House Sold! Let’s Get on the Road

Nick and I have talked about selling our home for the last year but it always just seemed like a lot of work AND boy were we right. We made the decision and within 2 weeks we had the house listed and within 1 more week we had an offer on it. What a whirlwind.

While this was all going on we needed to find our new Rig (at least that’s what they seem to call it in the States) We have some experience travelling around and living in a few different types of units but they have only ever housed Nick and I. Now we need to fit the kids and 2 – 100lbs dogs. Go big, or go home is apparently the lesson book we read before we went shopping!

For anyone that’s interested…..and likely not many (feel free to skip ahead;) We went with a 38′ 5th wheel trailer with 4 slide outs and a 4 season package. It’s a 2012 Avalanche and has a great design that works for us – especially living in it. I would NOT call this camping, not in the least. Believe me, we are not roughing it at all – which embarrasses me and makes me thankful all at the same time;) We happened to have the right truck available through Versys to pull it (Denali GMC 3500 – whatever the heck that means).

Getting ready to hit the Road for me means Groceries, ‘Road Trip Surprises’ and Back Stretches so I can get limber enough to hand bomb all of the above mentioned things back to the kiddos. It was a lot easier knowing that we had the trailer full of goodies to fall back on.

Yay!! We are loaded up and are hitting the open road and it looks like we are all grumpy and stressed, perfect!! Lots of Changes and we need to find our groove, C’mon Willards – Lets Rally!!! Tension broke as we were explaining to the kids that we were going to try and make it to Regina that night – Lily kept giggling to herself and repeated, Gyna, Gyna – hehe!!! Like, how at 3, does she know that everyone that has ever travelled to Regina has thought the exact same thing;)

Okay, Okay, I know what you’re thinking – Regina, isn’t that a tad ambitious?? Yes, absolutely Yes!! We made it to Saskatoon, haha and it was a glorious stop. If you are ever in the area please check out The Painted Rock Campsite!! 5 Stars for unbelievable customer service. The Owner has 4 kids and Jake and Lily burned off a lot of pent up Road Trip Steam with them. Very Cute to see them make Friends!!!

Our next stop was going to be around Winnipeg But we decided to stop in to Visit some Versys Guys that were on site around Gretna, MB. We were unprepared for what was next which was 39C and Gusts of 100km/hour winds…eek!!! What an intense combination. Nick spent 2 days on site and we ended up camping at a lake in Morden. It was beautiful and lovely to be so close to the water on such a hot stretch. The kids are obsessed with swimming (which is generally just wadding in the water;). I’m not a water person so it makes me uneasy and usually in the past I’ve spent a lot of time trying to unintentionally drown Nick (yet he’s stuck around!!)

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The Versys guys were great and spent some of their limited time off at our campsite for a BBQ. After a hot, grimy, windy day we ate and visited and had an awesome time. Gunner ended up escaping from the RV and sent Nick on a long fast sprint to recover the runaway beast. He ended up in a danky water hole where Nick and Terry ended up wrangling him in. Typical Gunner!!!!

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I also had my first ‘real’ stressful parenting moment. Nick took the truck to site, I was alone with the kids and I took them and the dogs for a walk. Along the way I noticed that Lily kept trying to pick her nose. When we got back to the trailer she started to panic a bit and told me she had a rock in her nose!!! I looked and sure enough, there it was!! AND then it was it gone. It went straight up……PANIC, PANIC…oh ya, I’m the Mom….CALM, CALM right!! Long story short – I googled it and it suggested to do a ‘Mothers Kiss’ You close the open nostril and blow into the child’s mouth and Wammmo!!! The Rock launched across the room and all was right in the world. Phew!!! Crisis and hospital visit averted!!!

Since we left on this adventure, Nick and I spend a lot of our evenings reminiscing about all of our travels, especially Australia. What an impressionable time for us, its been 13 years since we’ve been to Australia and I can honestly say that it still comes up in weekly conversations. We know that this trip will be the same in that regard and imagine ourselves chatting about the impact this current trip will have on our future!!

Back on the Road, we crossed the boarder and stopped in at the ‘Super Target’ in Grand Forks and take it from me, it is SUPER!!! It was still hot and we didn’t want to leave the dogs too long in the heat so Nick rigged up a system to keep the generator going while we shop to keep the dogs cool and comfortable!!

The kids LOVE riding their bikes, its Jakes new purpose!! His favourite new saying is ‘Hey mom, Can we just go for a bike ride or something like that?’ If you follow that question up with anything besides a bike ride….its like he didn’t hear you;) Its so very cute!!

We made it to Minnesota last weekend and instead of heading straight to Duluth we decided to stop at one of the 10,000 lakes that they have!! Nice weather, a lake and a great place to camp – Wonderful combination. The kids swam, Lloyd swam and Nick even got coaxed into the water……..Lloyd grabbed onto a Buoy that was still attached (like most are;) and he kept trying to bring it in;);) It was like he was on a treadmill and was totally focused on the job. He’s aged a bit and was starting to tire himself out but refused to let go!! Nick went swimming to bring him in!! It’s a great Video, I’ll try to load it

We have made it to Duluth and have been able to settle into a bit of a routine!!! More to come soon:) Thanks for reading our very boring (I’m sure) life events!!!!!