On. Our. Way!

We have finally started our journey!

So, we have had a whole week in the caravan. There have been great moments, stressful moments, tearful moments, freezing cold moments and really relaxing moments. Also add yummy moments (campfire roasted marshmallows!). Basically, all the good stuff real life has to offer.

This week, I learned all about the 'laundromat scene'. This week, I learnt what the true definition of 'cramped' was. This week, I saw OTHER people walking on my balcony! Well, what was my balcony, my view, my home. That was hard. This week we got to have bbqs, walks and a farewell from church. The children made charcoal pencils from burnt sticks. They turned rocks into their own bush currency. They made boats out of bark and leaves and floated them down the river. They climbed over logs, got splinters and attracted mud. All the good stuff. :)

So? What's it like to have no house? Where do we store clothes etc? What do we have in the way of power?

Well, it feels strange to not have a house. I do miss the bath! But mostly, I feel free. My husband now doesn't have to work to pay for one. That gives us so much more time together! We feel very blessed by that! Life in the caravan takes longer to accomplish tasks than it did in a house. When we free camp, we have to boil water if we want it hot, for example. I now put on the kettle on the gas plate each time I start cooking, so we have washing up water etc. After a week, it is second nature and I don't notice that it is an extra task.

Where do we put clothes. Duncan and I have a cupboard next to our bed. It has a middle shelf and he has about 5 pack cell bags with his clothes in them on the bottom half, I have mine in my bags on the top half. The children have a wardrobe in which we have put a four draw stacker tub inside. They have one tub each for all their clothes. I think it fits roughly a week and a half's worth of clothing in it. Michael has 3 pack cells for his clothes and they live at the bottom of the second wardrobe, which also houses all our hanging items, like jackets etc.

Power comes in one of several ways. We have a gas cylinder, a battery, a solar panel and a generator. The stove and grill run off gas (with one electric hot plate). The air conditioner and the Thermomix need 240v power, so we use the generator to run those when free camping, or when at a powered site, we are plugged into 240v power on tap.

The hardest thing about this trip?

Being gracious to the flood of thoughtless comments. 

I'm not sure what to say to them......

I'll butt in on myself and say that the majority of people are thrilled for us and think it is a wonderful thing to be doing. The best thing to be doing with our children. But sometimes, when I'm least expecting it, I'll get a comment that comes from left of field. And they wound! 

We are not brave, or crazy, or about to get divorced. We are not super parents, and we do not sit in the caravan all day, whilst kids jump from the top bunk and throw popcorn and mud and scream.

It is not like that! Though, that would be funny for about a millisecond. Hahaha

Yes, there are challenges. Yes, we have bumps with each other. Yes, we are in close quarters. No, that doesn't mean we have constant chaos.

So, all in all. Life is taking a turn for the better. We are a family. We are learning what it means to take it slow for awhile. We are enjoying our children. We are enjoying each other's company. We are enjoying God's creation.

What more could you want?

Sara

The Long Short Wait

What are we up to right now?

Our house is 'sold'.

I say it like that because until things are done and dusted, they can still go wrong, right?

Lots of people are in a bit of confusion as to our 'situation' right now. That is understandable, when most information is from vague Facebook statuses.

So, I'm writing a more thorough entry on our state of affairs, and our future plans.

We are 12 days away from the 'confirmation of finance' clause needing to be fulfilled. In simple terms, the buyers have 12 days left to get the bank to unconditionally promise to lend them the money to buy our house. Once we get to that step I will rest a little bit easier, knowing we are just 30 days away from leaving our house for good. But things will not be 100% done. There are still 30 days after that before settlement, where we give up the keys, and leave.

So all up, we are still living in our house for the next 6 weeks roughly... (not the caravan AT ALL. We will have plenty of time to get sick of the caravan later) ... providing there are no delays, which there always seems to be in these transactions.

We will probably have a rush to get things out, packed and given away/sold when the confirmation comes in, but right now we are just sort of cruising along and getting through as much food in the pantry as we can.

Where are we going after that?

Things changed.

When we originally came to the point of knowing we wanted to buy a caravan and travel around OZ, we planned to leave in Feb 2014. Without going into too much information, we have to stick around in Tassie until Jan 2015 for a family wedding.

Why stay in Tassie for 6 extra months?

Well, lots of things go into a change of plans. In my heart, I desperately wanted to GET OUT OF TASSIE for winter. It is cold. But!

By the time we could book a sailing over to Victoria, it would be a mere 5 months before we'd have to be back in the state. Also, it is insanely expensive to sail with 7 people, requiring 2 cabins and a vehicle and van fee both ways, to leave... come back.... leave again. All for 5 months rushed travelling? It wasn't worth the expense.

Secondly, we get to see some wonderful things, that we would miss otherwise, because we are staying around a bit longer.

1. My sister in law from overseas
2. My friend who is due with twins in a few months
3. Another friend, due to have a bub later in the year
4. My Oma who is 93 in October
5. We can housesit for family to help them and give us a base OUT of the caravan over the months of waiting.
6. Christmas with said sister in law and other family!
7. We get a solid 6 months to travel our state and REALLY see it all well. It is possible we will not be returning to Tassie to live, and so it is a real bonus that we get time to see it while we can!
8. I can combine my 30th birthday and a farewell party before we leave.

So, when do you 'leave' then?

We leave our house and are 'free' to roam around Tassie at the end of June. If you would like us around for something in particular, just let us know and we can try to fit it into our direction and plans.

We leave Tassie (and it is likely to be a permanent leave) on the 31st January 2015. After our further 18 months of travel on the mainland, we will need to arrange for the transfer of our 'stuff' in storage. If, by some leading, we feel confident that we need to return to Tassie again to live, we will come back. Or we will settle down on the mainland and will return to move our things and say a final farewell. But that is years away, so nothing is even remotely certain in that regard. ;)

So we are still kind of in Limbo Land. Still waiting, though the end is in sight for the trappings of a house!

We are very excited that in roughly 6 weeks, we will be able to be together full time and start our exploring of this great state.

We want to get into lots of bushwalks as a family and just plain rest when we want to do that!

We are happy and content right now, and also tired, but the end is in sight, so it is not so bad. :)

For those who pray, please keep us in mind. Specifically that the selling process will run smoothly to completion. That the finance will come through without a hiccup and that the settlement will happen on time and without interruptions. If the contract should fall through, then we are back to having the house on the market! Not at all what we want, so please be praying for things to run along as planned.

Also, wisdom and time to plan and pack the caravan. It will be a little bit of a juggling act to work out when and how to get it all organised, with 5 undertow and a husband still working.

Thanks all! I hope that answers all your questions, but if it doesn't, just ask!

Sara and Dunc

Away In A Wilderness

Our house is officially 'on the market'. This will surely mean a person or two will be coming through our home soon. I will write a post sometime on selling your house with kids, but for now, I will talk about our practise runs.

We started out with a few overnighters. The set up/pack up was intense in such a short time, but it helped to get us familiar with those processes.

The common theme so far is to pick nights where it is pouring with rain or there are gale force winds. We got up to about 6 nights in the van where we had yet to experience a calm, dry night. I was beginning to think that caravans attracted rain or something.

But just last week we switched to going away for four nights at a time. The first night was calm and still! Imagine my surprise! Everything left outside was still dry when we woke up! Joy of joys!

I am now slightly hopeful that I won't spend the entire two years of travelling with wet shoes! I should be so lucky...

Four nights away is a much better indication of the flow of our soon-to-be normal life.

 So many questions answered; How much washing? How long does boiling all your hot water for a day take up? How do you keep clean without a ready shower? (Mostly I cheated and went home, as we were staying only 10 minutes from home). 

Is it hard to cook in the kitchen? Will kids in a van go mental in 5 minutes flat? 

All the essentials. Except one.

The biggest mental hurdle we face is sleeping configurations. This wouldn't be so complex if we didn't have a baby. I mean, it sleeps 8, we have 7 people. It is just that babies need to settle at night and then STAY ASLEEP. They also nap during the day and need a place to sleep which is relatively undisturbed.

Our c'van has a set of bunks, a double bed, a queen bed and a dining table which makes a small double bed (kid sized double).

We have tried it all. It's like playing musical beds.

I think I have it sorted now. But we shall see.....

- Us on the Queen. Michael on the double in his porta cot. The girls on the table double. The boys on the bunks.

Who knew bed allocation could be so perplexing!?

I am so glad we had decided to do trial runs. It is the little issues that need ironing out. We now have a good idea of how to organise the clothes and where they go, and how much space per child we have for their clothes. We have a fairly good amount of space for our pantry items; The fridge can be cram-packed; and we need to bring more teatowels.

We are home for a few days now, before we get out of the way of a house that's for sale once again. It sure is nice to still have a hot shower/bath waiting for you! And don't get me started on how much I love our dishwasher! :)

For now, we are living in limbo land. A hard place of not being home full time and not having left yet.

But the adventures are still happening. 

We are still seeing those glimpses of a life without timeframes and dead lines. A life where the open road will take us where our whims dictate. 

Until then, I will enjoy my few days of hot water on demand and power points that don't need a generator. Then I'll enjoy the few lazier days of a life meeting interesting new people wherever we camp. Getting treated to surprise pancakes by folks I'd known only a week. And finding pleasure in collecting sticks and dandelions with my children. And then having to wash up. Ha ha.

Sara

Napping outside. A skill our Bub is getting better at!

Surprise pancakes!! How nice!!

Our Life in Boxes

My friend suggested I write a post entitled, "My Life in Boxes".
She had just seen our garage, which is steadily becoming more and more full with our life.... a life in boxes. So here it is!

The funny thing about packing up your life is that you realise how much stuff you've collected over the years. Stuff you need, stuff you don't really need and stuff that means something to you, even though it's useless on a practical level. (Rocks your children painted? Keeping those for sure!)

In a good way, packing up a life has meant a more than healthy dose of de-cluttering occurred. All those 'don't really need' things just had to go. But on a bad day, packing up our lives has left me feeling a bit raw and vunerable; stripped away; bare. Those days are the exception, thankfully. Mostly, it has been freeing to have less. Mostly. 

The saying that less is more is becoming rather practical right now. What I mean is, now that we have less to occupy ourselves with, I've realised that having too much stuff actually prevents you from using any of it fully. We are having to keep busy with the few things we have left for the children to do. But that has meant we are thoroughly using it all! Craft supplies are finally getting used up. We have exhausted our playdoh and I'm nearly out of bread flour. :) Things are being fully used, and for that I'm very glad.

We have almost reached the point where we can't pack anymore until we are about to head off. We are kind of at base level now; Using what we need to get through the days before we go. There will be another hectic period of packing and giving away once our house sells. But for now, I'm just enjoying the things we have left.

My life is in boxes.....

and yet......

our 'out of the box' adventure is getting closer by the day.

Don't you just love life's little quirks?

Sara

*image curtesy of livingwikii.com*

The First Night (with Children)

There are several things that stick in my mind after our first night in the caravan with the children.

First was the weather. There were strong hail and thunderstorm warnings for areas about 50kms from us. We didn't get those, but it sure rained heavily! This meant that we were

The Rig (a-jig-jig)

Our caravan has arrived!! We were one hugely excited family, that's for sure!

My husband did a super job of reversing it into our driveway, even with people waiting to be let through to add to the pressure. :)

Since we are a family of seven, we had limited choices for

Honey, let's shrink the house.

We decided one day we would like to do something crazy. Leave the state, sell our house, have an extended holiday, see Australia, spend time with our children, love each other by being around each other more, and just plain having more fun.

One day, it was a pipe dream. One day, it was fantasy. But soon, soon it will be real. We will be living a life with all the above in it. Dreams coming true and all that.

But it won't all be rosy. Five children in a caravan is going to bring some funny and not-so-funny challenges.