Our New Normal

 Our New Normal

In 2020, the world came to a screeching halt. This isn't news to anybody, because it affected everybody.  However, when our world came to a screeching halt, we kind of enjoyed it.  We no longer had commitments to school, concerts, rehearsals, even lessons for a little while.  We enjoyed baking more, playing games more, and just spending time together as a family. We learned that we liked each other. A LOT! It was honestly a fun time for our family. Not that we don't love doing other things and being with other people, but we found that when life slowed down a little, we were a LOT happier.  In May we rented an RV with Dallan's brother and his family and took a trip through Utah and Arizona. This wasn't the first time we had considered full time travel, but it was definitely the first time we saw it as more of a reality than a dream. We really started to see how this could be a true way of living!

I have been homeschooling Matthew, our 11 year old, since 3rd grade, and Lucy and Evelyn only attended school last year the first semester before coming home for non-Covid related reasons. But our oldest was very happy in school, or thought she was. After a month of online school, she thought she'd give our way of homeschooling a try, and she fell in love. This was the missing link, the piece of the puzzle I hadn't figured out yet, that would make full time travel possible!  With kids home, work fully remote, and even oboe lessons done over Zoom, I woke up one morning in September, leaned over to Dallan and said, "Lets go!" And the rest is history.

We bought a 41' 5th wheel trailer, as well as an extended cab Ford F350 at the end of September. We had made commitments for the duration of the school year, including starting a homeschool co-op we loved, community orchestra, callings in church and oboe students, just to name a few, so we knew we needed time before we could go full time. We also knew we needed time because with some research, we quickly found we would need to outfit the trailer to do what we wanted, we would need to practice hauling, packing and working with a trailer so large. I can't tell you how valuable the last 6 months have been for us! Dallan has done some amazing upgrades to the trailer, including building a table that can swap out with a keyboard stand, outfitting new batteries and solar panels to help us stay running off the grid, we had to make some adjustments to beds for the kids and while I don't think Dallan will say he is 100% comfortable towing, I think he does an amazing job and has gotten quite good at it with the practice we've had.

The house. We had planned on renting it out to a short term renter. I wanted to store our belongings in the basement, and rent out the 4 bedroom top half of the house, with the intentions of coming back to it for the fall while our daughter wrestled with the High School team. This was the plan. Funny how plans change, and how we find ourselves having to adjust to what God wants versus what we want. In March, I had every lead on renters fall through, with no promising alternates. Dallan was ready to get a storage unit, rent the whole house out and make it work. But I was so unsettled! My friend asked me very kindly one day, "Have you prayed about whether or not you are supposed to sell or rent it out?" Well, no! I didn't want to sell, so why ask!! However, we humbly fasted and prayed and counseled with God and our kids about whether it would be better to sell the house. We even met with our financial advisor the following day to ask his advice. Every voice, most especially the voice of the Spirit, let us know that selling the house and doing this grand adventure debt free was what our family needed to do. This was such a hard decision for us to make, but also an incredibly peaceful one. I felt on more than one occasion the peaceful reassurance that our family was headed in the right direction and selling the house was the right thing to do. We love our neighborhood and neighbors so much! But we know that God's plan is perfect and that all things will work out so much better when we follow Him. So in faith, we are selling our house. This week!!

We have spent the last month pairing our stuff down. I think I have touched every. single. thing that we own and have decided "keep, trash, sell or pack?" Two and a half runs to DI, selling a garage full worth of things on the internet, filling a 10 x 30 storage unit full of the items valuable to our family, and throwing away SO. MUCH. STUFF that we didn't even know was cluttering our lives! We re-homed all 11 of our chickens and have placed our cat and parakeet with friends and family to care for. This has been no small feat to get ready to live on the road. The kids have been amazing at learning how to let go of items, and learning what is truly important. Their sights are set on the future, on adventure, and on freedom! I have wanted to hit a giant reset button for so long, that the taxing work over the last month or two has been natural, not necessarily easy, but natural. I have been grateful for a reason to purge.

I feel clean, I feel free! I am happy to say we made it out of the driveway and out into wide open spaces yesterday. I feel like a bird that is spreading her wings for the first time ready to take flight. And it is beautiful!!