200 days down...who knows how many to go?!?!

We have crossed the 200 day mark and loved every minute!  We have had a few challenges to overcome but the Lord have given all of the tools and people necessary to be able to be on this journey and to do His work. 

Don't know if you want to hear about what we did for Thanksgiving and spending time with friends, but I'll tell you anyway...

We have spend more time in Texas that we ever thought we would but we have had such a wonderful time visiting the folks that we came for.  After we left Dallas/ Fort Worth, we headed to San Antonio...a place I said I would never come back to.  Well, I would have missed so much if I wouldn't have come back.  *****A little background...when I was stationed in Grand Forks, ND, I met Holly.  Kelly and I got married and she moved to ND with me and Holly and I let her into our group :)  (Just kidding, there were more people involved in the decision making process!) Then, Holly met Mike and they got married and the memories continue.  We have been stationed together throughout our career. We have been there for births and so many life events.  We pulled up to their house and thought we were going to stay for a night.  Well, we dropped the camper off at the base and got about 3 days worth of stuff for our family.  Well, we finally left them over a week and a half later.  We had to force ourselves to leave because we are going to be leaving San Antonio soon and need to settle back in and get into a routine.  We had such a great time while we were there and the time went by so quickly.  Our families truly (appear to) love each other and the kids did great being kids together.  They did so well, one might have thought they were all brothers and sisters! 

There were other things that we were able to do like crafts, painting, hanging out with their friends, and just plain ol' doing nothing...together.  There was one day when the boys were able to serve a neighbor who needed their lawn cut and went and cut it for them.  Our families had a great time together and the next time we see them, they will have another addition to the family...can't wait to then have 6 kids around!

  

 

We have arrived!

The Princess twins. 
 

 

Heading to church as one big family. 

SLEEPOVER!

 

The girls and Leo chillin' out.

Holly and Kamryn doing their nails. 



Getting ready for our hike...with books and pencils in hand!



While we were there we took a day and went to another Six Flags and had a great time.  The cool thing about this one is that they are open over the holidays so the had it decorated and lit up for Christmas.  They also used the word "Christmas" all over the place...that was nice to see.   We nearly closed the place down and were very pleased with the low wait times...it was too cold for everyone else to be there!  Kamryn has graduated to riding bigger roller coasters and we had a blast watching (and listening to her) on them. 

Six Flags San Antonio...Six Flags #6



Kamryn on her first big roller coaster

These two are a hoot. 

Caleb taking care of his sister and riding with her. 

Zachary slaying a dragon!

My girls on the carousel.

Not a marvelous picture but you get the idea. 

We also took a day and went to the Missions National Park.  There was some really neat history there and the kids earned another Jr Ranger badge.  We learned about how the Spaniards came in the 1700's and built these missions to be temporary places to spread Christianity; the Alamo is one of the Missions.  I know there is much more to it than that but that is my excerpt if you don't want to look up the history.  Also, both families took a day to go on a hike in a state park and the kids earned another State Park.  We got to sing silly songs, throw dirt and rocks, and complain that it was too long...but it was fun!

"Eating out" before we go to Missions NP.

Studying and doing their books. 

Sworn in at Missions NP.

Badge earners!

 

Holly having great patience and doing a craft.

Kamryn and her Thanksgiving craft. 

The girls showing off their crafts.

 

The kids serving a neighbor. 

 

 One of the biggest things we did was a Thanksgiving feast!  We thought that we were done with a feast while we were in DFW with Stacy, but we were blessed enough to have another!  Mike and I cooked all day and the girls took care of the desserts.  You name it...we ate it.  I made "my" green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole (in which the latter is sometimes confused for a dessert!) and Mike brought in his special chicken and dumplin's.  Other than that, we had every other "Thanksgiving" food that were supposed to.  The kids even got into the mix and we had a feast set for a King! 

The boys have begun...

The kids are ready!
 

The spread.



All of the kids ate (and enjoyed) the "inners" of the turkey!

Zachary and his eggs...with Holly zooming by in the background.

I disappeared for a minute to Mike and Holly's bed!  I was just kidding...I'm not asleep!

These two...aye yae yae. 



A little Christmas craft.



Meeting some new friends and heading back to visit with their family at their RV. 

 



We were undecided what to do for a Christmas tree.  We said we would decorate one outside the camper.  Then, we said we would just take a few branches and make a Charlie Brown looking Christmas tree.  Next we said we would buy a little one but that went quickly because of storage (and the crazy things are over $50!).  We ended up making our own out of a round piece of wood, a dowel rod, about 100 nails, fishing line and some personalized stickers from Michaels. Thanks Holly and Mike for the cool idea!  After deciding to do that, we thought that if we made it Christmas, we would have to store it.  So, we ended up making a family centerpiece that displays our love for Christ, camping, and friends.  Then we added some removable presents and ornaments and a piece of white garland...voila!  Our Christmas tree has arrived!




This is our Christmas tree this year.  We made it from some items to include fishing line and made it Christmas like. 





 





Finishing our time here over at the librbay and heading out soon. 

So as we thought we were going to be leaving a few days ago, we have our first sickness.  Kamryn ended up at the Dr for ear infections.  Her allergies got the best of her and we were blessed to be at the base and be able to go in.  The Lord has blessed us with great health and we are so thankful.  So, we stayed a few extra days to make sure that she is good and that no one else ended up with anything...AND...if we would have left, we would have met a few of the people that we have.  There is allot to those meetings and we are also very thankful for them.  We met a single guy whose camper was flooding and I turned off his water (he wasn't there).  This led to allot of great conversation and some meal eating. We have really enjoyed getting to know him.  We also met a couple that we ended up visiting with and their daughter and their kids came over.  Our kids and their kids played all evening and the adults had great conversation.  It was a great evening and it's possible we might have planted a bug for another full time RV'ing/homeschool family :) 

God has a plan...and I remind myself often that it is different than mine. 

 

 

Allot of Texas and a few fine friends.

I have to add a few pictures first of a few folks that we met in Durango, Colorado.  I told the story about them a few weeks ago...we sang to Mr. Michael because it was his birthday.  They were on holiday from Germany and we were blessed enough to meet them. 

 

We met Mr. Michael and got to sing Happy Birthday to him while they were on holiday. 

Our family and Mrs. Silvia while on holiday. 

This is us and our house as taken from Mr. Michael in Durango, Co.

I'll say that this one is going to be short but you know how that goes.  We arrived in Dallas/Fort Worth area and got set up at an Army Corps of Engineer park.  It was a nice place and was huge.  We ended up in the back of the park and we began our adventure.  We called Stacy and told him that we were in town.  He was a bit more than excited and we told him that we would see him in the morning at church. 

We showed up at church that next morning and Stacy had some hugs waiting.  We also saw a few of the other guys that came up and we all shared some stories.  Church was great and we headed out for a Texas style lunch....BBQ!  After that we all went to the park and hung out for a few hours.  Stacy came back to the campground for a few hours and headed out late...only to find out that he was locked in!  He called us and we finally found a "secret" way out and was well.  Throughout the week we got allot done...kind of.  We also had a Thanksgiving dinner at the church and met some great people that knew of our story already.  We had a great evening and we were even able to take a bit of Thanksgiving leftovers...mmmmm.....good.   While we were in Fort Worth we also went to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing; that place was neat!  We weren't able to take anything in to take pictures but we met a few folks and had a great time.  We learned the whole process of money being printed and some pretty cool facts about money throughout it's lifecycle.  There was no badge program or anything but after meeting the lady at the counter and chatting with her, the kids were given a gift of a bag of shredded money...they thought that was neat, especially when she almost chasd them out the door to give it to them!   We also made it to the Stockyards in Fort Worth.  This was the last stop for cattle herders before they met a rough part of the country when herding.  Also, this was a major place to sell their cattle.  It is still a functioning town and still deals with cattle but has been "modernized" a bit.  We walked and found a place that they used to keep the cattle for auction.  We were able to see some beautiful horses, longhorns, and learned a ton of Texas history.   We were walking around and someone joked to our kids, "You want to help?" with the expectation of them not wanting to.  Well, they asked the wrong kids because they moved right in and got dirty.  The guys were amazed and they let them help.  One of the other awesome things we had the chance to do was serve with Stacy at church.  They have a guy's group based on James 1:27 and Zachary and I had a morning serving in the local community and getting some work done for others.  A few of the things that had a chance to do was help move some items, replace a light for someone, clean up some trash, and have some conversation with some great people.

I wondered what the campground was going to be like when we first came in because they had just opened after the flooding that Texas has.  While we were at that campground, we fished, watched deer, hiked, moved spots once, shot the slingshot and BB gun, played baseball, rode bikes, cleaned the truck, and made it to a sporting goods store to find out that I am able to get a no cost annual hunting/fishing license with deer and turkey tags.  Through this we met a wonderful young lady and we had a great conversation.  Now, we are in the works to find a place to be able to go and shoot.  The campground proved to be a great blessing because even though we weren't around many people, the people that were around were a great blessing.  Talking about meeting people...

We met a handful of folks.  Caleb met Mr. Sam and went fishing with him.  He and Caleb brought in a 3 lb and a 5 lb catfish.  Caleb and I also met a few ladies and their horses and got to chat with them for a while.  Kamryn met Mrs. Sherry and had a date to feed the ducks in the evenings.  Zachary kept up the conversation with a few of the other adults that we met and helped everywhere he could.  We also met two couples next to us that turned out to be a great blessing.  One of them was a new full-time RV couple and we had great talks with them about every subject under the sun.  The kids loved playing with their dog and they joined us for s'mores on the last night but more on that in a minute.  The other couple that we met was a local couple that comes to the same park to get a way from time to time.  They were absolutely marvelous and we had great talks about health, relationships, God, church, horses, farming...and on and on.  They were so easy to talk to (and made a mean jalapeño potato salad!) and also introduced us to Miller Brewing Root Beer; we didn't even know it existed and it was good!  The last night that we were there, Stacy came out and we invited everyone over for a fire and s'mores.  Dave also had the guitar out and played and sang some hymns, Kamryn danced (and kept Stacy's lap warm) and the boys told tales of our travels.  We all enjoyed a HOT fire and ate some s'mores.  We had the best time that night talking around the fire and Stacy said that he has found a new lifestyle!  We told Stacy bye that night and talked about the next time we would see each other...he made it out on time too! 

 

 

Hanging out at the park. 

Stacy and his princess.

DUCKS!

The only picture that we were able to get at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. 

...and he thought he was joking when he asked the kids to help...

They stepped right in!

Getting dirty at the Stockyards.

 

 

 

Using the overhead walkway to see the horses and the Longhorns. 

 

 

 

About 8lbs of catfish!  Caleb was excited bringing in the big one.

Fishing with Mr. Stacy.

Kamryn and her new friend Mr. Grasshopper.

 

 

 

Cooking some trout that we caught...but we ate the eyes first.  I know that so many people just said, "Ewwwwwww!" but it was a part of an experience!

 

 

Kamryn and Caleb eating their trout eyes.

Kamryn made Mr Stacy a Thanksgiving gift. 

The kids and Mr. Michael.  They were so glad to see him again. 

 

This is how we look to Kamryn.

Enjoying a root beer compliments from Mr. Bob.

Hanging at the fire with friends. 

The girls were chatting away from the fellas.

Chilling out...literally...it got chilly that night.

Serving by helping to put up a light in someone's home. 

Cleaning up someone's yard in the local community. 

Zachary and Pastor Lee with big smiles. 

We woke up the next morning and said bye to our neighbors before they went to church and we exchanged information so we could contact them the next time through.  We packed up everything and told our other neighbors bye and we headed out.  We went to empty the tanks and headed to
San Antonio...a place that I had previously (year's ago) said I would never go back to.

We finally arrived in San Antonio at our friend's house.  I say "finally" because every person on the highway tried to either hit us or run us off of the road.  These are two folks that have been a great part of our lives.  We met them years ago in Grand Forks, North Dakota and they "followed" us to many of our bases while we were in the Air Force.  We have been together right after babies were born, done some crazy things together, and helped each other do just about everything; Holly was even a part of my retirement ceremony.  We parked the camper in front of the house for the night (oops...that's a no-no) and took it out to the base the next morning until we sleep in it again.  We also went back to see the old dorms where our Air Force time started in Basic Training.  We have had such a great time and have enjoyed being here.  (We have enjoyed it and I guess they have also, they haven't kicked us out yet).    We have had a great time reminiscing, laughing, cooking, and watching the kids play together.  We have been greatly blessed by being here and love them more every minute.

Goofing off like old times!

It is so cool to see how much fun the girls are having together. 

A little s'mores over a fire with some of the neighbors. 

SLEEPOVER!

Kamryn and Mrs. Holly (and the baby) doing their nails. 

While we were here, we also went to San Antonio Missions National Park.  We received a great tour and had a great conversation with Miguel, the tour guide.  We asked him numerous questions after the tour and got to hear allot of extra information.  The kids completed their workbooks and earned yet another Jr Ranger badge.

Eating lunch "out" before we went to the Missions National Park.

Working on the Jr Ranger book.

Enjoying our tour. 

One of the only original walls from the 1700's.  Caleb finds it so interesting that he is able to see original items when we visit the Parks. 

Being sworn in as Jr Rangers.

Another one down...we thing this might be #36...haven't counted in a bit.

We will stay around here for a couple of weeks as we figure out where we are heading to next...New Mexico or Gulf Coast.  We are praying about opportunities to serve, watching the weather, and enjoying friends/family.  For now, we are enjoying this loving family, this area, and having a blast.