Welcome "Home"

THIS LOVELY HOME - originally started off as a place to document my home renovation journey on our then new to us first family home.  It then turned into a space for me to write about my trials and tribulations with first time motherhood, but then as my daughter grew older, I stopped. Many of my thoughts and feelings at that time were honest, hard truths about marriage, motherhood, life in the burbs, and more.   Things my husband told me he did not always want shared out there for the world to see.  So I made it a priority to put my family's privacy first. 

But now Im back. Reinventing this space not to complain or debate about home life, marriage, children, profession… it is going to be a space where I share with you our travels, our decisions we make relating to our time spent on the road and all that goes along with it!
Long before I met my hubs I would have dreams about a faceless family, one I did not yet know traveling the world… I would dream about us sitting on a train traveling through Europe, or on a safari in Africa, donkey ride down through the Grand Canyon, living, exploring, feeling the earth and seeing things together.  Fast forward 5-10 years, I read an article in a magazine about a family who took a “GAP YEAR”,  I shared this article with my husband and told him point blank - WE WILL DO THIS. I WILL happen. He shrugged me off, adding it to the list of my “crazy” ideas. Yet, I did not let this one die. I actually talked about this dream of mine at length with him when we were deciding if we were going to have a 3rd child - what that would mean for us and for my GAP YEAR, travel plans, WHEN we would do this,  HOW we could fund it, and so much more.  It made me realize that for our family and my dreams TWO beautiful little girls were the right number. 

 Fast forward  to last winter. My regularly scheduled seasonal depression kicked in at an all.time.low - I drove him CRAZY with plans to move away from this awful winter-ridden place (which I still feel the same about). On the flip side to all this a dear friend who lived across the country decided it was time to make HER dream a reality and sell all their shit, buy an RV and full-time travel with her hubs and 2 girls. I won't lie, I had MAJOR travel envy. I was feeling SO LOW,  sitting at home, dealing with the same shit, different day, cold, unhappy, disconnected, god knows what else… and here she (and many others) are making their dreams come true!
Something in me CLICKED.  I WANTED this life for my family… however, my husband was a hard fast NO.  I was heartbroken. Nothing I could say or do would convince him otherwise. I started to doubt our compatibility as a couple, I could not believe he would not want this type of experience for himself or our girls - it was mind boggling to me.  After MUCH soul searching, a summer of therapy and a compromise we decided we would get SOME sort of camper, trailer, RV, Van, whatever, and that I could pick up and travel with my girls (and sometimes him as well!) and see how to feels.  So, this is where we are. 1 beautiful travel trailer and vintage VW Vanagon later and we will see where our wheels take us.