Oh The Places We've Gone!

Ten years ago we bought a new van! (Well, almost new. I prefer not to buy brand new because I don't like losing $10k plus in the amount of time it takes to drive off of the car lot...but that's a whole other story!) We bought a 2007 Toyota Sienna. Dark red with gray interior. It's been our friend. It's even more than that, it's become part of our family! (this is not our actual van because *if* I took a picture of it when we bought it, it's long gone like 8 phones ago!)

I even made a "states I've been to" map for JUST the van!

Oops! I missed Nebraska! LOL, I know we didn't jump over it. The van is great, but not THAT great!

Yellowstone, Disney World, family visits, visits to friends. We've slept in it (on purpose!). We drove the last baby home from the hospital in it. So many memories.

Do you see those babies?? The ones in the top two pictures are now both taller than me. Lindsay will likely never go on another family vacation with us again.

And my van needs to be replaced. Does that seem significant at all? To anyone else? The van that we ALL went on vacations in will be gone. Replaced by a new one that we haven't all been in.

And I'm dragging my heels because it holds so many memories. I know, I know, I have the memories in me blah blah blah. But 10 years of our family life has happened in that van!

We've decided on another Sienna because it's been such an amazing vehicle (1 trip to the shop in all that time! And that was just recently at 200,000miles.) We probably don't need a van that seats 8 anymore, but it drives like a car. I can park it almost anywhere (unlike the huge SUVs) and tires are much less expensive, as are gas and oil.

It doesn't look quite as shiny as that first picture. Missing a hub cap from a blow out experience, the paint has seen better days. But for some reason, I don't look forward to the shiny new van like I *should*.

So Many Changes!

My dear, humble, little blog. Oh how I have missed you! The last year or so has been such a whirlwind. So much craziness and so many emotions. Momentous occasions and not so momentous ones.

First, I'll start with this.

For years I've been intrigued by tiny living, tiny houses, schoolies, camper life...you name it! I was just so interested in the how! How do you fit all you need in that space? (let me clue you in: with a family, you don't) How do you make a living "on the road"? (well, for us that's the reason we are doing it!) My family insists that I thought I should have one and live in one (a tiny home), but that's not true! I said I would have wanted to if I didn't have a large family! That's different. I just was curious. And they're cute!

Well, now I have one. Not exactly a "tiny house" but really it is. And you don't fit all your needed stuff in it. My poor van drags its behind because of the amount of "stuff" we keep packed in that sucker! I can't wait to share our solution as soon as we get it and get it "done"! My hope is that our "home" won't always look like this:

We have also had a son "graduate" from Boy Scouts to earn his Eagle Rank! And he was only 14!

Our oldest daughter graduated High School!!! (I made it! My first student successfully completed high school and is ROCKING college!!!!)

We sold the home we lived in for almost 12 years.

Which allowed us to pay off a mountain of credit card debt and start fresh! I do not miss that millstone hanging around our necks.

And our oldest daughter is now engaged to be married! To one of her best friends for years! The actual courtship/engagement has been a whirlwind but they've known each other for so many years that a long engagement is just not necessary.

I'm rushing through so many things here in this post that I hope to go back and visit them again. (Like why I'm a fan of young marriage-for some!) I hope to keep up a little better now that we have a new adventure to share about.