Ventura Beach RV Resort. Our Second Dry Run Through

                                                                                   Our official departure date is now May 29th                                 We decided to move our departure date up from June 1 to May 29.  We will head to Las Vegas on the 29th.  The cleaners will come to our house on the 30th and then our tenants are welcome to move stuff in after that.  Now that we have renters, a rig and a clear view of our time line, we decided it was super important to do an official dry run with our RV.  Just to make sure everything is OK and that we know how to use our rig.   I found a local campsite that is open to full timers.  They gave us the OK to go and stay 4 days and 3 nights.  So we hooked up the trailer to our truck and drove to Ventura!!!                                                                                                                                                  FRIDAY                                                      Hooking up our trailer was actually a little easier. We are getting better at it!  The drive to Ventura was an easy 40 minute drive. I drove while Scotty took some calls for work.  We arrived and set up camp.  I booked us a pull through site thinking that it would be an easy way to park the trailer. I think that usually it will be easier but here at this campsite the sites are close together.  It took some effort to get in but getting out looks impossible to me. The street that we have to turn on to get out is so small.  There is no way we can make as wide of a turn as we need to to get out. Oh well, we will just have to worry about that on Monday. Once the rig was in place, it was fairly easy to level it and set up the electrical, sewer and water.  Then we just pulled out tables and bikes and organized all our stuff.  The kids were so excited to go play so they took off on their bikes and scooters and rode around most of the night. For dinner we made french toast.  It was an east first day.                                                                                                                            

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

                                                                   SATURDAY                                               We slept really good Friday night.  Scotty and the boys got up super early to drive to Santa Barbara for a bike ride up Gibraler. It is a gnarly climb but a beautiful ride. While they were gone, I played with Pepper and Taj. Then we had an inspector come  from the warranty company that we are getting for the RV.  We spent the day riding bikes, playing at the beach, meeting lots of fun people and we had a visit from Nana and Papa. We made tacos for dinner then when it was dark we went to the beach to see the bio luminescence waves. That was magical.  We relaxed and had a wonderful day all the while we were learning new things about our rig. We found a place to put our bikes for storage.  We tried our washer/dryer combo and it leaked everywhere.  Oops. We have to fix that today. We also are learning how to store everything and how to find everything.  LOL  its kind of funny. Going from a huge house to a trailer. We are nuts.  But I can see how this trip will be wonderful.  Getting so excited.   

   

                                              Pepper and Taj in the hammock eating apples

                                                           Boys bike ride                                                                                                       

                                                            Ice cream anyone???

                                                                  Taj ready to go to the beach

                                                                Asher in the hammock                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            BEACH FUN!!!!!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           ASHER MAKES US PLAY CHESS AND THEN HE KILLS ALL OF US  WE CAN'T SEEM TO BEAT HIM.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                BIO LUMINESCENCE.  THIS WAS AMAZING.  JUST LIKE FIREWORKS!!!!

Blessings, Renters and our new 5th wheel!!

                            Blessings                                                                                                                     We have been so blessed these last few weeks. While tackling some of the major tasks that have to be done before we leave on our trip, we have seen an amazing increase in blessings from our Savior Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.  These blessings have been accompanied with a major trial that swept the entire world, Covid19.  Not one of us expected to be making plans for our trip during a global pandemic. Covid19 has shut down the entire world.  Entire states have closed closed their borders. Businesses have been forced to close their services.  Campgrounds and  National Parks have closed.  The economy has plummeted.  Even though this horrible pandemic has occurred, we remain calm and hopeful that all will go back to normal and we will enjoy our trip to various cities and National Parks.                             Two major things needed to be done before we could leave on our trip;   1- We needed to rent our house out                                                                                      2- We needed to find and buy a 5th wheel trailer.                                                                 1-We were told by many agents that there was no way that we could rent our house out during the Covid19 pandemic.  People were scared to leave their houses and would wait until it was over to look for a place to move to.  We decided to have hope and faith and move forward with the listing of our home. The listing posted on Zillow late on a Saturday night.  By Sunday morning we had multiple responses and people interested.  The following Monday we showed the house 6 times via Zoom.  By Monday night we had 2 legit applications. We continued to show the house 12 more times during the week.  Many more people were interested in the house but we had to cap the amount of video calls we were doing.  In the end we had 4 amazing families that wanted to rent our house.  After much prayer and fasting we decided which family would live in our beloved home for the 14 months while we were gone. We felt so blessed to have so much interest and to have options in the people interested in our home.                                                                                                                                2- The 5th wheel we wanted was one of the most expensive yet amazing 5th wheels that we found.  We fell in love with it.  We wanted the Grand Design Momentum 399th model.  Only through being led by Gods hands, we found the perfect trailer for us that was also in our price range.  The trailer was located in AZ.  Easy!!  We took a trip up to AZ to visit Pati and to pick up our trailer.  With very few hiccups, we drove the trailer back to CA. For fun we decided to stop in Palm Springs and camp for 2 nights so we could practice using the trailer and get used to it.                                                                The blessings we have seen in our lives have been breathtaking.  Even with the horrible pandemic we were able to rent our house out to a wonderful family and find the 5th wheel of our dreams. There is no doubt in my mind or heart that we are supposed to go on this adventure around the US.  Yes there might be a few closed things due to the pandemic but we decided that we are OK with that. We will have wonderful family time and that was the whole reason why we wanted to do the trip in the first place.