#RVofChaos Part I

I don't even know where to start.  On a whim, in February, after drinking some really great wine on a Friday night, we Googled RV rentals.  Fifteen minutes later we had a one-way RV rented for 12 days from Chicago to San Francisco.

The next morning we Googled the miles required for that journey and for a brief moment, we panicked.  A straight drive would be 2,200 miles. Whoa.  The farthest I had ever driven with the kids was to LA...6 hours :) Chicago is pretty far away. But the RV was booked and we were committed. And excited. I checked out about 100 books from the library, including:

• The Complete Idiots Guide to RVing 
• Camping with Kids
• Utah!
• Colorado Camping
• 50 Best Utah Hikes
• Kid's Guide to National Parks
• US State Parks
• etc etc etc

And every night, after the kids went to bed, I would read and plan our journey.  I am known to be less of a planner and more spontaneous in decision making, but sooo thankful I did the pre-planning. This proved to be a very important step in our extended cross-country road trip, especially with the little ones.

So Spring Break rolled around and it was time!  The kids couldn't have been more excited.  We woke up early, bags packed to the absolute fullest, and we headed for the airport to fly to Chicago.  

The first night in Chicago, we stayed at a hotel downtown and glammed it up before starting our camping journey.  The kids took their last bubble bath and we had our last sleep in plush beds for a while.  We went out for Chicago-style pizza for dinner and then took a dip in the pool before bed.

(our favorite hotel activity, jumpin' on the beds...shhhh!)

In the morning, we walked to the West Egg Cafe for breakfast...in the SNOW!  It was snowing! And we were about to start camping...

We stopped by Target on the way to the RV rental center and scooped up the 1,000 things you need to camp that don't fit in airplane luggage (pillows, pots, pans, camp chairs, doormats, charcoal, food...). We checked in, got our brand new 2016 RV and moved in.  It was awesome.  And snowing.

Next up, pulling in to our first campsite on Night #1...

New Year update

January 2015 in a nutshell!  We are preparing to move next weekend, so it's been a crazy topsy turvy 2015 so far...Packing, packing, packing.  A quick update on life as we know it at this very {fleeting} moment:

LUCCA:

Loves..Palace Pets

American Girl

FASHION!!!  Loves to change her clothes and put outfits together.

Dance & Gymnastics

Writing in "cursive" and doodling in notebooks

Reading

Loves setting the table for dinner and making it fancy

Such a caretaker, especially if someone is sick/sad. Very nurturing. Would make a perfect nurse.

Lost her 1st tooth!

JACKSON:

PLANES...still!  All.The.Planes.

Hot Wheels, especially "loopty loops"

Watching My Big, Big Friend on AppleTV

..and "Egg Videos" on YouTube

Anything tech - especially my iPhone

His imagination has taken off and it's so incredible to watch him play.

Adores Lucca.

Keeps having bad dreams about Aliens and Pirate Ships

Asks to have sushi for every meal.

KELSEY:

Very much ready to be set-up in the new house.

Over winter. Ready for summer!

In love with every moment I spend with my family.

Riding my awesome turquoise bike.

Doing T25 workouts, which means I can't walk every other day.

RUSTIN:

Already working on his 2nd freelance project of the new year.

Dominating the market.

Brings me a Peet's coffee every morning.

Runs for fun.  #crazy

Just turned 39!  We celebrated at Hopmonk.

We are healthy, happy, loving each other and loving life.  If Rustin and I could freeze time with the kids being 5 and 3, we would.  We love to tell Lucca she can't turn 6 - but, she's fine with skipping 6 altogether and moving on to 7. Or 8.  This 1st month of the year has been a whirlwind and we are surrounded by boxes everywhere we look, but a fresh start is on the horizon and we can't wait!  

My 2015 is officially starting in February.  And it's gonna be amazing.

December Daily 1

December Daily: A photo a day in December to capture bits and pieces of Christmas magic.  My favorite season! And this year (minus sitting & losing in traffic court today) is off to a good start!  My husband hung the lights on the house!  FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!  Amazing.  Happy wife, happy life.

And Coco? She's happy too and even makes signs about it.  After creating this I Love December sign, she went and invited the neighbors to come look at our beautiful lights.  And they did.  The excitement is in the air!!

38/52

"A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014."

Lucca: being fifteen, sitting on the table, licking every last drop of peanut butter off her plate.

Jackson: laying on my lap at lucca's soccer practice, waiting for his turn to play next.

37/52

WEEK 37. See what I did there? Skipped the whole summer! But jumping back into my weekly photos of my children, even though I still haven't replaced the lens on my "real camera" yet. It's on my wish list and Christmas can't come soon enough!

lucca: giving us daily glimpses of her older self, she is such a breathtaking beauty 

jackson: 100% irresistible! getting longer and leaner by the minute, completely losing his baby look. And jumping off the top of slides if you look away for just one second.

SUMMER 2014

I kinda want to say WHERE DID THE SUMMER GO?   But I actually know exactly where it went.  

Summer 2014 was the best summer I can remember.  One for the books!  Our goal was to make the very most of this, the last summer before having a Kindergartener.  And boy did we ever.  

Rustin took two and a half weeks off in June/July and it was amazing.  Our first summer adventure began with that wonderful trip to Lake Oconee, a kids paradise.

After a week of jet skiing, tubing, boating, watersliding and eating s'mores at the lake, we went to San Diego for a week.  We spent our days at the beach, the pool, Legoland, playing with cousins, eating more smores, and fireworks!

When we got back from our trips, Lucca had ballet camp, which was just magical.  She is such a princess and I could just devour her in that sweet leotard and bun that was required each day.  Not to mention the camp was held at a "castle" too.

Jackson spent a few days at preschool camp that week, which was the first time all summer I had a few hours alone.  Not complaining.

And did I mention the kids had two weeks of swimming lessons?  Lucca completely learned to swim this summer and it's amazing to watch her go!  Especially since last summer she didn't even want to put her face in the water.  So proud of her.  Jackson had fun in his lessons to, although we will be signing him up for several more lessons ;)

In August, we decided to throw all our plans out the window and join Daddy in LA where he was filming a commercial.  I drove (!!) down to LA with the kids by myself, and it was amazing.  These kids are the BEST travelers.  They love adventure.   We stayed at a fancy hotel with a bunch of rock stars and ordered fancy breakfasts all week long.  Lucca was in heaven! While Daddy was working, we spent our time in the hotel pool and wandering about LA, finding ourselves at magical places like the American Girl store and Dylan's Candy Bar, and getting our hair done all fancy at The Grove.  When Daddy wasn't working, we rode bikes at the beach.  And when the kids went to bed, we would order room service and sit out on our patio for late night dinners and drinks.  The whole week was spontaneous and fun and just absolute perfection.

We even headed back down to San Diego for a couple days and went back to Legoland.  What an adventure that was, with 5 little kids and 2 little {brave} mommies.  Perhaps the entire week wasn't all perfection ;)

After we got back home to Marin from our Southern CA road trip, we had a week of zero plans. It was nice and relaxing to sleep in, watch TV, spend hours at the park, go swimming with friends and enjoy the last bits of summer freedom.  We did squeeze in The Fremont Diner, Traintown and the Coppola Pool too :)

Lucca went to Vacation Bible School for the last week of summer and loved it.  It was special to spend the extra alone time with Jackson too.  

See? A good summer, right?  Mission fully accomplished.