Journey with us through the hills and valleys…

We have been living in our RV for one week now. So far, we are all loving it.

We spent the first several nights at Lake Somerville near our hometown. It’s a gorgeous spot, right next to the playground with a great view of the lake.

We started getting used to everyday life in the RV…meals, showering, chores, all the things.

We had probably 200+ gnats come into our RV two nights in a row. We learned to turn our awning light off and to get all 12 of us in more speedily by night 3. We all got a good laugh as I vacuumed all those gnats the first couple nights.

We were very busy tying up many loose ends and getting together with friends and family as we awaited our house closing.

On Monday we closed on the sale of our house. We could not have been more ready or excited. That door closing meant the door to our long awaited dream opening.

Tuesday morning we made one last trip to our storage unit and then we loaded up ourselves, our belongings and our new home. It felt so good to get onto the open road, music blaring, sunglasses on, the truck and RV in my review mirror. It’s what we’ve dreamed about, prayed about, talked and kept talking about and planned for over two years. Not one of us could be seen without a huge smile.

But pause. Let’s backtrack for a minute. I think it’s important to share.

Shortly after our house closing, we found our van battery dead for the second day in a row. Thankfully, it was just the battery and we were able to get the battery replaced that day. Monday night Ryan was feeling awful, which is totally abnormal for him. It had built up for about a week and got to the point we thought he probably should be checked out by a doctor. He went to the ER Monday night and found out he was anemic. We debated leaving on schedule the next morning, but decided to move ahead. After 1 day of iron, Ryan feels like a brand new man and we are both happy we did decide to go ahead on schedule. I share all this because there is no perfect. Traveling or homebound, living in an RV or a house, working 8-5 or owning your own business, having kids or not, being married or not, life brings hardships, pain and trouble. We are not free of the pains and struggles of this life. We ARE going on a great adventure and we are truly so happy to embrace life from a new angle and in a new way, but hills and valleys remain. Ups and downs are a part of everyday life. I plan to share and give you a true account – good, beautiful, sad, bad, funny or hard – of this great adventure as we live it. We’d love for you to journey along with us as we grow through whatever we encounter along the way.