We don't have any secret sauce, but we did set goals and were able to attain them.

Things we're looking forward to:

• Real soccer ... Tim's first scrimmage four hours away in Des Moines against Grandview University on Saturday.
• Seeing how Haven handles the heat; we're looking at high 90s weather starting on the weekend and heading through mid-next week. AC is very welcome!

Tim on the training pitch

It's About to Get Real

 Yes, after years of talking and planning, it's about to get real. In under a week, we will be hitting the road.

It's been a journey for sure. It probably started back in around 2005 when Cyndie and I first started talking about what our priorities in life should be.

In the fall of 2007 those discussions lead us to move from Southern California to Lake Geneva, WI. This has been a marvelous place to live, work, and raise kids.

But always we have had that pull to explore. To experience new places and different people. To see the beauty of God's creation, both in our own country and abroad.

So welcome along for the journey. I hope to document it here. I'll add in pictures Cyndie takes and possibly some videos too. For now I'll leave you with this.

"It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn." — Anthony Bourdain

-Neal