We arrived in Bend on February 15th, 2009. Steven's brother David and wife Danise graciously allowed us to live with them for 10 weeks. On April 25, the renter moved out of "the treehouse" and we moved in.

 

It's a one bedroom house. The entry is into the Kitchen, and the laundry and bathroom is on this level. Next climbing up 4 stairs is the living room with huge windows looking out to the glorious garden. The Landing is up 6 stairs, and after another 5 stairs is the loft where the children have their beds - a bunk bed and a twin. Up 5 more stairs is our bedroom.... So you can see how our home is a bit like the Swiss Family Robinson house.

 

Between school, setting up household, and 4 trips to California to bring our stuff to Oregon, 1 trip to bring Mom's stuff to Oregon, and an Independence Day party, things were pretty busy from April to August.

It seems as if the Lord is calling us into a second multi-generational living situation in Bend, OR. Steven's Mom Joan is having trouble maintaining her lovely ocean view home in San Clemente, so it is time for a change in living situation. So we are headed west to Bend, OR. where she will be living. Steven's brother David and lovely wife Danise live in Bend, as do Steven's brother Walter, wife Cathy and daughter Tammy. Mom will live either with David and Danise, or right next door.

 

We cannot really tour anymore states, as the ones we have missed are the northern tier - and it's too cold there now. Our trailer is fine in the 30's, but in the 20's it's clear that the "Ultra Light" class of our trailer means ultra light insulation also. We have added a sleeping bad UNDER our bed for extra insulation - we had plenty of covers on the top, but the bottom side was a bit chilly!

 

We will investigate the possibility of living in Bend, when we arrive.

 

We gotta hit the road.... More later.!

I am overwhelmed with gratefulness. The Lord is so Good to us! We have been living in this trailer for 8 months and we still love it. I am amazed at what we can live without - though I do find myself longing to setup a home again, with a little more than 240 square feet. We have seen amazing things! We have made wonderful memories! We have grown and matured as a family. We are closer than ever! We are learning to worship as a family! Balancing "life" and "fun" is still about 50 percent - we still have to buy groceries (in small quantities for a small refridgerator and small freezer), we need to do laundry! I do miss my washer & dryer - when I am doing 10-12 or more loads of laundry a week (and each load costs at least $1.50 per wash and $1.00 per dry!) I now know EXACTLY how much laundry I was doing at home - only now I hog 4 (or more!) washers and dryers in the laundry room of each campground! Wow~! Finally being on the East Coast is fabulous! The terrain, the weather, the historic places, the sights to see! We are so BLESSED! Thank you Jesus!

In our trailer, we are cramped for space and evaluating EVERYTHING for weight!

 

We have been collecting the books we are "done" with, and recently sent 4 boxes of books home; we are GRATEFUL to have the space back!

 

The books totalled 86 pounds!!! We read 86 pounds of books in 6 months!

 

This is not a "measure" I would have done at home with our homeschooling, but it sure does encourage me!

 

That is 8 - 10 pound sacks of flour, a 5 pound sack of flour, and 1 pound sack of sugar!! Wow!

 

You can try it at home... cleanout from your old homeschool year, place the books in one spot, and weigh stacks! You too will be encouraged!

The KOA of Williams was nice and the pines smell great. It had good hook-ups, but the place where they put us was the place they put ones that stay for one day. Dad didn’t like the spot so we moved to a spot that was nicer. One day it snowed. Once Mom saw it, she declared a snow day!!! So we had a snow fight and we went to the street and we made a snow man, it was quite good. We got a KOA bag and put it on him as a shirt. After we made him we went to get some hot cocoa. We made some more snow balls to go on the Indian’s arm. (The carved wooden Indian standing beside the KOA Kamp Store door.) The days at the campground was good. The day has come to go and we did.

 

- Nathan, 8/4/08

 

(From Mom: I guess the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, and the Lowell Observatory meant nothing? Sigh!)

I don’t ever want to live in Barstow, I feel sorry for those who have to live there, and cannot imagine why someone would choose to live there. Barstow, CA is essentially a train and truck stop, with several trailer parks, residential areas, restaurants, shops and museums thrown in. There’s not much to it, and yet people have lived and worked there since the time of the wild, Wild West.  As dull as Barstow may seem to me, there are two things that make it interesting… The original neon signs along Barstow’s section of Route 66, and the Harvey house of Barstow, which is the location where my Great-Grandma, Lois Virginia Ellen McCosh, met my Great-Grandpa, Lilburn Ralph Thomas.

           Sometime before 1935, during the middle of the depression, Lois was working in Walton, KS in order to provide for her grandparents and mother, as she was the only one who could get a job at the time. She had been doing this for awhile, when her grandpa Marshall came to her, and told her that he would go on the “County” (Welfare) in order to provide for his wife and daughter, if Lois would go and get a life for herself. So, Grandpa Marshall went on the County, and Lois got a life for herself, at the Harvey House in Barstow, CA in 1935. Lois had been working there for a while (we don’t know exactly how long), when the radio of the Harvey House’s Manager broke down. It just so happened that a young man named Lilburn Ralph Thomas was working for the Santa Fe Railroad, and was at the Barstow station at the same time the radio broke down. Since “Ralph” Thomas was familiar with radios, and was focused on communications electronics within the Railroad, he was able to fix the Manager’s radio.

Meanwhile, Ralph met Lois and had known her for four weeks when they started dating. They had been dating for two weeks when he supposedly said “Marry me Woman, or I’ll get me another.” and they were wed by the end of their two week courtship. When a Harvey girl signed the contract, they agreed that they would not marry for a year and leave before their contract expired. Yet Grandma Thomas was able to get out of her contract and marry Grandpa Thomas. Since Grandpa Thomas had fixed the Manager’s radio, he was able to talk the manager into letting Grandma out of her contract, and thus Lois and Ralph began a marriage that would last until Lois died of Alzheimer’s disease, two months before their 60^th Anniversary. Grandpa Thomas died exactly six months later.

Because of this, we decided to stay in Barstow for four days, so that we could visit the Harvey House, and go to the Santa Fe railroad museum, and Route 66 museum. These we did, as well as getting the trailer cleaned up a bit, before we set out toward our next destination.

- Amanda

When we came to San Diego it was sunny, clear and 72 degrees. This was a good campground, with bushes between the spots (aka campsites). The Street sweepers were running daily. The campground had good facilities and a very good playground. The stay was nice. Good for bike riding, so we did bike riding after our schoolwork was done, of course. One day we got all of our schoolwork done, Dad hoped we could go on a bike ride, but the way was blocked by shadowy figures and it was getting late. Dad didn’t want to go in the area because if we went in and took us long we would get attacked by those men. So we turned back, but we did it the next day and rode to the harbor.

 

While in San Diego, we saw Sea World, San Diego Zoo, Coronado Island, and the ICR Museum.

 

            By Nathan, 6/23/08

Julian (near San Diego) is a sleepy little mountain town that caters to tourists, but we were going there for Tourmaline. Parking our rig at Pinezanita RV Ranch gave us a base of operations. Before we moved out of our home, we watched a show on the Travel Channel called “Where to Find Cash and Treasures” and one show featured Julian, near the Himalaya Tourmaline Mine. At Lake Henshaw Resort (so NOT a resort!), they bring a dump truck full of tailings from the mine and for a fee, you can dig through the tailings, screen the dirt and find your own gems.

 

What is Tourmaline you may ask? Well it is a gem that comes in green, pink, black, and some times clear, and it comes in color combinations like bi-color, tri-color and watermelon. If it is clear and has no fractures it is sometimes facetable. It is more rare than diamonds.

 

We went mining three times. The first time we went we arrived late so we only got an hours worth of mining in. One of the guys running the place said that we got a good amount of tourmaline for an hour’s work. The second time we went hunting, Daddy, Nate and I went because Amanda had a class that day.

 

The best day was the day that we went mining with my Aunt Danise and Uncle David on my dad’s side of the family; they had driven down from Oregon for a family funeral. Well my Dad and my uncle are the biggest jokers when they are together, so it was the best time mining so far and we got the most tourmaline that day. Ironically, Dad was saying that he was doing the best, right before I went to fill up my bucket, saw a piece of tourmaline, picked it up, took my bucket back to my station and then rinsed it off. This tourmaline was a little bigger than the size of a quarter in diameter, about ¾” think, and a reverse watermelon (pink on the outside and green on the inside). I said, “You guys look!” and opened my hand. Our entire family congratulated me! Then Daddy said that he had to work harder to catch up to where I was, and every body was on their toes again. Then I went to Grandma, who was resting in the car, and said, “look what I just found!” I showed it to her and she drawled, “Wow!” Now everybody was asking, “where about did you find that?” or “see I made a good choice when I picked Allie as a friend”, it was quite funny to watch. When Aunt Danise Grandma and Mommy left to go get some lunch, Grandma said “guard that big piece with your life”, I will I said. It was a “have lunch when you are hungry” lunch hour. The rest of the afternoon was nice; we did not find as much after lunch, but it was still fun. The joke when we were tourmaline mining was that the owners had bags of dirt for sale for $100. But these were very special bags of dirt they were supposed to have gems in them, and after Daddy and Uncle David bought one each, Daddy said it wasn’t worth it. Amanda teased that if you don’t find anything, you could take the dirt home, put it in your backyard, and put up a sign that says “genuine Julian dirt”.            – Allison

After parking in front of Grandma’s house, we decided to stay at the San Clemente State Beach so that we could complete several projects while remaining near Grandma’s house and visiting the beach. While there, Allie, Nate and I all had a great time riding our bikes around, especially since the Park is quite extensive, with lots of paved roads-two of which go down to the beach. At one point, we attempted to ride our bikes on the beach itself, but that didn’t work out too great. When we tried riding on the beach, I think we spent more time trying to get our bikes out of the sand than actually riding our bikes. We quickly nixed that idea and rode our bikes back up the paved road. After that plan was spoiled, we convinced Mommy and Daddy to walk down to the beach with us, and while there, we walked on the beach twice. The second time as a storm rolled in.  It was really interesting being in our trailer as it rained that night, as it was one of the first times that we had encountered a storm in the trailer, but the storm quickly passed. In addition to those events, Grandma came and visited us at the campground several times, which was fun for her, being able to see us in our campground setting and for us, to have our first campground visitor. All in all, we really enjoyed the San Clemente State Beach!