In an effort to try and make this blog really confusing, I’m posting the final video of last years vacation on the heels of finishing up our 2010 vacation journal.  Did that make sense? In other words, this video footage was taken over a year ago.

The end of this trip was mostly driving down the coast.  By which I mean, we drove on bridges and islands all the way down from Ocean City, Maryland to Charleston, North Carolina.  In fact, we even drove the RV onto a ferry when there were no roads available. As much as I would like to say I supported the ferry decision, I spent the entire time second-guessing my husband’s sense of adventure.  It wasn’t until we were off the boat that I finally admitted that it was a good idea.

We stopped by Kittyhawk and saw the place where the Wright Brothers flew the first plane.  If you’ve never been, Kittyhawk is basically a grassy field with a plaque and some geese.  It was worth a stop because we were driving right through the town, and it’s a piece of American history.  But don’t plan a trip around it.

We ended the vacation with a stop in Charleston, and although it’s been over a year since we were there, I just remember it being really hot.  One of the air conditioner units decided to crap out on the last couple of days of the trip, and we sweated A LOT.

On a completely unrelated note, I can’t believe how little Roarkie looks while I’m holding him as we swing.  Wow!  So much can change in a year.  I am so thankful to have a husband that preserves our family memories in these videos.   They are priceless to me and one of my most treasured possessions.
Enjoy!

This trip is different from last year.  I mean, it’s the same family and same RV, but entirely different kind of trip.  Last year we spent a good part of the time on the road, seeing the sights from America’s highways.  In other words, there was A LOT of driving.  Coincidentally, there was also a lot of screaming from our precious son who did not appreciate sitting in a car seat for that amount of time.  So in the interest of keeping our family together and not leaving Roark somewhere in Tennessee, we decided to make this trip more about the locations rather than the road, which is nice because we get to hang our hats (or park our rig) in a spot for more than one night at a time.

 We spent the first several nights in Natural Springs, Virginia.  I know I’ve already told you about all there is to do when it’s raining, but when the weather’s cooperative, the fun really begins. 

 The first thing on our to-do list was the Virginia Safari Park.  And as much as I would like to tell you that this stop was completely for the kids that would only be a half truth.  I really planned this with myself in mind and thought the kids wouldn’t mind tagging along. 

 The only thing I knew about safari parks before last Wednesday was what I had learned from watching clips on America’s Funniest Home Videos.  I always thought it looked like a good time and something I needed to experience someday.  I was not disappointed.

 When we first arrived, we visited their walk-thru area which was kind of like a small zoo.  I was really impressed with the amount of animals that were just in this part including tigers, giraffes, and monkeys.  The animal habitats were so nice, but yet you could actually see the animals.  I’ve always defended the Birmingham Zoo, but maybe everyone is right.  Maybe it really is kind of crummy.

 On a side note, I will now start referring to Roarkie’s hair color as “straw colored blonde.”  As he was standing next to one of the pens watching goats eat some hay, a camel came up and tried to eat his hair.  Ken was rolling the camera, but dropped it in response to my yelling that a camel was eating Roark’s head.  I feel pretty sure that we could have made an appearance on AFV ourselves had the camera still been rolling.

 Anyway, the highlight of the walk-thru area was the kangaroo walk-about.  The sign on the fence literally said, “Please step over sleeping kangaroos.”  We actually got to pet a kangaroo that was lying in the middle of the trail.  Some of them were a bit skittish, but I would probably run too if I were a kangaroo and saw two little kids running up to me with their hands out.

 After we had seen everything in the walk-thru area, it was time to begin the real fun.  We loaded back into the car. (No, we didn’t try this in the motor home.)  Ken drove while Edie sat in the passenger seat, and I sat behind her in the back with Roarkie.   We had four buckets of feed. 

 We didn’t even get through the gate before a pack of llamas were at our car windows.  In fact, several were standing in front of the car, making it impossible to drive.  We eventually inched our way through the gate, and I had my bucket out the window ready for action.  Within the first couple of minutes, we had llamas sticking their heads in the car, trying to get the buckets.  Ken and I were laughing hysterically.  Edie was screaming as she crouched down in the floorboard, and Roarkie was telling them to get “OUT!”

 I must admit, the ostriches freaked me out.  They pecked at my bucket with force and then threw their heads back to swallow the mouthful of feed in one gulp.   Something about it was unsettling.  I guess because I had a birds eye view (pun intended), and I quickly decided that I was going to stay away from them.  

 The camels were definitely the most aggressive which is probably why they were behind a fence.  We were about to pass them by without feeding them until I decided to give it a try.  The sign on the fence said, “Careful.  We steal buckets.”  I now have a bruise on my arm the size of a half dollar that can attest to the sign’s truthfulness. 

 That camel nearly pulled my arm out of socket trying to wrestle that bucket out of my hand.  I finally relinquished it when my arm got penned in the window that was only half-way down.  The whole spectacle was only about seven seconds and ended with me howling in the back seat, holding my arm.  I’m sad to say, I let the camel beat me, but he had an advantage.  He was willing to resort to physical pain, and I wasn’t.

 So from there, we wound around through more pastures and fields, feeding different types of elk and deer.  Edie eventually worked up the nerve to hang out the window and hold her bucket out.  I nicknamed her the “Feed Nazi” because she would let a deer get a bite of food, and then quickly shoo him away while saying, “That’s enough for you!” 

 Since Ken’s window didn’t roll down, he played tricks on the animals by placing buckets of food on the dashboard.  The animals would hang across the windshield and drool as we all laughed.   (Don’t worry, Dad.  We’ll wash the car before we bring it back to you.)

 By the end of our safari adventure, we had four empty buckets, one wound, and some great memories.   Later that night, Ken and I watched the video footage and were still laughing at the spectacle of it all. 

 The next day, we toured the Natural Bridge of Natural Bridge, Virginia, and in a nut shell, it’s just another tourist trap.  It was cool to see where George Washington had carved his initials in the side of the rock while he was surveying in his pre-military days, but honestly, we didn’t even know that was what it was until we went through the second-rate wax museum (admission included with our ticket).  Natural Bridge wasn’t really worth the stop, but it was forgotten because the Safari Park was so much fun.

I’m worn out from pushing a stroller all day.  I spent the afternoon wrangling kids in a gift shop, and I paid way too much for a mediocre lunch.  It can only mean one thing: the McKibben’s are on vacation!

 I have now learned from experience that every vacation we take in the future we will be departing on a Saturday.  My original plan was to leave on Tuesday, but as soon as Ken got off work on Friday, he put his vacation shorts on, dug his flip flops out of the closet, and said, “Let’s go!”  I spent the next day and a half slinging clothes into laundry baskets and shuttling stuff between our house and the motor home.  I didn’t stop for 18 hours straight, but I turned three days of packing into one.  We finally pulled out of the driveway on Sunday afternoon, and it was a good thing because after all that packing, I really needed a vacation.

 Our first destination was to Natural Bridge, Virginia, or to be more precise, Jellystone Park in Natural Bridge, Virginia.  The internet made it look like a kid’s paradise and the best campground in the world, but from what I can tell, it’s basically a normal campground with a slash pad, inflatable bouncing pad, and Yogi Bear’s picture plastered on anything that will stand still.

 However, as far as Edie’s concerned, it is, in fact, the best campground in the world.  She is especially a fan of the times Yogi Bear himself has come by our campsite for a hug.  Two days ago, she’d never even heard of him, but I guess she thinks he must be pretty famous since she’s been seeing his picture everywhere lately.

 There is a fair amount to do in this little area provided you have good weather.  I can say for a fact that there is absolutely NOTHING to do here if you don’t.  In hindsight, I might not have busted my butt to get us out of the house early if I had known that we would just be spending the extra day cooped up in the RV due to rain.

 It started raining first thing in the morning while we were saying the pledge of allegiance with Yogi Bear.  We immediately began searching the internet for something to do indoors since all of our planned activities needed sunshine and quickly realized that we were grasping at straws.  Our first day of vacation consisted of lunch at Burger King, and a stop by Radio Shack and the Dollar Store. 

 By evening the rain had not let up.  So onto the next plan:  the movies.  However, even that seemed somewhat impossible.  According to Fandango, the nearest movie theater was over an hour away.  I kept searching and coming up with nothing.  I could feel the RV walls moving in on me.  Edie was whiney.  Roark was getting into everything, and I was quickly losing it.  I told Ken, “I don’t care what we do, but we’ve got to get out of this RV!”

 So Ken set down in front of the computer and began to work his magic.  Five minutes later, he was telling everyone to get their shoes on.  He had found a little theater showing the Beesus and Ramona movie about fifteen minutes away, and it was starting in ten minutes. 

 I can’t imagine a more perfect movie theater for our purpose.  First, when I was buying our tickets, the young girl behind the counter told me that Tuesday was “Family Night,” so right there I could feel our luck changing.  Second, we were the only people there, and I mean, in the ENTIRE theater.  As in, we were the only people that patronized the establishment that whole evening.  This was great because Roark could run the aisles once he was bored with the movie and no one would care.  They actually waited until we took our seats to begin the show.

 Now to really appreciate this scene, you have to remember what we do for a living.  Ken has worked in some of the finest movie theaters in the country, and we are proud to boast that some of them are even our clients.  So when a third of the movie was being projected onto the curtains and there wasn’t even a sub in the speakers, we just looked at each other and laughed.  We drove nine hours to watch Ramona Quimby in a two bit theater.  The scene was priceless. 

 It was really a cute movie.  I had secretly wanted to see it since Beverly Cleary was one of my favorite children’s authors.  So it worked out because I didn’t really see Ken allowing me to add it to our Netflix queue.  There were even several funny parts where we all laughed out loud.  But the best moment was when the train went by outside and was so loud I thought the stained ceiling tiles were going to fall down on our heads. 

 We all had popcorn for dinner and bladder-busting-sized cokes, and during the credits, the kids and I danced in the aisles just because we could.   Once again, Daddy saved the day, and whenever I think of that movie, I will always remember that night in Virginia where we got to enjoy our own private showing.

After driving almost 1,000 miles and listening to Roark fuss for about 750 of them, we finally arrived at one of the biggest waterfalls on earth.  That’s right, Niagara Falls.  We actually stayed in northern New York because we didn’t want to drive the motorhome over the border.  Oh I’m sure real RVer’s do it all the time, but for this trip, that was not on the agenda.  After all, putting on a Maid of the Mist poncho in that wind was enough of a feat for one day without inviting customs in to tour our motel on wheels.

In rained most of the morning, so we were RV bound for a good part of the day, but eventually the sun came out.  And so did we.  Since we towed a car, we were able to drive into Canada in the afternoon and spent the evening in one of the biggest tourist traps known to man.  To read more about our day at the falls, go here.  To watch a video of our day…well, you know what to do.  Enjoy!

Well, it’s time for another video!  I know you have been waiting all week to see footage of the next stop on our cross-country adventure.  Well, wait no longer!  When we last left off, we were leaving our friends’ in Floyds Knobs, Indiana and heading further north.  Our ultimate destination was Niagara Falls, but we had one more stop along the way before we reached that goal. We traveled through Ohio’s Amish country, even made of couple of wrong turns along the way, but we eventually arrived at our landing spot for the evening-Berlin, Ohio, or more importantly, the Holmes County Fair complete with pigs, carousels, and funnel cakes.

Again, to read the vacation journal regarding our evening with tractor pulls and livestock, go here.  Otherwise, enjoy the show!

There have only been two times in our marriage when Ken and I couldn’t come to an agreement over an issue.  And before you start thinking I must just live in a blissful marriage where it’s sunshine and roses all the time, I’m not talking about deciding between Burger King or Wendy’s for dinner.  I mean, the BIG decisions, as in life changing, and in these times, after hours of discussion, each of us dug in our heels and wouldn’t budge.

So as a result, there have only been two times in our marriage, I’ve had to come before God and ask him to change mine or my husband’s heart.  Roark is proof that God eventually won Ken over on one of the issues, and the fact that I am currently teaching Edie to read is proof that He changed my heart on the other.

From the beginning, Ken has been an advocate for home-schooling.  At first, I was completely against it.   We would have many discussions where I listened to him defend this method of teaching, but in the end, I still had the thought, “It will be a cold day in hell before I home-school our kids.”  Don’t worry though.  I don’t remember actually ever saying that to him because that would have definitely taken the argument to the next level.  I am able to show some restraint in a heated discussion, but between you and me, I definitely remember thinking it a time or two.

I was secretly hoping that eventually he would just come around and see things my way because that’s what marriage is…him compromising for me, right?  But we would never reach a decision, and the issue just hung out there, floating in space with no resolution.

One of the hurdles I had a hard time getting over at the time was that we were talking about children that hadn’t even been born yet.    We were arguing over their schooling, and I didn’t even know their names.  So it was hard for me to even picture what the life of a home-schooling family would look like.  We weren’t even a family ourselves yet.

Well, fast forward about three years when Edie entered our lives, and now home-schooling had a face I could put with the idea.  I slowly felt God beginning to melt my heart.  As I held that sweet baby in my arms, I would cry when I thought about her growing up.  She was only a couple of months old, and she was changing so fast.  I wanted to hold onto that time of our lives forever.  I desperately wanted time to freeze  right there because the thought of her one day being grown and gone was too much to bear.

God’s timing is perfect because it was at this time, a friend recommended a book, So You Are Thinking About Home-Schooling? by Lisa Whelchel.  In this book, fifteen different families discuss their home-schooling experience.  Every chapter is written by a different mother talking about what their home-schooling day looks like and why they chose this for their kids.  Their reasons varied as much as their methods, but there was one mother in particular that really spoke to me.

I don’t remember her name, but I do remember something she said.  I can’t quote it word for word, but the gist of it was “I only get eighteen years to live with these children before they are grown, and I want every minute of it.  If they went to school, they would be gone thirty-five hours a week!  I would be jealous that their teachers get all that time with them and that I would be missing out on those moments.”  That made so much sense to me.

As I read that chapter, I thought, “She’s right!  I want that time with MY child too!  I don’t want to give it to someone else.”  That was the moment God answered my prayer and changed my position on home-schooling.

Over the last four years, I’ve gone from being just okay with the idea of home-schooling to becoming an advocate for it.  To all the teachers out there, in no way do I want to diminish what you do.  I hope and pray that you have a calling to teach young minds and that you do it with a passion.  However, I like the idea that my kids only have to share their teacher’s attention with siblings and not twenty-nine other school children.  I have to believe that a home-schooling education would be better based on that fact alone.  I think any kid would benefit from more one-on-one time with their teacher, and let’s face it, over-crowed schools are a problem in most areas.

Plus, I love the idea that we can teach our kids anyway we want.   Ken and I both see the RV camping becoming a big part of their education and have started to save for one of our own.  If we are learning about George Washington, let’s all go to Mt. Vernon.  If we’ve just studied the Civil War, let’s drive to the different battle sites and stand where those soldiers died.  That’s a lot better than just memorizing some dates, don’t you think?

As I watch the news and hear the different political agendas that are being pushed upon unsuspecting children, I cringe for them.  Just last week four boys were sent home for wearing American flag T-shirts.  My gosh!?!  Kids can’t even wear the flag to school anymore without it being an act of hate?  I don’t understand what’s going on in our school system these days, but I have a peace in knowing that we will not bringing that frustration into our lives or our home.

Now I know what you are thinking, “Your kids won’t get the socialization that they need!”  To which I respond, “Says who?”  My kids will be involved in extracurricular activities, home-school groups, church functions, and in our local community.  We actually will have more time for those types of things because time won’t be wasted in study halls and in-between classes, busy work or waiting on other students to catch up.

I know this is the right decision for our family.  I have seen God working over the past eight years to bring us to this place.  I know I have hinted about it in posts before, but I guess you could say I am officially coming out of the home-schooling closet.  I hate to admit that that’s how I feel sometimes.  When other mothers start asking about where Edie will be attending five-year-old kindergarten, I sheepishly say that she actually won’t be going to kindergarten after next year.  Sometimes, they get a little defensive and start giving reasons why it’s not right for them.  I understand.  I really do.  In fact, I used to be on the same side of that argument when discussing it with my husband, and I don’t judge them for the decision they’ve made.  I just wish that they’d give me the same respect.  Sometimes I want to say to them, “I won’t automatically assume your kids are going to be hoodlums, if you won’t assume mine are going to be social outcasts.  Deal?”  Of course, I don’t really say that, but you’ve got to admit, that would be a great line if I got backed into a corner.

I’m not fooling myself.  There are a handful of people that periodically come to this blog, maybe even read some of the entries from time to time, but I know what you are really looking to find.  You put up with my ramblings about my kiddos, maybe even enjoy the pictures a little bit, but what you’re really hoping to see is that Ken has posted a new video.

The truth doesn’t hurt my feelings.  I love the videos too, and I have enjoyed watching him over the past several months as he has been editing away on our vacation footage.  If you have been a guest in our house during this time, I’ve probably even forced you to watch them.  And if you haven’t, well, now it’s your turn.

For those of you who are new to the blog, or like my sweet husband, just can’t remember what you ate for breakfast, here’s a little reminder:

Last summer we borrowed my parents’ motor-home, loaded up the kids, and spent two weeks on a road trip across this beautiful country.  We started in our great state of Alabama and headed north through Tennessee until we hit our first stop:  Elizabethtown, KY, to see the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln.

From Abe’s house, we moved on through Kentucky, and finally pulled into the lovely town of Floyds Knobs, Indiana where we visited with some old friends for the night.  For my travel log and more info on our first stop, click here.

As for the vacation videos, to watch the video in it’s entirety is somewhat of a time commitment, so we have decide to post segments of the video every Monday over the next several weeks.  Here is the first installment.  Enjoy!

So a couple of weeks ago, Ken comes into my office hatching a plan to take the kids in the RV to Mississippi while he finishes up some work on a church in the area.  It sounded like a pretty good idea at the time, but we were under the impression that he would only be working 3 to 4 hours a day.  Then the rest of the time would be spent hiking and fishing with the kids.  Well…we were wrong.

Ken ended up working more like 12 hours a day which was unavoidable and not his fault.  On a side note, that’s one of the benefits of working with your spouse, especially for him.  When work calls, I don’t get bitter.  In fact, I’m normally shoving him out the door to go finish the job or make the sale because that means we can collect on a check from the client and then I’ll be able to make payroll for the month. Pretty important when employees’ kids want to eat and all.

So his long hours on the job site meant long hours for me on a camp site.  The kids were really well-behaved, and I think they had a pretty good time.  Edie literally rode the pedals off her new bike, and Roarkie followed alongside in his little push car. 

As we were packing the motor home to leave, Roark’s push car almost didn’t make it because it was so big and bulky, but thank goodness Ken managed to find room.  Can we say, “LIFESAVER”?  I don’t know what we would have done without Roarkie’s riding toy.  We were already doing without Daddy and hot water…Oh wait, I forgot to mention that part, didn’t I?

It all started the first night as we were setting up camp.  Ken and I have a routine for setting up.  He handles all the stuff on the outside, and I unpack all our things on the inside.  As we pulled in, we both quickly went to our set-up stations.  It was pretty late at this point, and the kids were way past their bed time. 

As I unpacked our things inside the motor-home, and I began to hear water pouring out of somewhere.  I quickly checked all the places.  Since I was in an RV, this took about two seconds of moving my eyes around to realize that the water was not coming out of a faucet anywhere.  I then looked down on the floor just in time to see thick, black water slowly making it’s way across the carpet.

I quickly stuck my head out the door and yelled for Ken, “Whatever you did with the water, TURN IT OFF!!!  TURN IT OFF NOW!!!”  It turns out that since this was an unusually cold winter for Alabama, my dad’s normal winterizing of the RV didn’t cut it, and some of the pipes had frozen…including the water filter under the sink which explained the thick, black oozing water on the floor.

So Ken was able to fix things enough that we did have water, but due to some other issues, we didn’t have hot water, which basically boiled down to bath house showers for everyone. 

Edie thought showering in the bath house was a blast and one of the highlights of the trip.  Ken saw it more as an inconvenience, and me?  Well, I felt I was personally being tested by God to see how much patience and love I would pour out on my children in stressful conditions.  I’m not sure I passed.  I yelled at Edie for playing in the grungy shower curtain and threatened to spank her bottom if she touched anything else in that filthy place.  And I might have said a couple of cuss words when I almost dropped a soaped-up Roark since I had to hold him the entire time because he didn’t have a pair of shower shoes.  Ah…memories.

Oh, the entire trip wasn’t horrible.  There were just bits of horrible mixed in with the fun…like at the park, for example.  We were playing chase and hide & go seek, and in all honesty, having a good time.   Edie and I had collected pine cones and sticks to make a pretend soup as Roarkie did a little exploring of his own.  He’d walked a good distance, but still completely within my view.  It was a grassy field.  There really wasn’t anywhere for him to go.

But then I noticed him fussing a bit.  Not crying really, just kind of irritated with something.  I got up to get him, and as I got closer, I began to run.  He was standing in ant bed and covered in about a cazillion ants.  I immediately began ripping clothing off of him until he was down to his diaper.  I was almost in tears, asking myself how I could be so stupid to let him wander away like that.  That’s Motherhood 101.  Plus he’d never had an ant bite before, let alone thirty, so I had no idea how he was going to react.  Now I know, he only gets mildly irritated by them, but at the time, it was really scary.

The highlight of the trip was definitely the four or five hours Ken was able to join us for a camp fire.  Edie had asked me at least twenty times each day when we were going to build a fire, but with the way the weekend had been going, I saw that ending with a trip to the emergency room.  So I kept putting her off and told her “fire is more of a Daddy thing.” 

So the one day Ken was able to come back before dark, we took full advantage of it.  We gathered sticks and firewood, took a walk near the lake, and then cooked supper on the fire.  We spent the rest of the evening sitting around the campfire and talking about the trip.  We made sure to mention all the high points and low points as we laughed and ate s’mores. 

Looking back, I kind of felt like I was in a National Lampoon’s movie minus Christie Brinkley and a Ferrari.  And similar to Chevy Chase, I like to think I pulled it all together in the end, and that we even went out on a high note.

Well, we’re back!  And man, does it feel good to be home.  This morning I fixed breakfast for my family, and I didn’t have to pack up Edie’s bed and convert it into a table so we could eat.  It was glorious.  Then while I was getting dressed for work, not once did I have to step over Roark or even tell Edie to get out of my space.  Heaven, pure heaven.

RV life is really a lot of fun, and I totally can’t wait for the next trip.  But I’ve learned that you have to go with people that you like because at some point in the trip, you’re not going to like them very much.  So you need to like them enough beforehand to see you through those times. 

Surprisingly enough, Roark is who I am referring to, and not Edie.  I totally saw that going the other way.   To begin with, he is not at his best while in the car seat.  I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt because let’s face it, he had been in that seat for a long time. But he wore out the grace I’d been extending him around the second day.  Wow, can that kid scream! 

I fully plan to hold it over his head too.  I already have my argument for when he’s a teenager and knows it all.  He’ll be mad at us because we won’t let him go meet some cuties on the beach and inevitably tell us that we are ruining his vacation. 

And I will be all, “Ruining your vacation?  Well mister, when you were a baby, your father and I took you on a two-week road trip to see this beautiful country, and do you know what youdid?  You cried the ENTIRE time we were on the road!  You screeched from one end of this country to the other!  Do you know what a crying baby does to a person’s blood pressure who has been cooped up in an RV?  It makes them go crazy.   So crazy there were times that I wished my head would actually explode.  I’m serious-EXPLODE  into a thousand tiny pieces because then at least that would get my mind off of the screaming baby in the backseat!”  Then for good measure, I’ll mention something about carrying him for nine months and how my lower back still aches…and then maybe something about Ken pushing the RV in the snow…bare footed…up a hill and somehow make that Roark’s fault as well.

When he wasn’t screaming at us, he was rolling around and getting into everything.  By it’s very nature the RV is just not a baby-proofed space, even though we’d tried to pick everything up as much as possible. 

There was one point in the trip that while laying down for a nap, Roark actually got his head wedged in between the mattress and the RV wall.  When I went back to check on him because he was taking so long to settle down, I saw his little legs flopping about and quickly put two and two together.  I instantly went into panic mode and started screaming for Ken in that special voice I save for real emergencies.  

Once we dislodged him, I scooped him up and started apologizing because he obviously drew the short stick when it came to handing out mothers.  He was completely unscathed and more than anything just a little shaken up.  But that didn’t stop me from going through all the “what if” scenarios in my head.  So I made a little vow that I would not judge him for his behavior on the trip if he would give me the same leeway as well.  We were doing without several of the comforts we were used to at home and that was keeping us from both being at our best.

Edie on the other hand was a complete joy to bring along, and as Ken keeps saying, “she was made for this kind of travel.”  While driving, she quietly sat in her seat for hours on end and played or colored or watched DVDs.  About once an hour, we would hear from the back, “When are we going to be there?” But we would just tell her a time frame that she didn’t understand anyway, and she would go back to whatever she was doing.

This is the first time we haven’t left Edie at home with my folks while on vacation, and to my surprise, she made the trip so much more fun for us.  By her very nature, she just loves life and new experiences.  So waking up in a new place every day was right up her alley.  As we would eat breakfast in the mornings she would ask, “When are we going to the fun place today?”  To her, everywhere we went was just another “fun place,” and if we told her that we were just driving that day, she was fine with that too.

I am so looking forward to the years ahead and more opportunities to show our children this great country (and even some other parts of the world as well).  Maybe by the time I get everything unpacked and all of the clothes washed, it will be time to go again.

This past weekend we took my folk’s RV for another trial run.  Once again, Ken passed the next test: driving while towing a vehicle.  So now there is nothing standing in the way of the McKibben Cross-country Vacation planned for next month.

We went up to Huntsville again for more campaigning over the holiday.  I told Ken the next guy we support needs to be located in Birmingham.  While it does get me out of the house and change up the routine, packing for two kids every week is a hassle.

We spent most of the weekend just lounging around the campground, playing tag, and swinging.  We are very quickly becoming sucked into the whole RVing lifestyle.  On the ride home, there was even a discussion about how cool it would be to pack up for three months and take off.

Here are the pictures Ken took from the weekend:

Swan Creek Campground Tanner, AL

Pictured: Me with no make up and Edie who’s head hasn’t seen a hairbrush the entire trip.  That’s roughin’ it!

Our campsite was across the street from the playground.  Something experience has taught us to request.  If you look past the slide and trees, you can spot the RV in the background.  It’s a monster.  I think there is actually more square footage in the RV than there was in mine and Ken’s first house.

This barn was a couple of miles down the road from the campground.  It was located in a beautiful area surrounded by farm land.  In fact, on the other side of the playground there were corn fields as far as the eye could see.