If someone told me a year ago that we would plan to sell our home, buy a truck and trailer (something we know nothing about) and travel the country for a year I would have flat out laughed and then very seriously replied with a “um, no!”. Isn’t it so funny how life can take a 180 turn and leave you in a place you never quite imagined you’d be? I feel that way on so many levels sometimes. The fact that I am already out of my child bearing years and my last child will leave home around the time some people start thinking about giving birth to their last child is definitely one. Honestly when Eric and I came to the realization that our family was complete and our family of 4 was it I felt just about every emotion in the book. Excitement that we could finally move on with our lives, sadness that I was leaving a stage behind I wasn’t ready to leave, fear of being an empty nester so young and being alone, relief that I didn’t have to be so vulnerable anymore in our process to adopt, emptiness in that no one really knew the storm of emotions going on inside of me and that most of my friends couldn’t relate.

 I spent a lot of time in my own thoughts for the next few months trying to sort everything out. I held it all in until Eric made the mistake one day as we were driving out to my parents and asked, “What’s on your mind?”. Thoughts and worries came spilling out of me like flood gates of a dam being opened up. I worried our family was too comfortable and that our family wasn’t strong/close enough to have the end result I wanted when it was time for the girls to leave home. Before I knew it, I heard myself saying things like “moving”, “doing something hard” and “stepping out of our comfort zones”; all things I really dislike. By this point Eric was completely speechless and stunned. I’m pretty sure I have never caught him so off guard and you guys, I am known to have some crazy ideas!

Long story short even after saying things I never thought would come out of my mouth let alone actually consider doing, I felt this pull to move forward and Eric quickly jumped on board. Less than a month later we bought a monstrous 40 foot 5^th wheel trailer and a truck with more gadgets then we have ever had the luxury of having in any cars we’ve previously owned. The girls couldn’t have been more excited about the idea of sleeping in bunks and living in a trailer. I mean it doesn’t take much to excite small children and this blew their minds!

After spending the last couple of months in the excitement of remodeling the trailer to make it more a home the idea still doesn’t always seem real to me. I find myself looking around our home I love, I want to start hyperventilating and say with some choice words “what do we think we are doing and why!” However, once that passes, I still feel this strange peace about this family experiment we are preparing to embark on.

We are planning on leaving some amazing and loved friends behind, selling our first home that we made ours and head for a year of a lot of learning and growing. We’ll trudge through the good and the bad and in the end, we hope to have grown closer as a family, learned to rely more on each other and see the world through new eyes.

The plan: spend the rest of the school year finished remodeling our trailer and making it “home”; sell our house after the school year ends, store our things and hit the road mid-summer.