I’ve been MIA for a little more than three years, sorry about that. But, most importantly, I’m back. I thought I’d get you caught up in the next few posts.
So…let’s jump in. During the summer of 2016, we were ‘practicing’ homeschooling with our 2nd grader. I decided to start the Monday after 1st grade ended. I didn’t want her to think being home meant doing nothing, plus I knew that in September we’d be so crazy getting packed and driving across the country, there wouldn’t be time for school. Most folks suggest letting your kids decompress between public school and homeschool for a few weeks or months.
We downsized a 1600 sq ft home with basement, garage, shed, and attic. After 12 years we had accumulated a lot. Hubby began to collect/acquire tools. Big tools. An air compressor, sander, drill press, welder, just to name a few, in addition to all the typical hand tools. He has a project car that was taken apart before our oldest was born as he slowly taught himself the necessary skills to rebuild it. I began a fabric collection as I had hoped to make dresses for myself, then for the girls. Yarn, plastic canvas amongst other materials and projects. Then the little ones seem to multiple with stuff too. Toys, books, tiny clothes, kitchen items, bathroom items. Oiy. The list goes on.
I came up with a plan. Room by room. Organize and identify what could be donated, sold, or kept -which had two buckets…need when we get to parent’s house and put into storage. Simple enough.
It was April when we came up with the plan to move back to the west, buy an RV and travel the western US as hubby travel nursed and the girls and I homeschooled. All summer long we did this downsizing thing while homeschooling and visit our surely to be missed stomping grounds.
We used these tapes and room labels. Instead of labeling rooms in our new house, I labeled sections of our storage unit. We hired two guys to help us unload the trailer and having these labels really helped the day to be productive and efficient.
We used U-Pack and I thought we wouldn’t need a full trailer, but I was wrong, we used every inch of that trailer and we purchased a utility trailer to haul hubby’s project car, but we loaded that to the hilt too.
In September, our amazing dads came to our rescue. My dad flew to meet up with hubby’s dad, they played a little golf tourney and then hopped into the RV and drove across the country. Oh to be a fly on the wall on that trip. Two men joined together in friendship through the marriage of their children with way more in common than one would expect. And both very talkative, neither of them have ever, ever, ever met a stranger. So the joke to this day is that they didn’t “discover” the radio until they had entered North Carolina.
The plan was that they would help us pack and get the house ready for renters and that it would only be 2-3 weeks, but it ended up being closer to 6 weeks. We had to fly my dad home due to his schedule. But eventually, we all head down the road in caravan fashion. My hubby towing a 28 ft trailer followed by RV towing my Prius (packed pretty full).
They helped us paint, watch the girls, pack, tear down the shed that was built on the driveway, for four weeks until we had to fly my dad back home. I honestly thought we were more packed than we were. I have a tendency to underestimate time. Oops.
Our stuff was loaded on a “U-pack” truck and taken away. Then we finished loading our own utility trailer and cleaning our house so the rental agency could find us some tenants. I think this took another two weeks….like I said, I really underestimate time.
Then the real fun began. The girls, two cats, my Father-in-Law (we like to say Father-in-Love, not “Law”) and I got into the RV following hubby towing our trailer and we drove off into the sunset.
Our youngest sang songs (namely “Born in the USA” and Leap Pad “Punctuation”) over and over again for a 6 day drive.
The important thing is we have memories we’re fond of and we were able to get our house rented and move our belongings across the country to establish a new home.
Domestic Rambler 