Quite a day...

(I am going to ignore the fact that it has literally been years since I have written here.  Just go with it.)

Today was a day with just about every emotion.

We had a lot planned and it all started off well.  I ran. The kids watched some TV.  John made us pancakes and then went to work out.  The kids played with slime.  I did taxes.

We got ready to go to the funeral home of the mom of a close family friend.

We went to the viewing, where Cortlan cried - not because he had ever met the wonderful woman who had recently passed away (he hadn't), but because he was sad for everyone there.  They had lost someone.  And he was sad at the reminder that death is a part of life.  And him crying - and his very legitimate reasons to do so - made me cry, too.

We stayed for the appropriate length of time, talking to people we hadn't seen in a while, looking at pictures of an 86 year old's honeymoon in Italy, doing our best to provide words when there weren't any.

Then we headed out, because there was a soccer skills training to get to and it was after 3pm and we needed to drive 20-25 minutes home and then have Everly change and get back in the car to drive 30 minutes to soccer that started at 4pm.  Oh - and we had to gather clothes for a semi-formal father-daughter dance that started at 5:30 that was 30 minutes away from soccer.  Soccer was to end at 5pm.

Or so we thought.

Racing to get out the door with enough time to get to soccer on time, we forgot to load the soccer ball into the car.

At 4:03, I get a text.  "Does soccer start at 4:30?"

I checked my confirmation e-mail.  It clearly said 4:00.  I texted another mom.  They had changed the start time.  (Why didn't I get an e-mail?) 

"Well, at least we are just unprepared and not late and unprepared."

So they got there (with plenty of time to spare).  And Ev worked hard at soccer.  And they made it to the dance, though a bit late (and without a selfie, but that is ok). 

And meanwhile, Cortlan and I had our own date.  We went to dinner and then to a Youth Concert Orchestra performance.

And as I sat with my son listening to the beautiful music, thinking of John and Everly at the dance, I couldn't help but to think that despite the ups and downs of the day, life is good.

Time Travelers

Everly: Oh, by the way, the date on the clock in my room is wrong.  It is March 22nd in there.
Cortlan: So wait, you can travel in time in your room?

Outsmarted by a seven year old?

Everly: How many Reece's Pieces can I have [as a snack]?

Me (with a wink):  As many as you are willing to give me.

Everly looked at me, thinking. Clearly, this caused a dilemma (which was kind of the intent): if she took ten, that meant she had to give me ten. But if she only gave me one, that meant she only got one. I was curious as to how she would handle this.

So she thought for a bit. And then, she did something I hadn't even considered.

She handed me the entire bag.

Because she wanted the entire bag.

The Maiden Voyage

So we've got a night in the RV under our belt now.  We wanted to get in a local campground visit prior to any major journey so that if there were issues, they would be short term because we would be headed home soon enough and/or we would be close enough to home that we could bail if necessary.  On May 21, our plan was to depart after soccer and swimming lessons and lunch - around 1pm - and travel the hour or so to the campground to arrive around the 2pm check-in time.

I have done quite a bit of research now on how to equip and pack an RV.  Maybe at some point I will add a post about the process and what we ended up packing, but let me start by saying that I had a few priorities in the process: 

1. Be minimalist.  (I would rather have not enough and need to add then too much and have to figure out what to get rid of.)

2. Try to pack so that things aren't going to shift around during the drive.  (This involved a small fortune of shelf liner.)

3.  Make sure that there are things for the kids to do.

Here are a few lessons that we learned on our maiden voyage:

Lesson 1: Don't be in a hurry.  Our plan was to leave at 1pm.  We were all loaded up and buckled in at 1:30 - not too far off of schedule.  Then the RV wouldn't start.  Not good.  Being that we were all in the RV already, I told the kids we were just going to pretend we are camping - it was pouring anyway, and we were doing exactly what we would be doing at the campground.  So, John worked on figuring out what was going on and getting the battery charged (with me helping the little that I could) and the kids played.  (Item #1 added to the packing list for the future - a battery charger.)  Two hours later, we pulled out.

My view on our way

Lesson 2: Minimalist works, but not everything is unnecessary.   Like a battery charger (see lesson 1).  And leveling blocks.  Leveling blocks are definitely necessary.  In our first spot, we were tilted front to back and side to side.  Everly unbuckled and took her first step after we parked and promptly fell into the table.  Later, we moved to a spot we thought was more level, but was still tilted side to side.  Fortunately, the tilt was such that we rolled into walls instead of out of bed while sleeping.  Unfortunately, the tilt was away from the shower drain, which meant I had to try to kick the water into the drain the entire time that I was showering.

Lesson 3: Be willing to play in the rain.  And cook in the rain.  We spent some time in the RV building puzzles, coloring and playing games, but we did need to get out and we realized that if we didn't go out in the rain, we wouldn't be going out at all.  We also realized that our rain/mud boots were one of our most valued items.  We played in puddles.  We took walks.  We came back and built a fire (bringing dry fire wood and dryer lint to start the fire was key) and cooked mountain pies for dinner in the rain.  We ate under the awning and then made s'mores.

Lesson 4: Have a positive attitude.  The attitude we took for this trip was that it was all experimental.  We needed to get everything figured out and we knew that we didn't know everything yet and that things were bound to go wrong need improved upon.  Things did go wrong.  Like the battery dying and the sink leaking and the shower water being sub-zero temps 38 seconds into the first shower.  But, we laughed and took care of it and got things figured out.  It rained the entire time (have I mentioned that?) but we had fun despite the rain.  We got the RV to make some memories.  Nothing is perfect, but when we look back on it, the memories can be...problems and all.

Onward...

So maybe it is time to bring this blog back to life with phase two of life.  It seems like our kids grew up overnight.  The stories told of fighting over pacifiers and plumbing the car and moving on to Kindergarden sadly seem long gone.  Replacing those musings with stories of social dramas and bad test grades and how the heck do we schedule everything into our lives doesn't appeal to me, and as the kids get older, I feel that their privacy becomes a bit more important.  Not every story needs to be told in a grand way.  We seem to be in an in-between phase; many of the big moments - potty training, learning to ride a bike, entering kindergarten, learning to read - are behind us now.  My parenting goals are broader and perhaps more lofty: try to make it to the teenage years with happy kids that are willing to talk to us and still want to be around us, confident kids that know right from wrong, strong kids that won't buckle to peer pressure, kind and empathetic kids that help others, hard-working kids that...well, you get the picture.  Yes, lofty.  And then once we get to the teenage years, whew...can't even go there yet.

So here we are...still trying to enjoy the moments, but the moments are different and full of new challenges and all kinds of ups and downs.  We are navigating a tricky world with elementary school aged kids and though sometimes the days are so very long, the years are going by so fast.

So partly because we've always said, "Some day..." (and when, exactly, does that day ever come?) and partly because we are ready for some new adventures, some new memories, some new stories, we are starting the next phase in a big way.

We've got a lot to learn and figure out, but we've also got a lot to see and do.  So here goes nothing...

Oh so punny...

So as we had leftover Manwiches from Cortlan's birthday for dinner, he says, "Wouldn't a Manwich be a warlock?"  It took me a second... ;)

The race to bedtime

As we get ready to head back to school after a wonderful break filled with many mornings sleeping in, the threat of no bedtime stories was made to help ensure that bedtime deadlines were met.  With two showers in our house, both kids are able to shower simultaneously.  This night, a race was declared.  At record pace, Cortlan emerged from the bathroom first, to the dismayed cries of Everly, who shouted, "It doesn't count!!  You had two-in-one [shampoo]!!"