The Cook & The Coach Blog

Our First Winter As Snowbirds

5/18/2017

As you may have noticed our travel blog posts have been few an far between. It's not that we haven't been traveling or doing anything fun but when I have time to sit down and write, doing stuff for our business seems to take precedent over travel stuff.

We last left off with us back in MInnesota for the Ryder Cup... yeah we are about 6 months behind! So here's my goal for the next year of travel, put out a blog post at least every other week. Do you ever have that thing in your life where you just can't seem to get out in front off, that there is always more and more. Maybe it's the laundry if you are a mom of numerous kiddos, or dishes if you live in an RV. Anyways, these travel posts are that for us so in order to get "caught up" I'm going to dump about 6 months of travel into this one post, so bear with me.

Where have we been in the last 6 months?

Lincoln, NE
Kansas City, MO & KS
Lowell, AR
Eureka Springs, AR
Lake Tawakoni, TX (Just east of Dallas)
Dallas, TX
Livingston, TX
Austin, TX
Columbus, TX (just west of Houston)
Minneapolis, MN
Des Moines, IA
Redwood Falls, MN
Galveston, TX
Kemah, TX
Conroe, TX
Hammond, LA
Pensacola, FL
Crystal River, FL
Orlando/Clermont, FL
Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg, FL
Vero Beach, FL
Space Coast, FL
Back to Orlando
Sarasota, FL
Tampa Bay, FL
Sunshine Key, FL
Miami, FL

As you can see we tried our hardest to stay warm for the winter and have for the most part. We've learned that Florida winters are a little nicer than Texas! Other than being back in MN we only had one night where temps got below freezing, so I would say we did pretty well.

Some of the highlights over the past 6 months...

Getting to see some really good friends in Kansas City
Eureka Springs - Such a fun town
Thanksgiving in Austin, TX with some really good friends and THEE BEST BBQ I'ver ever had at Franklin's
Passing my Texas Driver's License Test
Christmas back in Minnesota and Iowa
Galveston Area
Meeting quite a few other Fulltime Traveling Families in Orlando
Swimming with Manatees in Crystal River - sorry no photos
Florida Beaches
The Keys
Most of all... Traveling with Laura's sister and family. We've been on the road with them since the middle of December! Eli's had cousins to play with and it's just been great to spend some quality time with them.

Kansas City

Eureka Springs, AR

Austin, TX

Christmas in MN, Iowa and our RV

Galveston and Kemah, TX

Orlando, FL

The Keys

The Rest of Florida

Traveling with Family

Well there you go, our last 6 months of life in a kick photo slideshow! We are now on our way back to the Midwest and eventually out to the West Coast later this summer/fall.

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One Year RV-versary!

4/4/2017

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Today marks one year since we moved into our motorhome and hit the road! This was the first time we were all hooked up and ready to roll out! We had just finished up most of our renovations...and were ready to head south. We left on a Sunday and made it to our first scheduled stop outside Augusta, Georgia by Wednesday.

Nothing like 1,300 miles traveled in 4 days to start our adventure!

Where Have We Been?

Over the past year we have logged a total of about 15,000 miles on our motorhome alone. We've visited 33 states!!! Everything from Bar Harbor, Maine to Austin, TX and Minneapolis, MN to Orlando, FL and a lot of stuff in between. We've also hit up a lot of touristy spots like Niagara Falls, Washington DC, Brooklyn Bridge and NYC, Boston's Freedom Trail and Acadia National Park.

We've spent a fair amount of time at beaches...Laura really likes the beach.

Ok fine... we all really like the beach!

A few of our favorites have been Gulf Shores, Siesta Key, Kiawah, Sullivan's Island, Cape Cod and Ogunquit! A few duds were Atlantic City and Galveston!

We've hit up a lot of Thai restaurants and coffee shops. Laura has had her fair share of almond milk lattes. So far the winner is Bluestone Lane's in NYC!!! Oh and get the avocado toast there too!

We've mainly stayed in a lot of RV Resorts just due to amenities and ease of booking and getting in and out. We bought a zone pass with Thousand Trails in June of last so we've spent a fair amount to time in their parks. We've done some state parks, a couple Walmarts, and a lake front boondocking spot at Laura's brother's house.

What Have We Learned?

"Fulltime RVing does not mean a fultime vacation!"

After a few months in vacation mode we learned that vacations are expensive. So after going through a chunk of our savings account we decided to slow down and stick to a budget! We've maybe missed out on eating out at some fun a few less days at beaches but it's allowed us to live within our means and keep the adventure going.

With that we've learned that we operate best with at least a tentative schedule in place. This allows us both some time to do some work, time alone with Eli and lots of time together as a family.

We've also learned that we don't need nearly as many clothes as we originally packed up. We tend to wear the same stuff over and over... mainly workout clothes and yoga pants! There are a handful of other things that we've brought along that we've hardly used... like a tent, veggie spiralizer, extra camping chairs, bosu ball....to name a few.

Another thing we learned early on was that we all reach our breaking point after about 6 hours of driving on travel days. 4 hours max is what we prefer! With travel, we also learned that it's not ideal to show up at a new park after dusk... short, wooden posts in campgrounds tend to hide a lot easier!

We've been semi-stationary for the past 6 months, 2 1/2 months in Texas and 3 1/2 months in Florida. We love that we've been able to stay warm for the winter but definitely miss traveling. We traveled around both Texas and Florida but the scenery hasn't changed all that much. So there is a balance between quenching our travel/adventure needs and not moving as fast...so we can manage our finances.

What Lies Ahead?

Currently: we are in Florida and will be here for another month. Then our adventure will take us north and west. We will slowly make our way back up to Iowa and Minnesota around the 4th of July to spend some time with family. It will also be convenient since we will be dropping Eli off with grandparents while we head down to New Orleans for our annual Beachbody Coach Summit the middle of July.

After that conference, the plan is to start heading across the northern part of the country. We hope to hit up Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks on our way out to Washington state. We always appreciate advice on places we NEED to visit so if you know of anything between Minnesota and Washington, let us know.

Our plan is to be out to Washington by early September and hangout in the Pacific Northwest for a couple months before we start heading down the west coast as the weather cools. At this time, we think we'll spend at least another winter as snowbirds but we aren't exactly sure where we will be... maybe Southern California... maybe Arizona... we'll see!

That's about all we have "planned out" so far. After that we'll potentially talk about settling down but that isn't for sure either!! What we do know: God is faithful and is providing SO MANY amazing experiences & relationships through this journey. He is ultimately our guide...so if we feel led to change our course...we will!!

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The Process to Become Texans

12/5/2016

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It's hard to believe it has be 8 months since we left our home in Minnesota. So far our travels have taken us to 35 states and we have logged over 13,000 miles on our motorhome. Yeah we've seen a lot and moved a lot. It's been fantastic so far and we have really loved every bit of it. We've made some new friends along the way and have immersed ourselves into the RV community that is out there.

Poor CT and VT! See you someday!

One of the reasons I wanted to write up this blog post because I know a lot of people that do what we do or intend to have questions about the relocation process is like. There is some good information out there and there is some bad information out there. We found all of it.

One of the good pieces of information that we came across early on was through Escapees. Escapees is the company/service we use to get our mail forwarded. They are based out of Livingston, Texas with a few other locations around the country. It was through them that I was able to setup a time to chat with a domicile lawyer named Miri Wakuta that works with Loring & Associates. As an escapees member we were able to setup a free consultation back in February where she guided us through the process of what it takes to switch our domicile from MN to TX. That benefit alone is worth the price of your escapees membership.

The big thing that she stressed and this isn't legal advice but intent was a huge part of proving your new domicile. The more evidence you have to prove you intend to live in Texas or whatever location is key to establish your domicile. She mentioned things like joining Escapees and getting a Texas address but other things that would prove intent could be things like registering vehicles, using doctors and other services in that state, and actually living there.

Step 1: Get a Texas Address! - Done

The next step in the process for us to was going to be to register our vehicles. This was a little bit of curveball for us. When we set off in April our first stop was Augusta, Georgia so that I could attend The Masters golf tournament. We didn't think our next steps through too well, because after Georgia we started heading towards Texas to get vehicles registered. We made it as far as New Orleans before we realized we didn't have our new titles for vehicles yet. We purchased our motorhome in February and our Jeep in March and the titles were still hung in the MN DPS. One more curveball to add to that mess was that both titles would have to be mailed out to our old MN address, and because they are legal documents they can't be forwarded, so they get sent back to the state. Then once they get them back I could apply to have them reissued to our new Texas address. Needless to say we weren't going to wait around in Texas until the middle of summer to get all of that taken care of, we had a lot of the country to see!

So we headed back east and up the East coast with a couple stops back in the Midwest between April and October. If you want to follow all of that you can go HERE.

By the middle of October we were on our way to Texas with titles in hand. This is where we really started researching what we needed to do and what the steps were to get everything switched over.

We started here with an Escapees document that does a pretty good job laying everything out and the locations you need to go to take care of stuff. To me that is all kinds of complicated. So here are the easy steps that we took plus some info on taking the driving tests I had to take to get the proper license in the state of Texas. More on that later!

Step 2: Get insurance that is valid in Texas
We did this prior to getting to Livingston, TX. We chose to get our insurance through National General which is who Good Sam contracts out to provide "Good Sam" insurance. We found the prices were actually better than what we were paying using our old insurance and coverage was very similiar. Wish we would have switched earlier.

Step 3: Get vehicles inspected
We did this at Soda Auto Repair in Livingston. It cost us $7 per vehicle to get this done. It only took 10 minutes. The inspection just looks at whether lights, brakes, wipers, etc work. There is no emissions check in Polk County.

Step 4: Register vehicles in Texas
This involved going to the County Tax Accessors office in Livingston. To get our vehicles registered we just needed copies of our titles, inspection certificates, proof of insurance and I think I had to show them my MN drivers license. You wil also need to tell them the weight of your RV. I snapped a pic of the vehicle tag that is inside my coach and states the GVWR. I think the cutoff is 26,000 pounds if you are more, you pay more. Oh and a check, no credit cards! We paid right around $600 to get our motorhome and Jeep re-registered.

Parked at Rainbow's End Campground and one of the last photos of our MN license plates.

Step 5: Get Drivers License
This process wasn't too bad. I read horror stories from people needing to provide all kinds of documentation and it wasn't bad at all since we had passports. We just had to show them our vehicle registration, our escapees card which was proof of our Texas address. Then we showed them current passports, social security cards, and our MN drivers licenses. If you don't have a passport then I believe you need to provide a birth certificate. The cost for each drivers license was $25.

Applying for a Texas Class B Non-CDL License

This is one area where I got a lot of bad information. I think part of it was due to the fact that the DMV in Livingston didn't have a standardized practice for how they treated RVer's even though they saw a lot of them. I read stories of people needing to parallel park their rigs, taking multiple sections of the CDL test, air brake testing, etc.

Talking with the employees at the DMV in Livingston it sounds like they finally have a system for dealing with RVers so hopefully the information I give you is all you need.

There was a lot of information out there on who needs to take this test. People were saying because we drive recreationally versus commercially we don't need this special endorsement on our license. Not true!

I know for a fact that anyone driving an motorhome over 26,000 pounds for a dry weight needs to take this test. I'm pretty certain anyone with a combined weight between truck and trailer over 26,000 pounds also needs to take this test. I don't want to be one of the blogs out there handing out bad info so I'll stick to the motorhome side of things.

The process of getting this endorsement involved taking a written test that was solely based on Section 14 in the Texas CDL Handbook. It was a lot of questions about the size of vehicle you are driving and permits needed. I remember there being something about road flares vs flags. There was some stuff about farm vehicles. The test is 20 questions and you need to get 14 correct to pass. I read through that section of the handbook a couple times and took some online practice tests and was able to pass on my first try. There is also an app that has some CDL practice tests. I wasn't able to find any practice tests specific to section 14 so I just took it as good knowledge to know about driving a big rig.

I took this test at the same time that I applied for my license. After I passed I was then issued basically a trainer's permit/license for this endorsement until I was able to take the road test. Also I had to pay an additional $11 to upgrade from a standard license. After passing the written test I was able to setup an appointment to take my driving test which the earliest they could get me in was 1 week from the time of my written test. So we extended our stay at Rainbow's End park and hung out in Livingston a little longer. I've read this is about average for what they are booked out on driver's tests.

The Driving Test
I showed up about 10 minutes early and parked in the large lot south of the DMV building. The instructor later had me move my rig to the shoulder of N. Washington Ave facing south. They didn't ask me how I got the rig there, which was a small concern since technically I wasn't licensed to drive it. The pretrip inspection included testing the brake lights, turn signals, headlights, wipers, and horn. Even though I have air brakes they didn't ask for any of those tests. After that, Talia who was super friendly hopped in and read through a document and we were off.

We started heading south through town, looped back on highway 59, exited onto a frontage road, came back to Washington Ave heading south. Did a lane change then turned left and headed north on highway 146 for about 1 mile. We turned onto a side street where she hopped out and instructed me to pull forward about 100 feet and back up straight down the street until where I dropped her off. No turning, no parallel parking!!! After that we made our way back to their office and were done! It took 25-30 minutes max. Nothing tricky! Didn't get asked about road signage which is another thing I read you would have to do. Not a bad thing to pay attention to, but wasn't part of my test.

Overall they are mainly looking to make sure you use your signals, mirrors, and understand how to move your vehicle between lanes and take a corner.

Hope that helps a few of you that are considering going through the process! If you have any questions feel free to reach out via email or the comments below and I'll do my best help.

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August Travels (Kentucky, W. Virginia, Pittsburgh, Niagara, and More)

10/21/2016

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It was a strange feeling after our Beachbody Coach Summit in Nashville. In years past that event comes to an end and we go back to Minnesota and go back to our normal lives. So it was strange when this year we just packed up the RV and moved on to our next location. Slowly this full time traveling thing is starting to feel like the norm.

One place that was definitely on our radar that we wanted to check out was Niagara Falls. From Nashville we plotted our course to get there and it took us through Kentucky. We did just an overnight stay at a little park in Renfro Valley. It was actually a cute park that hosts a bunch of country music concerts.

A mid-walk dance party

This little hill kept him busy for a solid 10 minutes

Woke up to some serious fog

After Kentucky we had heard great things about West Virginia and how beautiful it was. Our original plan was to stay at a state park or Army Corps of Engineers park called Bulltown Campground for 4 days. It was up in the mountains and right on a lake, everything looked fantastic. Well... we didn't think about cell phone coverage. We didn't have any on our ATT phones or our Verizon hotspot. Had we known that we could have planned for us to be unplugged but unfortunately we had some business commitments that we needed to be a part of which meant we needed to find some service. So our 4 day stay turned into 1 night.

Not a bad view from our campground in WV

Our only communication to the outside world! Who knew payphones still existed?

It actually didn't turn out to be so bad that we left West Virginia. Our plan was to drive up to Pittsburgh for a quarterly Beachbody event anyways that Saturday so it did save us some mileage and time in the car. The spot we moved to was a fun little park with a lot of full-timers a little southeast of Pittsburgh. We spent a decent amount of time at the playground in the park and met some pretty cool people, even some fellow Beachbody coaches.

We spent a great day in Pittsburgh. Our morning was filled with our Beachbody event where we got to hear some amazing stories from fellow coaches. Laura and Eli got to meet Autumn Calabrese, the trainer behind 21 Day Fix and Country Heat. After our event we walked around downtown a bit. It happened to be Regatta weekend and we were in the neighborhood so we checked out some of the boat races.

After our 4 day stay in the Pittsburgh area we made our way up to Niagara area. We stayed at a great campground literally right Lake Ontario. Our view was looking out at that lake. Here's one at sunset, pretty incredible!

I was a little worried Niagara Falls was going to be underwhelming. Let's just say it wasn't. Such a cool spot and awe inspiring to see that kind of power in nature. We only walked around on the US side of the falls but walked all way from the horseshoe falls down to the US falls and up on the observation deck that hangs out over the river.

We did drive the road that runs parallel to the river and falls on the Canadian side. It definitely looked like you would get better views of all the falls from that side! Now we know!

Our travels went international at this point too. We decided to make a day trip up to Toronto. We had heard great things about the city. We wish we would have done a bit more homework ahead of time and it would have been fun to spend more time there. We spent most of our time in the distillery district. It had some fun restaurants, coffee shops, and boutique style shops.

One mistake we made due to poor planning was walking to Cherry Beach Park. Let's just say Canadian beaches don't really compare to others we have visited. We wish we would have went and checked out some market areas of town instead. I wish we had more time but we tried to get out of downtown before rush hour. We left downtown around 3:00 and our 2 hour drive turned into 3. Who knows how bad it would have been had we stayed another hour or two.

Canadian Beach on Lake Ontario

We did all of that in just over a week! Are you tired just reading about all of that? Yeah it was pretty exhausting moving that fast and doing as much as we were doing. We had one more stop in central upstate New York before we would settle into a campground in southern Massachusetts for 2 weeks. We did pretty well in keeping the whirlwind going. We spent some time in Rome, NY, a petting zoo, washed the RV, and spent an afternoon checking out a local lake town. I almost forgot we also celebrated Eli's 2nd birthday!

We had such a good time during this part of our trip. This is really why we wanted to go on this adventure. To be together as a family, see places that are popular spots and quite a few that are off the beaten path.

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Road Trip with Nana

9/17/2016

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We left Minneapolis on July 21st with 3 of us and after 36 hour pit stop in Des Moines we had four in our RV. Laura's mom, aka Nana, joined us on our trip to Nashville. She was coming along with us to babysit Eli during our annual Beachbody Summit event that was taking place the following weekend.

We had a couple pit stops between Des Moines and our final destination. The first one was Hannibal, MO. This was such a fun little town right on the Mississippi River. We were originally only planning on staying one night, however due to some plumbing repairs that we had to do we stayed a second night. This gave us a little time to explore the city. It also gave me a chance to work on some plumbing skills in 100+ degree weather. It was hot!

From Hannibal we moved onto the Gun Creek Recreation area by Benton, IL. Other than our first campsite being on too big of slope to level out our RV safely, this campground was fantastic. Big, roomy campsites that were right on a lake. Oh and it was cheap! Definitely a great spot and if pass through southern Illinois again we will for sure make a stop here.

After one night in Illinois we made our final drive to Nashville. It was only a 4 hour drive roughly. We happened to time out our arrival exactly as a thunderstorm was rolling in and knocked out all the power in the park we were staying. Not a huge issue other than needing to run the generator on our RV for an hour or so. It was hot and humid and our AC's needed to be cranked up!

We made it to Nashville! Now to prepare for our coaches to arrive and learn, sweat, and have some fun with them.

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Time with Family and Fridge Repairs

9/15/2016

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If you are following our adventures we left off last with our 4th of July adventures around Lake Minnetonka with Laura's family. We ended up spending another 2 weeks in Minnesota. This time included me playing in a golf tournament with some of my family. Doing some minor RV repairs and one major one, a new fridge. We got to meet our newest nephew, Joseph, right before we left town and spend some time with some amazing friends that we've missed while being on the road.

Going home is always pretty special to me, especially when it involves playing golf. I grew up on that golf course. If it wasn't for Minnesota winters it would probably be fair to say I spent more time out there than at our house. So to be able to bring Eli out here is pretty special. He really like riding on the golf cart with Grandma and Grandpa. He also like chasing around our golf balls and even hit a few!

While I was playing golf Laura was able to sneak away to hang out with her sister and her family at an RV park just 20 minutes from my hometown. Pretty random coincidence that they happened to be in the same area on the same weekend as us. Oh and of course being home in Redwood Falls meant we had to stop by Dari King. Eli really liked his first ice cream cone!

Being home in Redwood also meant we had access to my dad and his handyman skills,tools, and generosity. The project that we needed to tackle was installing a residential refrigerator into our RV. Our old Norcold 1200 RV fridge just couldn't stay cold. The freezer worked but the fridge temp was hanging out around 50 degrees. This meant doing some modifications to the cabinet area where the old fridge was in order to make room for the new one.

We were fortunate to find pretty much exactly what we were looking for after a handful of stops. Given the smaller space we needed a counter depth fridge otherwise our hallway would disappear. The height wasn't as important since even the shortest fridges out there would have still required us to do some modifications. The other thing that played into our decision was finding a fridge that we could fit into RV. The fridge we found had about an inch to spare, and that was bringing it in through a window.

The actual install process was pretty easy. Thankfully we had a plugin that runs through our inverter, which means that our batteries could power our fridge as we were driving down the road instead of running on propane like our old model. If you want more details about what we did, I'm happy to share, just send me a note.

We saw Laura's family. We saw my family. We completed some necessary RV remodels. We saw some good friends. It was now time to say goodbye and make our way to Nashville for our Beachbody Summit. On the road again!

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Catching Up On Our Travels - New York City

8/23/2016

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It's been awhile since we've shared some of our travels. I wanted to catch up on our posts over the next couple weeks. For now, here is our New York and New Jersey adventures.

We stayed at an RV Park about 2 hours south of NYC but there wasn't really wasn't anything much closer unless you wanted to pay a premium. So we took 2 hours away and camped for free! This was our first 2 week stay with our Thousand Trail membership and it was so nice to slow down a bit and setup shop for longer than 4-5 days.

Both times we came into the city we opted to park on the Jersey side of the river and take the ferry across. If we wouldn't have run into road construction on our second day coming into the city this would have been super slick both days. One day we parked close to the Hoboken ferry terminal and the second day (on the weekend) we parked by the Jersey City ferry terminal. We figured this was the cheaper and more convenient route to explore the city versus driving downtown and paying tolls and parking over there.

We did pretty much everything you would want to do in NYC. We spent some time down around the water watching some of our friends play in the professional volleyball event that was in town and found a couple parks that Eli could play at with some other kiddos.

After some volleyball watching and park playing we headed towards the 9/11 memorial and were blown away. We didn't do the museum but just being on the grounds where it all happened was pretty powerful. From there we walked towards the Brooklyn Bridge and made it half way across before we turned back, LOL!!! We then hit up a NYC pizza place in Little Italy that made gluten free crusts. Pretty tasty but given the price tag, I may have to pass next time. Then we were back to watch more volleyball! Yeah that was all in Day 1, it was a lot of walking!

Day 2 we did a little more volleyball watching then made our way to Bluestone Lane for brunch and lattes! This might have been the highlight of our NYC trip, especially the avocado toast that I got on GF toast!

After brunch, we hopped on the Subway or as Eli calls it, choo-choo, and headed to Central Park. It was a hot day and we were starting to get tired from all of our walking so we didn't get into the park too far but explored the south side and just sat for awhile and let Eli run around.

After sitting a bit we started walking towards Time Square. We hit up a little detour on the way and stopped at Momofuku Milk Bar where Laura got a little treat. Unfortunately they didn't have anything that was gluten free so I was forced to watch Laura and Eli enjoy their ice cream. Which apparently when you get to the bottom it tastes just like the milk in the bottom of a bowl of cereal. We continued on and swung past Rockafeller Center and Radio City Music Hall.

We cruised through/past Time Square...but because it was absolutely nuts and we were starting to get tired frustrated with the crowds...it was literally a "oh hey, there it is" and kept walking. We continued on to the Subway Station which we found out after buying our ticket that we went in on the wrong side of the street and were heading uptown and not downtown. So, we bought ANOTHER ticket, crossed the street and started heading home!

We hit up the salad/hot food bar at Whole Foods and made our way back to our ferry. After watching the sunset from the NYC side of the Hudson River we hopped on the ferry and started heading home after a couple long days in NYC. So fun!

We had a couple whirlwind days in New York but part of our adventures were just hanging out at our RV Park too. It was a great park with a huge playground for Eli and a nice new pool. On top of that Eli (and us) made some new friends. Eli loved playing with Chloe and Carson. They were so nice with him and were really like nice older siblings, not the mean kind that pick on you. Oh and like I said we made new friends too with their parents. We had so much in common and loved chatting while the kids played. Can't wait to meet up with them again in California!

We also explored the Jersey area closer to where we were staying. That included Atlantic City which was about 20 minutes away. We were very underwhelmed with the city. We walked up and down the board walk and explored the beach a little. You could tell that it was hit hard by the economic downturn. So unless you like casinos...it really isn't that great. We did find this statue that recognized that AC was/is the home of Miss America Pageant.

We also took a trip down to Cape May which was a a lot more our style, laid back beach town. We met up with some friends, Laurie and Trey, that actually took a ferry over from Maryland. Trey was racing in a triathlon in the area the next day which sounded like a lot of fun. The beach area was fantastic down there. We also heard, but never went, about a zoo that was down in Cape May that was supposed to be fantastic. By the time we knew about it, we were already too busy to make it down there.

All in all, we really enjoyed our time in this area! Jersey was a good change of pace and was nice to slow down. NYC was fantastic and fun to see all the sights!!

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Reflections: One Month on the Road as Fulltime RVers

5/5/2016

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Where do we even begin?? The last month has been a whirlwind!! One month ago we left Minnesota for a quick stop in Nashville, TN...on our way to Augusta, GA so Dan could go to the Master's. Since then here's what we've done and where we stayed:

Greenville, AL: first Walmart parking lot experience. Pretty pleasant actually!

New Orleans, LA: Spent 8 days here to watch some friends play in the AVP tournament and to check out a few touristy things

Foley, AL: Spent 11 days here to see some friends, go to the beach in Gulf Shores and just relax a bit.

Quincy, FL: Just outside of Tallahassee. Spent 1 night at a small RV park...couldn't pass up $12/night in lieu of the Walmart parking lot. It was HOT and humid and we wanted to be able to plug in for electricity and run our air conditioners rather than run the generator all night.

Savannah, GA: This is where we are currently staying for 7 days and we can't wait to explore downtown Savannah, Tybee Island and Hilton Head Island, find a farmer's market and some good coffee shops and food!

Honestly, we're still trying to find a rhythm with our daily schedule. Since we work from home doing online health/fitness coaching it's really really easy to get sucked into working ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. We don't want that. There needs to be balance. We did this so we could be together as a family and have more flexibility/freedom!! So we are committing to a daily schedule where we both can focus on our priorities at different times so one of us is playing with Eli or taking him out of the RV to do fun things or run errands...then in the afternoon after Eli's nap, we'll head out and do some exploring around town for 2-3 hours. Every day may look different...depending on what we need to focus on that day but we both know we want to get up around 5:30/6:00 am every day to make sure we get our devotionals/coffee and maybe a little work done before Eli even wakes up! Yep, that's early BUT because we know the most successful people start their day early, we want to model our habits after them!

The other day I asked Dan if he was still glad we took the plunge and did this...his answer, with no hesitation was "YES...what else would we be doing?"...Well, we'd be living in our townhome in Minnesota most likely...working from home. And while there is nothing wrong with that, we both knew we wanted to see where God would lead us by stepping out in faith and doing something a little unconventional. Giving up something good for something great is hard to do when you can't see the whole road!!

I FULLY believe that He called us to do this for a purpose...whether it be for us OR for the people we interact with...or something completely different...I have a gut feeling that as long as we are open and willing to follow where He leads, He'll lead us into some pretty amazing things and put us in touch with some pretty awesome people.

I can't wait to watch the road unfold.

Little stud muffin

Dangit Eli :) Almost got a good family photo

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Our New Home - Before and After Pics

4/28/2016

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We know these pics are long overdue since we have been on the road for officially 1 month now. We feel like we are pretty well settled and have things the way we like them. We still need to add a pouf or two to put our feet on in the living room, but for the most part, it's done! For now our stability ball is doing the trick. We also have some things we hope to add to our "patio" outside to make that a more homey feel.

The main things that we did were:

Paint all the cabinets in living area, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. We left the cabinets in the cab the original color
Painted over the faded and slightly nasty wallpaper. We went with a gray paint that had a little blue tone to it.
Put in new flooring the entire way from the living area back into the bedroom. We used a peel and stick resilient flooring.
Put up a subway tile for a back splash in the kitchen and bathroom.
Upgraded the TV in front and added our Blu-Ray player and Roku. We also installed a new sound bar rather than using the old system that was wired up and confusing.
We removed the valances from around all the windows and just re-hung the blinds that were inside them.
We removed one of the couches and installed a desk and left room for some of Eli's toys.
We installed a new LG washer and dryer combo unit. The old RV didn't come with one and we definitely felt we needed it since we would be living in here full-time.
We removed the old headboard and built a new padded headboard that we made out of some fun cloth we found and a few boards (Thank you Young House Love for the idea!).
We removed the doors on the closet in the bedroom and hung some curtains that we trimmed up to fit that space.

***Disclaimer: When we say "WE" did all of this work we're talking about us and Dan's parents. They were instrumental in helping us do ALL of this work in about 3 weeks...it was chaotic and they let us interrupt their peaceful lives for that duration...and for that we are SO THANKFUL!

The passenger's side slideout with our updated kitchen backsplash and a super fun pillow we got from a friend. Thanks Lacy! We love the white cabinets and how it brightened up the entire coach.

The driver's side slideout with our new desk and our dining area. Oh and Eli's toys!

Dan's kitchen!!! Other than lacking a little counter space we love this area. For those that are curious...the microwave doubles as a convection oven and actually works really well to roast veggies and bake. We were super surprised!! No dishwasher is a bummer, but we've made due.

A shot of our living area with our new TV, rug and desk. We love the way it turned out!

Shower and bathroom area. You can see how the old flooring flowed throughout the coach. The shower also has a tub in it which has been fantastic with Eli and makes bath time so much better.

Another view of our bedroom and the curtain that we hung instead of the glass doors. Oh and our residential washer and dryer that we added. There was an electrical box that stopped us from pushing it back far enough to get the doors back on. Our plan is to move that so we can slide it back a few more inches. We probably won't put the doors back on but might do a curtain or something... we are still deciding on if that's necessary.

Our new headboard and our own bedding. We also brought in our king size mattress that we had in our townhome. It's been nice to have our own bed to sleep on. The throw pillows will get upgraded at some point...they're not exactly what Laura would like but we're just working with what we already had!

A look at the old mirror, ugly valances and light fixtures that didn't work. We used the light fixtures that were in the bedroom and just moved them out into the living room.

And a few more random pictures! Thanks for checking out our house!!

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Our New Home - Before Pics

3/17/2016

We have had a quite a few people ask about our RV and wanted to more about it. We realized we haven't really shared much about our new home, especially pictures. We snapped a few pics before we started our remodel project, which we are in the middle of right now. We've gotten a few comments from people that have basically said, "Why would we change anything, it's beautiful?" We agree that it didn't "need" any work done, other than maybe new carpet. We wanted it to feel like "our" home and not a factory created one.

Here are some pictures of the front living area of our motorhome. The kitchen has a 2 burner cooktop... we've thought about upgrading to a 3 burner option but we hope to get by with the 2 plus our multi-cooker. Plus we have a table top grill that we can use when we get to our campsites. Both of the couches fold down into beds, so in theory we could have up to 6 people sleeping in our coach. Our plan is to remove one of the couches and put a desk in so we can have a dedicated workspace. That will definitely get used more than a 2nd sleeper sofa.

Pictures of the transition area and the bedroom. The door on the left is to the bathroom. There is also another sink to the right. The bedroom has a king size bed in it, BONUS!!! Our plan is to just use our mattress in here. We will also be installing a new washer and dryer combo unit in the cabinet to the left of the closet. We figured laundry was more important than storage. We will be doing something new for closet doors also. We weren't crazy about the mirrored doors.

So there is an idea of what our new home will kind of look like. We will definitely be sharing the "after" photos once we get things done....which we hope will be in a week or so. It's been a fun...yet slightly stressful project. Our son, Eli has decided to graduate into the terrible 2's...at the age of 19 months so that's been interesting. Watching him has been the most challenging job we've had, even above ripping out carpet. We just keep saying it is just a phase and once we get on the road he will bounce back to his normal, jovial self. At least we hope. A whole year of this could be pretty overwhelming.

HUGE shout out to my parents, Steve & Deb, for all their help with painting, priming, babysitting and advice. There would have been absolutely no way we would have been able to get this done without them!!!

Life As We Know It, Right Now

2/25/2016

I have to apologize that you've been missing out on recipe posts and nutritional posts lately. We are in a stage of life right now where things are just a little crazy in our home and work world. If you follow us, you know that we just bought an RV...if you don't know what that is all about, check out this post. That entire process was SO time consuming!! Being a first time RV buyer there is SO much to take into account. Length... Slideouts... Diesel or Gas... How old are the tires? BTW if tires are 12 years old they need to be replaced and RV tires aren't cheap. Goodbye $2,800! Those are just a few of the things that you have to think about when looking into buying one. AND THEN you have to learn how to drive the thing!

Now that we have all of that behind us. Our focus has shifted to renovating our new home. We want to make it feel like OUR home...so we're going to be attempting to take the "factory production line feel" away.

Just a heads up that there are Facebook groups of 15,000+ solely dedicated renovating RV interiors. Who knew???

We are also working on selling our vehicles and buying a new one that has the ability to be towed behind our RV. We are selling off, donating or trashing pretty much everything in our 1,200 square foot townhome in order to get things to fit into our new 250 square foot home. Let's just say I am turning into a Craigslist ninja. Did you know that there is a national craigslist search option? Yeah someone figured out how to do that.

First family trip in the RV. Taking it out to my parent's house.

Other things on the horizon of our life...

Laura's last day of work is TOMORROW!!! So that is pretty crazy.
We are moving most of our furniture and belongings out next and taking them down to Des Moines to Laura's parents house.
We are also leaving Eli down in Des Moines since Laura and I are heading out to Los Angeles next weekend to go to Chalene Johnson's Smart Success LIVE seminar. SO EXCITED about this one.
After we return from LA we will be heading out to Redwood Falls (my hometown, and doing our RV renovations. We anticipate that taking 1-2 weeks.
After that we will come back up to the cities with our finished RV and load it up for the long haul.
We will likely have a get together somewhere in the cities and let people see our RV and say our "See you laters!" We hate goodbye's! Name that movie?
Our plan is then to head to Kansas City to spend a little time with a good friend and fellow coach. We will also attend a quarterly Beachbody event when we are there.
Then we are off to the Augusta, Georgia area so that I can attend the Masters Golf Tournament.

Last time I was at Augusta National back in 2004.

So yeah that is what our last month and the next month look like for us. It's been a pretty wild experience so far. With all of this craziness right now we are just trying to keep our heads above water.

Laura is still running accountability groups and mentoring coaches on our team.
We are still working out pretty much daily, drinking our Shakeology daily, eating healthy 80-90% of the time.

To us that stuff has become a habit or a non-negotiable which is great at this point. That wouldn't have always been the case. Five years ago I would have been too tired to workout and eating frozen pizza for the convenience.

So yeah we have to apologize for not having as much content on the blog but that will all change soon. Plus we will be sharing some of our crazy adventures from the road. Thanks for reading!

Guess What We Are Doing?

1/28/2016

We have some pretty exciting plans for 2016. We've been telling some close friends and family about these plans and been getting some common questions, so we wanted to share this video with you to share our plans and the answers to those questions.

Our First Winter As Snowbirds

Where have we been in the last 6 months?

Kansas City

Eureka Springs, AR

Austin, TX

Christmas in MN, Iowa and our RV

Galveston and Kemah, TX

Orlando, FL

The Keys

The Rest of Florida

Traveling with Family

One Year RV-versary!

Where Have We Been?

What Have We Learned?

What Lies Ahead?

The Process to Become Texans

Applying for a Texas Class B Non-CDL License

August Travels (Kentucky, W. Virginia, Pittsburgh, Niagara, and More)

Road Trip with Nana

Time with Family and Fridge Repairs

Catching Up On Our Travels - New York City

Reflections: One Month on the Road as Fulltime RVers

Our New Home - Before and After Pics

Our New Home - Before Pics

Life As We Know It, Right Now

Guess What We Are Doing?

The Cook & The Coach

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