April 2019 – 7Nomads

April 26, 2019November 17, 2019

How We Roadschool Our 5 Kids

Roadschooling is homeschooling on the road. I have also heard of a new term for traveling families, called “Worldschooling” which sounds pretty cool, but we are primarily traveling in a motorhome in the USA, so I will stick with Roadschooling. I love that we have the freedom to homeschool/roadschool our children. We actually homeschooled before we moved into the RV, and there are so many things I love about homeschooling in general. Homeschooling on the road is a bit different though, and as you might have guessed, roadschooling does come with its own set of challenges and benefits. In this blog post, I will give a general overview of How We Roadschool Our 5 Kids.

Logistics

Where does everybody sit? Where do we store our stuff? Is it too noisy in that small space? Obviously, we do not have a classroom in our RV that resembles the typical schoolroom, complete with 5 student desks and a large teacher’s desk at the front.

When we are parked, with the slides open, we have our two oldest children in the front part of the RV at the dinette, the next two are in the back bedroom at a folding table, our youngest is at a small folding table in the front. When we are driving, and our space is much more confined because the slides are closed, two kids are at the dinette, two are on the couch, and one is in the captain chair. Driving school days are a little more difficult, but a benefit is that it passes the time if we have to cover a lot of ground in one day.

One thing that is great about an RV is the storage space, I might not have a large storage closet, or a desk, or a filing cabinet, but I do have a ton of cabinets. In the large cabinet above our captain chairs, each child has a magazine holder where they store their workbooks. In a smaller cabinet towards the front, I store the answer keys, tests, and extra workbooks. In a lower cabinet below our tv, we store books, mostly smaller books for enjoyment. In our “basement” (the underneath storage of the RV) we keep our “filecabinet” (a large tote with our student records, extra answer keys and workbooks) I also keep a tote with extra books and a large tote full of art supplies. I have actually found myself saying “I’ll be right back, I have to go to the basement to get some score keys”. 🙂

Curriculum

I have been to homeschool conventions and been homeschooling long enough to know that there are enough curriculums out there to make your head spin. It can be a daunting decision. Some roadschoolers/homeschoolers don’t use a curriculum at all or use several and pick and choose different subjects. The beauty of homeschooling is that there are several ways to do it, and families can pick what works best for them.

We use the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. Matt and I are familiar with this curriculum because we used it growing up in Christian Schools.

Here is what we love about it:

Flexible – This is a high priority for us, our schedule is not always the same. We aim to start at 9 and end at 3 every day. Some days, though, we sleep in because we were in a Revival service until 10pm. Some days, we are close to an amazing natural wonder or fantastic historical site, and so the 9-3 school day may be interrupted. ACE is flexible in that it is mastery-based, and the kids work at their own pace, so if they love to read, they might fly through their reading assignments, but if they struggle with math, they can take some more time with it.

Christian based – It is important to us that we raise our kids with Christian values. In each workbook(a full school year is 12 PACEs (workbooks) in each subject) the student memorizes a scripture and character trait. I love that the kids are not only learning excellent math and reading skills, they are also learning about compassion, respect, friendliness, tact, and patience – those are important life skills!

Simple – I don’t mean simple as in easy and not thorough, I mean simple as in it is easy to set goals and accomplish them. I am not naturally organized, so I love that this curriculum is laid out for us. We can easily see what each child needs to do and we can easily see what they might be struggling with. There isn’t anything wrong with large textbooks and writing down assignments on separate paper, but honestly, that system is very cumbersome for a small space, and we love the simplicity of these workbooks.

Exploration

The best for last! There is so much to see and so much to learn about! I love history, and it is so fun to be able to research the area we are in and tell the kids about it, and then go and see it for ourselves! Sometimes they are amazed at what they see, and other times they make comments like “I don’t get the big deal with this rock, mom” (Plymouth Rock).

There are so many beautiful natural sites around America, and it is wonderful to be able to experience these things first hand. There is a sense of awe and wonder that can only be felt, not described. Our world seems smaller the more we travel, and the influence this has had on our kids’ understanding of geography has been awesome.

Another benefit of exploring, that I underestimated, is how we have experienced other cultures. It is really interesting to meet people who live differently than you. To see that cold and hot are really relative terms, depending on what climate you are used to living in. To hear expressions, the way people talk from different areas, and to try new foods. These are all things that we couldn’t teach our children without experiencing it. I am forever grateful for these experiences.

Thank you for reading “How We Roadschool Our 5 Children”!

If you would like to find out more about our ministry, Kingdom Pursuit Ministries, go to www.kpministry.org

April 15, 2019November 11, 2020

Campground Review – Tom Sawyer’s RV Park

We have enjoyed visiting many campgrounds/rv parks over the past few years all across America. Some have been amazing and some have left us disappointed, but rather than just listing the top ten, I thought it might be a good idea to just talk about what we did and didn’t like at the places we have stayed. As a disclaimer I will add that amenities and public bathrooms are not that important to us, we spend most of our time exploring outside the campground, and our bathroom is in the RV.

So, here goes my first review of a campgroud…

The Tom Sawyer’s RV Park in West Memphis, Arkansas.

This campground is located on the Mississippi River in West Memphis, Arkansas. I was super excited to stay at this campground because of its name. Tom Sawyer is of course, the well known title character in one of Mark Twain’s classic books. He also is my dad! Yes, my dad is named Tom Sawyer. For as long as I can remember, my dad has been having a wonderful time with introductions:

Dad: “Hello, what is your name?”

New Person: “My name is _____________, what is your name?”

Dad: “My name is Tom Sawyer” (pause for laughter and amusement) “and this is my wife Lisa, and our daughters, Nadine and Celia.”

So, I was excited to stay at this campground and you might say that this review will be biased because I was already pretty impressed with their name choice.

First Impressions:

We were not familiar with the city of West Memphis, and so finding the campground was somewhat difficult. You could blame it on our navigator app, it decided to take us the fastest way possible, which meant driving through back neighborhood streets and industrial areas, we really thought we were lost until we saw the sign pointing us to the campground. Driving along the road toward the campground was only a little better, their campground sign could use some refurbishing, or else they were just embracing the rustic look, it was a bit swampy and if it had been dark out, we(ok, probably just me) might have felt scared. At last we found the campground and there was a little cabin building where we checked in. A friendly worker helped us out and we noticed they had a small gift shop with Tom Sawyer swag.

Overall Campground Impressions:

The grand Mississippi River could not be missed, and I would say that all the campsites had a pleasant view. It was an overall peaceful setting.The Campground appeared to be well maintained – grass mowed, plenty of trashcans, clean public areas. There were small cabins in the camping areas with restrooms on one side and a laundry area on the other- small but efficient. Bonus! It was FREE to do the laundry!

The RV sites:

The sites were set at an angle and felt spacious to me. We were not camped directly by the river, but it was not crowded so we had a lovely view. I would think that even if it had been full there, it would not have felt crowded. I think they offer wifi, but honestly, we didn’t use it, so I cannot comment on the quality or speed. We have a small antenna from Walmart that attaches to our window, and in areas like this, next to a large city, we pick up a lot of channels. The sites were level and had full hookups.

A Special Surprise:

There was not a playground, but they had something quite unique – treehouses! What?!?! So, as we came in we noticed there were two treehouses. We didn’t know if these were a rented out thing, or just for anyone to explore. I asked the lady at the front office about the treehouses and she said they were remodeling them. She gave us permission to go inside them and asked us to be careful – they were pretty laid back I suppose.

The first one had a ramp that we walked up, and it looked like a giant tin can, but more awesome. The second one was a more traditional tree house, and I guess you could say it rekindled our fear of heights! The treehouse adventure was such a memory maker, and I am curious as to whether they are renting them out now.

Overview:

We really enjoyed staying here, it was not super cheap, but about midrange for the area. I am sure we will return again someday. It was a good spot to stay and explore the city of Memphis. And of course, I brought my dad back a t-shirt and some other random stuff with their logo on it.

Thank you for reading this Campground Review by 7Nomads!

If you would like to find out more about our ministry, Kingdom Pursuit Ministries, go to www.kpministry.org

April 12, 2019November 16, 2019

5 Helpful Organizing Tips for RV Life

I am not a naturally organized person, I actually prefer a little bit of clutter to be honest. My husband likes to say that I am a “nester” – collecting little bits of clutter within arms reach (books I am reading, snack options, my earrings that I’ve taken off, half-finished projects that I can’t seem to put away…) I gather these items mostly around my captain chair in the RV.

Why am I confessing my clutter problems to you? Because I think it is helpful to know that these organizing ideas have helped someone like me, someone who struggles with organization. I am not naturally organized, but our RV is organized and efficient.

1. Organize by Category

Divide and Conquer! In a regular house, this is somewhat implemented, the kitchen stuff goes in the kitchen, bathroom stuff in the bathroom, etc. In an RV, this is done to the extreme. We no longer have the luxury of throwing stuff in a closet when we don’t know where to put it. Everything has a specific place! Our board games are all tucked away in the small cabinet above the couch. We reduced the space they take up by combining several games in one box(an idea we saw online). When items are organized by category, it helps to keep things neat and tidy and it’s easier to find things quickly.

2. Minimize

Once items are organized by category, evaulate if you have too many of one thing. For instance, we have two brushes, one for detangling, and one for thicker hair. Both brushes go in a hanging basket in our bathroom. We have one large skillet and one small skillet, both fit under the kitchen sink. Coffee mugs are easy to collect, and we recently had to eliminate a few. Taking inventory and evaluating our belongings is an ongoing process. We did a huge minimization process before we moved into the RV, but it is something we have to do often. Every now and then, I go through the items in the various cabinets to see if we have collected extra belongings.

3. Use Plastic Containers with Lids

Life savers, that’s what containers with lids are in this RV life! This might seem like a no brainer, but I was surprised at how many containers I needed after we had started life on the road. I recommend the type of containers with the latch on the side, bumpy roads will pop the lids right off of the cheap snap on lids.

Imagine the things that you would normally put in a drawer, or small cabinet, those are the things we put in these awesome containers. We use these containers as a “medicine cabinet” in our kitchen, toy storage in the back bedroom area, and under the bathroom sink to organize neccessities. We put crayons, markers, and colored pencils in their own small containers, and coloring books, papers, and craft kits in their own small containers. I found these at Meijers and Walmart and they have held up under daily abuse by 7 people for 3 years so far.

4. Go to Ikea

Seriously, walk around Ikea. That place has been a wonderful source of organizational inspiration for us. The showroom area is great because most of the room layouts are on the smaller size, like that of an apartment or small house. They are more creative when it comes to storage ideas for things like clothes and shoes, or books and art supplies. I love that their products are designed with efficiency and style in mind. This shoe cabinet in the picture is compact, lightweight, and works well in the kid’s bunks for storing their treasures. I love these adorable gray baskets, we have them all over the RV, storing remotes, phone chargers, brushes, and as pictured here, storing our teenage girls’ stuff.

5. Hide your Junk

This last tip also relates to containers, but not clear plastic ones with lids. I think this idea really helps me (and some of my clutter-loving children) to keep our clutter from running all over the RV. Baskets, boxes, totes, hanging pockets, and totebags, we can fill these cute containers with various treasures, and they don’t have to be perfectly organized, they just have to fit inside. You could call it organized chaos.

I have this container next to my chair up front, I put my journal, various travel brochures that I’ve picked up, cards that I can’t seem to throw away, books I’m reading, kid’s coloring pages, and whatever else ends up thrown in there. I picked up this cheap container from Dollar General, and it is just the right size, it may seem silly, but it helps me to feel at home and relaxed to have a place to throw my junk.

Hiding our junk in cute containers is a win-win situation. I get to keep small collections of treasures and the RV still looks clean and neat. Plus, it gives me an excuse to walk around Hobby Lobby or TJMaxx and look for cute containers.

Thank you for reading “5 Helpful Organizing Tips for RV Life”!

If you would like to find out more about our ministry, Kingdom Pursuit Ministries, go to www.kpministry.org.

April 10, 2019November 25, 2019

5 Must Haves for Full Time RV Life

While we were preparing for full time RV life, my husband and I did a lot of research to prepare ourselves for this major life change. Thankfully, there is Pinterest, and Youtube and Google! Seriously though, there were so many informative blogposts and videos from people who had been full time RVers and their tips were super helpful to us as we planned and prepared. I am glad that we had some advice to help us along, and this list is a combination of the things we bought based on that advice and the things we have bought along the way when we figured out that we needed it. So, here are my 5 Must Have Items for Full Time RV Life:

1. Berkey Water Filter

If you have been on the road very long, you will find out that your water source is ever-changing, so you never know what you’re going to get. Drinking out of the tap in the RV is not something we wanted to do in most cases. If you have kids, you probably already know that disposible water bottles can be a source of frustration – plastic water bottles everywhere usuallly half-full and nobody knows which bottle is theirs! Not to mention the effect on the environment. And where do we store this huge case of water – in an RV, space is at a premium.

My husband Matt stumbled across the Berkey Water System while researching RV living and was very impressed. This water-filtering system is awesome! Pour your gross water into the top, it is gravity fed through the charcoal filters, and then the wonderful, clean water comes out the tap. Our Berkey fits on the counter, right by the sink, and surprisingly, the rubber bottom keeps it from sliding around while we drive down the road. Honestly, I would recommend a Berkey for anyone, RVer or not.(and no, I do not get paid for promoting Berkey products, but maybe I should consider selling them because I love them) For a more technical description, check out their website:https://myberkeywaterusa.com/

2. Tankless Water Heater

Again with the water, I know. When we first moved into our motorhome, we had a 6 gallon water heater. I bet you can imagine how wonderful our shower time was. It wasn’t. It was difficult for 1 person to take a hot/warm shower, much less 7! So my husband found this awesome little tankless hot water heater.

It was tricky to figure out how to regulate the heat at first, it would fluctuate between hot and cold, it was super frustrating. We found a tip from a forum online that suggested setting the temperature and then using only the hot water in the shower. For example, I set my shower at 104 degrees and it is perfect, we set it to about 110-115 for doing dishes. Guess what? The water heater will heat water for up to 20 minutes. If, by some chance, a person takes a shower for longer than 20 minutes, all they have to do is turn the water off and back on again and it will start heating the water.

3. Blackout shades/curtains

If you have ever boondocked, or camped somewhere with bright lights, you have discovered that blackout curtains/shades are a dream come true!

Our motorhome is a 2007, and the window coverings had frankly seen better days. I liked the idea behind their design, there were 3 options: 1. push up for full sunlight and to enjoy the view outside, 2. Pull the sheer shades to block out some of the glare, 3. Pull the opaque shades to block most of the light. After years of use, these shades stopped working, the strings broke inside, or they would partially work. I had at one point read a tutorial on restringing the blinds, and it sort-of-worked temporarily. They broke again and we ended up tying some burlap string around the blinds to look outside, and then untying it to drop the shades at night. As you can imagine, it was not pretty. I have failed to mention the not-so-wonderful built-in valences and that is because they were very ugly.

I honestly would have loved to remove the window coverings when we first bought the RV, but it just wasn’t in the budget. When we first priced out replacing our shades with a similar model from RV stores or online, we discovered that they were quite expensive. When we finally jumped in and remodeled our RV, we found these wonderful blackout shades from Home Depot! No strings, completely blackout, and much more affordable! We may or may not add curtains, something to add a little color and to block out that tiny stream of light that peaks in the side of the shades.

Back in the bunk area, we opted for black out curtains. We thought maybe the kids would roll into the shades and destroy them. The curtains do the job and they look pretty, tied with a strip of fabric.

4. Norwex Towels

A wonderfully generous relative gifted us a full set of Norwex bath towels, cleaning towels, and washcloths when we first set off on the RV full-time adventure. I didn’t even know we needed these until we had them! Norwex towels are microbial, and I don’t know the details about how that works, but they don’t get that musty smell, and they dry super-fast, and they are super-lightweight. The lightweight part is wonderful for the bath towels – we have towels for 7 people hanging in our teeny-tiny bathroom and most of those are hanging on the door! If these were regular bathtowels, not only would they take forever to dry, giving our bathroom a lovely musty smell, they would weigh down the tiny bathroom door.

I also really love the Norwex cleaning towels. I don’t have room to store a mop or an abundance of cleaning supplies. The cleaning towels are great for cleaning the windows and mirrors, dusting, or mopping.

5. Plenty of Hoses and Electrical Cords

Unless you are planning on staying at RV parks 100% of the time, you will need a large supply of quality hoses and electrical cords. Honestly, I don’t know much about what Matt is doing when he is outside getting us all hooked up, (I am thankful that he is willing to do all that outside stuff, he’s awesome) so I am going to let him recommend what to get in this area.

Hi guys, for electric I recomend at least 100ft of cord. Make sure to get a 50amp or 30amp extension cord instead of regular extesion cords which will burn up after time. Menards has 50 & 30 amp extension cords at a nice price. I have a 50amp so I use a 50amp extension but I also have a 30amp because it’s less expensive. Make sure you have all the connections to convert from 50 – 30 – 110! I also use a surge protector (after that one time I plugged into a 50amp at one location and fried out our microwave, game device, and other things).

For fresh water I always buy drinking water hoses and I recomend you keep at least 100ft on board. I also use a regulator 50-55psi at the water spigot. This protects your water lines and pump from high pressure and I’ve noticed that our on demand Girard hot water heater regulates better this way!

For sewer hoses, don’t go cheap, get the best and you will be glad you did. Especially if you’re a full timer. I like the Rino brand. I keep several sizes handy and plenty of different connectors.

You can also find out more about our ministry, Kingdom Pursuit Ministries at www.kpministry.org

April 5, 2019November 16, 2019

Enjoy Your Adventure!

“You will go out with joy, and be led forth with peace, the mountains and the hills will break forth before you, there will be shouts of joy and all the trees of the fields will clap, will clap their hands! All the trees of the fields will clap their hands(clap, clap), the trees of the fields will clap their hands(clap,clap), the trees of the fields will clap their hands and you’ll go out with joy!”

Over and over we would sing this song in church when I was a little girl. I remember imagining trees with hands and thinking how silly that seemed, and also loving the idea. I remember loving that adults were singing this song that seemed silly, and it seemed to be such a happy, joyful time. I didn’t know until I was older that this was a “Scripture Song” – meaning we were singing a particular passage of Scripture. We sang many of these songs from scripture in the church that my husband and I grew up in, and I am very grateful for this. I love praise and worship music in general, but I have a particular fondness for Christian songs that sing the Bible verses directly, those timeless words are just as powerful today as when they were written thousands of years ago.

This particular Scripture Song is from the book of Isaiah, chapter 55, verse 12. The entire chapter is very quotable, and is full of hope and promise from God. This verse is very important to our family and is a promise to us for our life of evangelism on the road. “You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace…”

Before we traveled, my husband was a pastor. We loved the church where we were and had become quite content and settled. About a year before we resigned, my husband and I both felt that a change was coming, and through prayer and confirmation, we knew it was time to launch out into full-time evangelism. I honestly felt a little crazy sometimes, but I also knew that God was helping us to develop a plan. One of the confirming Scriptures that God gave us was Isaiah 55:12. It was such a beautiful promise for us, we were struggling with different worries, mostly that it would be rough on the kids.

Looking back now(3 years on the road), I can see that this promise has rung true. We do live a life of joy. This life on the road has its difficulties, and uncertainties, but what an adventure it is! I feel so alive, and it is wonderful to know that we are living out God’s plan for us.

As I think about our life of adventure, and what a joyful life it is, I understand that it is not all about me. God has given each of us this beautiful gift of life! It is not always an easy life, but it can be full of peace and joy! I remember reading a small book by Ann Voscamp and I loved how she related that she found a new joy in her life through being thankful. I have found this to be true myself. If I take the time to think about all that I have, and the opportunities all around me, I find myself being thankful, and then joyful. I think if you look at your life through thankful eyes, you can find new ways to enjoy your adventure, your life.

So what is your adventure? It doesn’t matter where you live necessarily, RV traveling isn’t for everyone, afterall. But wherever you live, it can be a grand adventure, and it can be full of joy and peace.

Thank you for reading this blogpost about enjoying your adventure!

To find out more about our ministry, kingdom pursuit ministries, go to www.kpministry.org