A Home for the Holidays

  Good Morning Lovelies! You'll never believe how crazy last week was. We heard from our insurance adjuster and he told us to get the fifth wheel "dried out" as soon as possible. We started calling around and the mobile techs told us that it would take a while to dry out the underbelly of our rig and it wasn't ideal to have the insulation removed from the kids room, while it dried out . Our weather in Golden last week was mainly a high of 40. This is exactly what we had predicted. While I don't think the damage is too severe, we want it to be taken care of to prevent any warping or rotting of the floor. Meanwhile we can't leave the bottom of the flooring exposed to the outside and expect our kiddos to stay toasty warm....so we're spending Thanksgiving in a house! YAY! Take a moment for a happy dance....
            The fact that we were even able to secure a house this close to Thanksgiving was a miracle. I started looking last Wednesday and the last one I could find on vacation rental by owner was taken that very day. I was trying to stay out of a hotel, because I still wanted to cook and I was really excited about the idea of spreading out for a few days. The insurance told us our housing allowance set in our insurance coverage and said we could use it however we wanted. A friend told me about www.airbnb.com You have to check it out! It's basically a site, where people rent out part or even their whole house to you. So this house is completely furnished and we have it for 2 weeks. You guys, we were so flipping excited. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms ( a bathtub...say what???) laundry inside , a dishwasher...my head was spinning. So we moved in on Friday. We immediately started breaking things (mainly Waylon) ok , just a pantry door and I melted a knife in the dishwasher so far, whoops! Just having space has been amazing. The house has wifi so Wrex has connected his ipod to it and has been face timing family members. Did you know  you could do that? Our wifi in the trailer is expensive, so this is a whole new privilege fore him. He is constantly texting Grandma and walking around the house on facetime. It gives us a glimpse of our future.  Houston is obsessed with the fire pit outside. He really wants to have a bonfire and make smores. Waylon loves the bathtub and tells me that he doesn't take showers anymore. He only takes baths.  I was on the phone with my bestie yesterday  picking apart the house and all of its details. The pictures online are gorgeous and in real life, it actually reminds me of home. It's just those "do it yourself" imperfections that my eyes are so keen on. Just to be in a house, with all of it's imperfections and noises is such a comfort right now . It is fricking windy out there this morning! I have a lot to be thankful for. Today the boys and I are going to drive up to Boulder to fill the freezer with Trader Jo's goodness. Usually we have to be so choosy in what we can fit in our freezer, we plan on going all out. I'm going to bake up a storm this week and enjoy that big kitchen. We have the house for two weeks. I'm pretty confident our trailer will be dry by then. If not....we'll cross that bridge when it comes. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

Here's a few pics of our home for the next 2 weeks...

The Wintertime Blues

     

    Hello my dear readers. Whoever you may be. It always surprises me when I check in behind the scenes and see people have been reading when I haven't been writing. Here's a little secret, I don't write when I can't write honestly. When all I have is complaints, or frustration and I feel like

everything is swallowing me up, I don't write. I make phone calls and I pray. My family and friends that I call, they know the real me . See, I've always wanted to be like Drew Barrymore. She's so free and adventurous and she goes with the flow. Drew Barrymore can make sunshine out of dog poop. I want to be like that. I'm still looking for a fictional character as neurotic as I am, but my old friends once told me I am like Monica from friends. I love order. I love a good plan or itinerary. Give me something to look forward to. I need a meal plan or a lesson plan or a guide. Order gives me peace and it creates new chaos at the same time. I love order but when it doesn't go as planned, Kristina has melt downs. Guess what? Things have not been going as planned. We are so close to the end of my husbands apprenticeship and that should be so exciting. We've all sacrificed for the past three years towards this common goal. What's killing my buzz is that I don't know what comes next. Where do we go, where do we live, can we get out of this God forsaken fifth wheel?     We don't know.   Wintertime comes and  work slows down in this trade and we have to be in a place that there is work.  The suspense is killing me and also making me a lunatic. Here is a glimpse of some of my craziness that I haven't written about.

                                                 --Potty training in a fifth wheel sucks. Poop poop everywhere eww. If I

okay sometimes he uses the big potty but ....ugh!

have to look at that tiny gross toilet any longer.....
--My  car broke down. After I had dropped Waylon off at preschool. Preschool is only 1.5 miles away.  I can handle that right? Y'all, it started to rain and I don't have a jogging stroller. I have a target umbrella stroller. Running and holding an umbrella stroller  in the rain....not a good day.
--We went to the pumpkin patch and my older boys did flips, literally flips down an inflatable slide. They nearly clobbered a class of kindergarteners.  I was so mortified we left without pumpkins.
--We've brought in our truck to the mechanic over 6 times this summer. That darn truck has literally drained our savings.
--This week our water froze on Monday. When our water freezes, for some reason that master bath usually still has water, but the kitchen and boys room don't have water. So to do the dishes, I boil water from the bathroom sink and soak the dishes. After soaking them, I scrub them off and rinse my dishes in the bathroom sink. It's been a long week.  We stayed at home all week. Ian came home from work early Wednesday and chauffeured us around. We had to get groceries and more propane. Other than that we have been on lock down. I don't drive in the snow if I can help it. I don't have 4 wheel drive and getting stuck or in a wreck with the kids is my nightmare. So finally on Friday, we braved the mostly clear roads and went to the movies. Two hours, that's how long I was gone for. The water lines finally thawed, thank you Jesus...but one of the boys had left a sink handle in the on position. They probably went to wash their hands, saw no water coming out of the sink and walked away. When the water came on, it ran and ran, it  filled up the black tank, came up overflowing their bathroom sink and continued to run. There was easily 2 inches of water in their bathroom when we came home from our lovely jaunt in the snow. The carpets were soaked, the water ran into the kitchen that shares a wall with the bathroom. We grabbed all of our towels. we own probably 9 because who has the space in a fifth wheel . After those were soaked, I went and put them in the dryer which takes hours to dry.  I started hyperventilating. After making phone calls to everyone I knew and sobbing, I rented a carpet cleaner. Ian came home and we spent the evening sopping up water in cabinets and in our vents. Our good friends the Duncan's dropped off a dehumidifier that we ran all night long . Then they ordered us a pizza. Our friends are the best.

      So what has been getting me through all this chaos? The good stuff, sprinkled in between. Halloween was a blast and Waylon is still talking about trick or treating. We went to a friends  house that had an amazing neighborhood. We let the older boys run ahead with their friends and Waylon stole the hearts and candy from everyone he met.

  

Wrex turned 12. He has been wanting a Mohawk and really who the heck are you trying to impress when you're homeschooled living in a trailer park, right? So we let him get a Mohawk for his birthday.  We went to lasertag with some of his buddies and he bought himself and ipod touch with his birthday money.


      I ran the rock-n- roll Denver half marathon and all my boys came to cheer me on. That was a great day for me.

Super early in Downtown Denver with my boys before the race

  We have awesome friends. I have a group of girls on Facebook that 's called "trampwives. "We have all lived in trailers at one point or another and encourage each other and listen to each others complaints. We've made great friends here that I can call in an emergency and they come to my aid. I have great friends in California that cant wait for us to come home. I have a supportive family scattered all over the country . What else could I need?

      It feels like the winds are changing for us . Either way changes will be happening in our household. I always have this nagging feeling like I'm doing it all wrong. My kids are going to figure out any moment how clueless I am. My hope is just to be honest with you, maybe you don't have it all figured out either but we can at least be honest with each other, right?