Benefits of Full Time Travel - more time with kids

Ever since the internet got big, I have been receiving heart warming forwards that either make me want to cry, puke, or laugh.  There is always the forward that talks about the person dying in the hospital and wishing they had more time with family.

I am thankful I won't have that problem.  Each day I get to spend hours with my husband and children.  Full time travel has taken our life and magnified it.  We enjoy each other every day.

We don't wait for the one week vacation every year.  There is adventure and excitement around every corner and at every new place we go.

Yet, I feel that everyone can have this life even if not on the road.  Daily we can chose to spend time together and appreciate every day that God has given us.  

I remember my goal being five minutes of undivided attention for each child every day.  It was a moment with them alone to totally focus on them and their needs.  I was with them all day, homeschooling, loving, caring for and doing activities.  Yet, there was something more that I wanted.  I wanted to look in their eyes and show them that I am theirs and care what they have to say.

Now that we don't have as many possessions and activities to do at a house, we have more time to spend together.  Instead of vacuuming for two hours I can vacuum for 15 minutes and spend 1 hr and 45 minutes playing outside with my family.

Instead of mopping the kitchen floor numerous times a week, I can get on the my hands and knees and clean the camper kitchen floor in two minutes.

I have so much more time for my children.  This is time that is more than caring for their needs and teaching them.  I have time to look in their eyes and love them.  I can hold them for half an hour and not feel like it was a huge sacrifice of my time.  They can put on a play or tell me some crazy story and I have no where else I would rather be or need to be.

With so much less "stuff" to tend to, I have so much more to do with my family.

Spending time with the kids is so important to us.
Here we are sledding in the Tusher Mts. of Utah

I am so thankful.

Christmas Clean-Up Should Not Be This Much Fun!

As I was searching through my 80,000+ pictures of our trip today, I came across these fantastic photos of the great fun we had during our first Christmas on the road in

South Florida.

Our Uncle is wild about decorating his home for the holidays and everyone in the entire area benefits.

After he won the community decorating competition he had to take all of the thousands of lights and enormous Christmas balls down.  To wash the balls, he threw them in his pool.  Then, all the kids jumped in and swam among them.

Where else can you do that!

Thanks Uncle Jeremy - You Rock!

Loading up and Heading Out … An Earthquake on Wheels

Loading up and heading out is no easy task. Besides all the work to be done in the camper, my dear husband has to load all of our “toys” onto the flat bed.  It is like a puzzle to put each piece into place and then hook everything securely. 


We have a Kawasaki Mule that sits on the front of the flatbed along with 2 more ATVs, 2 kayaks, bikes, and gear.

We used to have even more “toys”. This part of our trip we left 2 more ATVs behind, 2 kayaks, and most of the bikes.  It was hard to put them in storage and we do miss them terribly. Yet, we find we CAN live without them and it does make it easier to load that flat bed without all of them along.



When traveling my husband likes to say, “Our home goes through a 9.0 earthquake going down the road.” I remember when we lived in California when in the Navy. We learned quickly to keep glass dishes in lower cabinets and not on higher shelves. During one unusually large earthquake all of my wedding present glassware that I kept stored on the top of the fridge came crashing down in the violent shaking.  Now, I can take that knowledge and use it in my constant earthquake in our camper.



Hours are spent getting items secure and locked down. Everything has a place and must be there or it will be everywhere.
It is always scary to open the camper doors after a bumpy ride down some worn out highway. I remember following Shae down a road in Arizona.  It had huge dips in it for miles. I knew that when we opened the doors there would be stuff everywhere. Well, there was. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be but it was still a terrible mess.
The hardest part of leaving an area is saying good bye to friends and family. We had a great stay with my mother and Tom in Missouri. Even though we were only moving to a campground an hour away, my mother stood on her porch and cried. She hated that we had to go and is still counting the days until our return.

How Time Flies in Between Sickness and Travel!

Literally, time sure has gone by fast.  With six kids, home school, and all of the travel, it is hard to find time for much else.  That is not a complaint, just a fact.

January brought one of the most wild times of our trip.  Sorry to say, I am just too tired to write about it all tonight, but I do want to touch on one aspect of the last two months.

It is so easy to get so busy.  Often times, the busyness is not intentional or even our desire.  Busyness can be thrust upon us and not welcome at all.

Such is the last two months.

We spent one month at an amazing ranch in Texas (details later).  But, while there, we had three different sicknesses!  It was terrible.  It seemed that I had at least one to four children at a time with a fever.  Shae and I even got sick with only Hanna to help us all.  Cody was working on the ranch, so he was busy during the day and helped when he could.  Still, it was such a wonderful time with our new friends.

From there, we went to a camp south of Dallas, where the kids got pink eye!  And, on top of that, we were in an ice storm for five days!  Our camper is not made for that!  It was miserable. 

Leaving there, we had to be in another town to visit family.  The kids were almost over pink eye, but not quite.  We told the family they had it and may still be contagious, but the family didn't care.  They just wanted to see us anyways.

Two weeks of driving to their house almost every day for many wonderful hours was great, but are we exhausted!

What a crazy two months! 

Six weeks of it I didn't have decent internet or cell phone!  I felt like I was in the stone age!

Now, we are at a campground with full hook ups, no visiting, only my husband is sick, and cable tv!  Yes, you read it right!  Cable TV!  We sure are spoiled here!  I have great cell signal and ok internet.  What a treat!

Now, we need a break.  It is time to take some time off to catch up on chores and get some kind of order to our lives.

The other day I was so wore out, I sat in my lawn chair and stared at the lake.  I didn't think, move, or talk for an hour.

I can't wait to share some of our adventures since Jan 1st.   I just have to stay awake long enough to write it!

These are a few of my favorite things.....

Watching The Sound of Music sure puts a smile on my face tonight.  Sitting around with my children and husband, enjoying each other's company as well as a classic movie. 

There are many difficult times traveling full time in a camper with six children, one of which is a young adult trying to stretch his wings in 42'! 

Yet, the difficulties that we endure are much fewer than the amazing experiences we enjoy.  Spending the last six weeks with my grandmother have been priceless.  My children spending countless hours with aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends have brought a lot of joy, some pains, and much fun. 

Cousin Eleanor in Montana 

We organized an impromptu family reunion held at a Veteran's Center.  I made some phone calls, emailed, and sent messages on face book.  Many relatives came and we had a wonderful time.  To see so many loved ones visiting, laughing, and telling stories was worth more then my entire home.  To watch my grandmother talk and play with my children, Cody play the Bodran with Uncle Steve playing the penny whistle.  Hanna leading worship at a local youth group.  Naomi talking so pleasantly with anyone of any age.  Tytus running to and fro making everyone giggle.  Gabriel and Josie making friends with cousins.

How can I put things and bricks before this?  Things are not eternal, people are.  I do want a house some day; a place to call home.  But, I will not go so far in debt to buy one that we can no longer afford to travel. 

There have been a few hard times while we were here.  Some family and friends are harder to get along with than others, yet, the Bible says that what kind of Christians are we if we only love those who are easy to love!  I saw some walls break down in some relationships here.  It took six weeks to break them down, but they are down none the less.



Great Grandma reading a book to the kids.



We celebrated Advent in the rental cabin on the lake.

Naomi loved making angels in the snow.



Celebrating Great Grandma's 82nd birthday - priceless.





I had the baby!

Wow! It has been over a month since I have written. So much has happened. I guess I will break it down in sections....

1. YES I HAD THE BABY! He is wonderful. We named him Tytus Shae. He is beautiful and very well mannered. He sleeps well and hardly fusses, thank goodness, since we live in a camper right now! I'll share his birth story with you.

Those of you who know me know that I do not like hospitals or really care for doctor's care. Shae and I have had some very bad experiences in hospitals and just prefer not to go near them. I had my first two children in hospitals, the first at a teaching Navy hospital in San Diego, and the next child in Key West. It was in 94' and there was the Haitian Crisis and scores of boat people were landing on the beaches of Key West. They were quarantined in the local hospital. I went into labor but there was no room for me in the hospital. They put me in a back room where brooms and mops were! Hanna always said she was like Jesus, no room in the inn! Well, there are many more stories of why I do not like to go to hospitals, that I will not bore you with. I had my next three children at home with a state certified midwife. Her name is Lori Link and she works out of Mt Vernon Missouri. She is incredible. My 3rd child weighed 10 pounds and I delivered her naturally at home! Yikes! That was a tough one. I am so glad I had her at home, though. I will tell that whole story another time. My 4th child was a beautiful birth at home. My 5th child was a little tougher than the 4th, but still great at home. No hospital for me, no way! Epidurals, no way! So, when family heard I was having this baby at a hospital, they thought I had gone off the deep end! Sheri in a hospital, what has happened to her? Most family was thrilled I was not having this one at home, but thought it curious and wondered what made me change my mind on home birth. If you have read my earlier posts, you know I possibly had Pregnancy Induced Asthma. I don't know for sure that was it, but the doctor thinks that is what it probably was. I had such a hard pregnancy. It was my hardest. I had two horrible asthma/bronchitis attacks that lasted weeks. After the horrible cough went away, I still couldn't get my breath. It wasn't just the weight of the baby, it was up higher in my chest. I would get a lot of phlegm and have to clear my throat a lot. We decided to go ahead and come back to the Springfield Missouri area, where we are from, to have the baby. We are comfortable here, know the people, and had lots of paperwork and sorting to do anyways. We came back and got settled in with Dr. Brown and Cox Monett Hospital in Monett Missouri. We had to drive 1hr and 20 minutes to the hospital for every appointment. I could not have the baby at a big, unloving, cold hospital. We checked out Monett hospital. I remember walking into it the first time. I was by myself. I just kept thinking, I can't do this, I can not do this! It was so white, unwelcoming, just yuck! I made myself go to the 3rd floor to check out the OB ward. It was nice. The rooms were pretty good. There is a bathtub in each room, with jets, to labor in. You can't deliver in it, though. The equipment was hidden in big brown cabinets. There was a TV with cable. I would labor, deliver, and recover in the same room. The nurses seemed nice enough. I thought, maybe I can do it. I am going to publish this post now, and will write more in the next.....

Working Hard and Grandad

4-17-09 It is amazing what can happen in a short time. I am sorry I haven’t written in the last 2 weeks. We are so busy trying to get things done. We couldn’t find another place to camp that was close and would let us keep our storage trailer there. Our storage trailer is 40’ long and has dry rotted tires. Shae just didn’t feel like it was wise to pull it far, and I trust his judgement, so I don’t get to sort through as much as I had hoped. I got about 5 feet from the front door and 6 feet in the back. I couldn’t find so many things we need. But, to be positive, I did find some things we do need. I am going shopping and will have to buy baby stuff that I couldn’t find. I am also missing some curriculum that I needed the older kids to start. I’ll have to buy that at the curriculum fair. We are hoping to find a 15 passenger van soon. It is hard to find them. We have to get a Chevy. They are safer. If you can believe it, our insurance company won’t cover a Ford! Their wheel base isn’t adjusted for safety issues, also, Chevy has many other safety features that the other don’t. We haven’t been able to find a Chevy we can afford, yet. We hate going back in debt over this thing. So, if some rich person is reading this and feels generous....well....that would be great! Ha Ha Ha! We also are trying to find a covered trailer, about 7’x14’. We found one, but they don’t have the title! Yikes! Baby will be here soon so we just don’t have time to mess around with this stuff!
Some really sad news, Grandad, Bill McClure, has gone on to be with Jesus. Oh how our hearts ache at his loss. We were just there a month and a half ago. He was just finishing up his cancer treatments. He was about 85. Our whole family was so close to him. It breaks our hearts to lose him, but so thankful that he had accepted Jesus into his heart and made Him Lord of his life. We are so blessed to have had him as long as we did.
Another update, I went to the doctor. She wanted to run lots of test on baby to make sure he is ok. She was concerned about the vitality of the placenta and his development since I have not had full lung capacity the whole pregnancy. Well, baby boy is perfect! I knew he was! The only thing we are waiting on is the results of my chest xrays. I find out Monday. I have felt better the last couple days thank the Lord.
I better run, I need to find my bible and do bible study this morning.
Much love,
Sheri