I'm an army wife, working mom of 2 kids.! My husband Tim is a Soldier In the army. I work for MWR for the Community Recreation Division as an admin assistant...I absolutely LOVE my job I couldn't have found anything better! My daughter, Kennedie, was born in January of 04 and our son, Cale, was born June of 09. Kennedie is VERY involved in dancing, she is in her 11th season (2019-2020) of being a competitive dancer. It's exhausting but we LOVE it. Cale is starting to REALLY get into sports. He is on a year round wrestling team, and he plays baseball in the spring! This blog started out as a recipe sharing venture but now it's going to turn into a more "granola" way to live. Cheap recipes more homemade recipes and re-purposing things. I'm a crafter at heart so I'm going to throw some of that in there too! On Valentines Day of 2017 we bought our first Travel Trailer. I'll be documenting our travels also on this blog!
This is our 3rd and final full day in Crystal River, FL.
Woke up and made breakfast again. I should note - last year our propane in the bottles ran out in the middle of a camp stay. Thankfully we always had the electric skillet so it wasn't an issue. This year because our skillet was so old and not as "non stick" as it used to be - we bought a single burner for cooking. It frees up a lot of space not having to move everything off the cook top every time we want to cook. We can even cook outside if we wanted to.
Cale woke up and then decided to steal my spot and go right back to sleep!
Our plan was to drive an hour to go to Weeki Wachee state park. Kennedie is locking the bikes back up.
WOOHOO got to Weeki Wachee just as it opened!
We started to turn into the parking lot and realized the line was ridiculous long!! So we stopped into this CVS and tried to come up with a new plan. We asked the guy at the counter what his suggestion was and he said to go to Rogers Park which was just up to the road. So we headed that way!
Rogers Park has a small swimming area that's roped off but mostly it is a lazy type river. We found a place across the way that was renting Kayaks and things. We walked over and noted we SHOULD have had a reservation. Thankfully they had some stand up paddleboards that we all could rent. So off we went and stayed on the river for about an hour and a half. We paddled upstream at first.
Tim's way more proficient at paddling so he got to places to stop quicker as I was in the back of the group with Cale.
She was happy should could finally get in the water!
Another sandbar break!
On our way farther up the stream Cale was tired from all his paddling, so he hitched a ride with dad.
I snapped this on our way to dinner but you can see how the river winds around. There were a TON of houses right on the river. Some of them were dilapidated and some were MANSIONS!!
We found a place called Zig Zag Scallop to eat lunch. It was DELICIOUS!! Hands down best scallops I have had in a LONG time.
Tim had shrimp taco's. He said they were also delicious!
Rain looked like it was coming in so we decided to eat inside.
Glad we did because we got dumped on and it wasn't letting up!
Back in the trailer and Cale was helping get all the stuff that got wet in the rain dry, so we could put it away! We went to see Toy Story 4 at the local movie theater. Which is in a mall that is mostly closed down. I think the theater is the only reason that place is still open on the level that it is. After the movie we hung out in the camper until we left the next morning! We loved the campground we were in - I'll post pictures of it in another post!
We had a SUPER busy weekend! BUT it kicked off summer vacation! Dance is done for the summer so my nights are free - Kids are going into their 2nd week out of school and we have weekends to OURSELVES!!! I'm not going to know how to act!!!
We'll start with Thursday:
Tim and his team got awards for their work for the 2019 Lacerda Cup Combatives Championship. I left work about 15 minutes early to get there and see it.
Friday:
I went to work for half of the day, then came home to pack up the costumes to go to dress rehearsal
Jesse showed up to surprise Kennedie. His mom owns a studio and their dress rehearsal was on our recital night so they came to watch our dress rehearsal. She was so excited to see her BFF.
Just some pictures from dress rehearsal. I really try to watch her dance on recital night and enjoy the moment, so I don't typically take pictures of her dancing the night of.
Saturday:
Cale had a baseball tournament at noon.
The umpire is a dance brother that has known Cale since he was born he just graduated the same high school Kennedie goes to. It fun to see dance brothers meet on their own turn.
He scored two of the 14 runs our team had.
We won 14-9! They were so proud of themselves!! They advance to a Monday night game!
At the end of each game they win their coach does a fortnite dance. This day I think it was "orange crush".
Baseball mom in the AM - dance mom in the PM.
After recital in her 70's finale costume.
Kennedie with some of her instructors!!
Sunday:
No pictures but just imagine me laying on the couch for most of the day. I did run and make a sam's club run and dropped some clothes off to Clothes Mentor but that was the extent of my venturing off the couch!
We celebrated our anniversary by going to Longhorn steakhouse Friday night.
The kids were out of school Friday, and Tim was off. So he took them to his gym and to lunch. They showed up at work with these pretty things for my present. He let the kids pick them out too. So nice!
Tim excited for his steak.
I had the cheesy garlic Parmesan chicken. It was SO good!!!
Saturday morning I finished packing up the trailer. I had to put back in all the essentials that we normally don't have to take out until the end of the season!
Tim took the kids back to the gym Saturday morning, then I swung by and picked them up to go see Aladdin!! It was a great movie with a GREAT soundtrack!
Saturday evening we had family dinner with the Ohana. The oldest "niece" is going off to the air force so we all gathered for a send off. I normally just give cash for these events, but I was DETERMINED to give her a lei like everyone else. But decided to make a bracelet because I need to be a little different. :) everyone loved it!
Sunday Morning:
We backed the truck up to the trailer and pulled out for Blue Springs State Park near Clio, AL.
I'm not sure why he decides to wear his joggers or some form of sweat pants ANY day in the summer.
We packed the kids new bikes and the dog in the back of the truck and off we went!
He didn't sleep well the night before. He was a TAD grouchy on the short drive.
I made him stop so I could use the bathroom - and I got him a snack because I needed his mood to perk up!
Crossing over to Alabama. This is the Chattahoochee River.
MADE IT! 745 Alabama time.
We found one of the only spots available at 8am and got everything set up. Loaded the truck to go to the water!
It was in the weirdest spot - we've never had to drive straight in on a circle. There was four spots up where we were. Two of the trailers were there permanently.
A little Keto snack at the water!
Kennedie already drawing! Mason taking a snooze!
Listening to my Audio-book!
1045 and there weren't a lot of people there.
Getting the grill ready!
I forgot to bring a spoon down for the beans - so he army'ed one out of tin foil!!
It was getting hot and Mason kept moving around to find more shade!
You know when you just wanna punch out your spouse? We laughed at this picture! He even offered to cover my double chin with his fist!
We cooled off in the trailer for a bit. We had a slight problem, we somehow got hooked up to a 20 amp site, we have a 30 amp trailer. We kept tripping the breaker until we realized. If we wanted to keep the air going we had to put it on auto and at 74 degrees, and all the interior lights had to be out. I was worried for when we wanted to pop popcorn and watch a movie later. It ended up not being an issue and we just had to be very careful with what we turned on. But once we realized the problem it didn't trip again!
He was cracking me up - even in a small 22ft trailer he can find a way to hide and be by himself!
It started to cool off a bit outside as the sun was going down and we had some good shade in our neck of the woods. So the kids got their new bikes out for a spin!
We got the kids new bikes because they are old enough to ride the mile and a half to the library this summer to enjoy the summer reading program activities. They haven't had bikes in 3 years since we live down a dirt road and they weren't old enough to bike anywhere alone yet. But now that Kennedie is 15 and Cale will be 10 next weekend we are confident they will be OK by themselves in our small town.
Because they haven't had bikes in 3 years Cale was 6 when he had his last bike and it had training wheels. So he had to learn how to ride! He did great within an hour or so he was pretty good at it!
Popped some popcorn and popped in a movie.
Tim wanted to listen to music - so he had to borrow my ear buds. I thought it was funny he was wearing gold and pink Lilly earbuds!
Cale had a little wipe out while riding his bike.
Enjoying the night.
We also didn't get a fire ring with our spot - so we made s'mores in the griddle.
Kennedie said they tasted great! She went back inside a little while later and made more all by herself and she was proud.
Round two of popcorn.
Round two of s'mores. He just likes the marshmallows and graham crackers.
Tim fell asleep before the rest of us - sent Cale in while we were putting up the stuff from outside. Joker stole my spot on the bed.
Monday Morning:
This was our area - at noon the day before we saw that our favorite spot #20 was available. We were SO close to moving - but we stayed - there was no traffic up here at the top of the campground and it was nice when Cale was learning how to ride his bike.
Making breakfast.
Cleaning up the camper and getting everything ready to leave. We decided to go dump the tanks first thing before there was a line like there was last holiday weekend.
Because of the angle of our trailer we had to angle the truck to the hitch. One try and we were good to go - I was pretty proud of myself for guiding him back at an angle.
I think I have a sunscreen problem. We take sun protection seriously! Clearly these always go to the bottom of the bag and I don't check before I drop another one in.
We didn't get "our spot" Monday morning, so we were in another spot. We headed out once it started to get filled up in the water.
I hope everyone's holiday weekend was fun and full of thankfulness of the lives that were lost for our freedom!
