Children's Pastor Conference

Sorry, but this post has been deleted because it is a part of our new book called Napkin Dreams!

Our family of five boys looked so great, we were handed five different CDs with Christian kid's music!!

We did get to meet up with Karl at the Discipleland booth. He was very gracious and understanding, encouraging my wife to go and be with her father. When we were done walking to gauntlet our boys had a big bag full of freebies and they were all very glad to be there. They barely even realized they were on Disney property!

10 things to never leave "home" without

So driving down the road your mind comes up with lots of things to occupy itself. Recently I was thinking of what would I tell someone who was thinking of living on the road full-time they should definitely bring with them to survive and thrive in life on the highways. So for all you potential full-timers or long-termers here is my list of ten things to bring that you might not think of ordinarily. By that I mean I assume you will bring your underwear and some plates. This list is geared for people with kids.

1. Duct tape - Red Green said it is the handy man's secret weapon and he wasn'tkidding! Temporary fixes are a must on the road. Throw in some liquid nails and super glue while you are at it.
2. The Kindle - we read to our kids all the time and they also read. We have some books and we utilize exchange libraries all the time, but the Kindle saves a ton of space.
3. Our membership cards. Zoo, museum, Passport America, Escapees, National Park, Pet Smart and Kroger cards save us a ton of mulah!!
4. Bikes and scooters. We have some hanging from Howard's ladder, and carry some in our toadie. Kids use them all the time.
5. Toys. We have bins of legos, army men, magnetix, playdoh, dress-up, dinosaurs, Mr. Potato head, weapons, hot wheels, and remote control cars. All boys here so no Barbie.
6. Your printer. You need to print off coupons, tickets, tax docs, etc. Nice to have one with you.
7. A portable electric convection oven. Our little RV oven does one pizza at a time, so we needed more oven space. We have used our extra little oven a ton. Makes meatloaf even.
8. Crockpot. Another great alternative to the little oven. We have made some killer lasagna in our crockpot and even cooked our Easter ham in ours. Set it and forget it! (We have actually had it cooking while driving down the road before).
9. Atlas and GPS. You really need both. Do not count on your GPS to get you there every time.
10. Verizon mifi. Great little wireless internet card that gives you access wherever Verizon is found. Cant rely on parks wifi.

Getting gear

July has been an incredibly busy month, getting moved in, unpacked, two birthdays, visiting family, family visiting us, getting the yard back in shape, catching up with old friends and a ton of paperwork!

But we also have been outfitting our RV, even though we don't have it yet (it should be ready in a couple of weeks). So what have we got so far for our big adventure?

• DVD based curriculum called Switched on Schoolhouse for Blake and Tanner. This is highly recommended stuff and will save a ton of room compared to books.


• Regular curriculum for David, Brendan and Chase. They are all going to be working on Kindergarten together using My Father's World. They are also each going to have their own Leapster and we have got several games with birthday money.


• A docking station for our Wii-motes - very important stuff! It will help cut down on battery needs.


• A portable screened in room for our picnic area. Got to keep the flies out.


• A table-top grill. Our RV does not come equipped.


• We also bought a crank-turn, non-electric washing machine. It is pretty compact and hopefully we can save some money by doing some of our laundry in it. We will post more on this later. We tried it once on some sheets and towels and it worked pretty well. You can buy one from the clean air gardening website. You can see the picture of it here.


• For work we got a Verizon mifi card, for wireless internet wherever we can get Verizon cell service. So far it works very nice.
• We finally got a GPS, a Garmin. Didn't figure we should try and tackle driving around the continent without taking advantage of this technology at our fingertips. We even found an RV for the display!
• Several little small things like laundry bags, folding tables and some clothing.

So fun and exciting to do the outfitting part! It feels like we are getting closer. Can't wait to hit the road.

A word from our sponsor

Sorry, but you'll have to purchase our book to read this post!

 

Mercedes

This is a skit we did at a kids winter retreat we spoke at in February of 2010. Mercedes is one of our regular recurring characters. We would love to come and do training at your church on creating memorable characters and/or do a kid's service for the children of your church and community!

Get out of debt

Before we set off on our journey one major obstacle that we felt we wanted to overcome was our debt. There was no way we wanted to have the hassle of paying of auto and credit card loans while trying to realize our dream. So a big step for us in achieving this dream is to rid ourselves totally of debt. We are over half-way there in less than five months (plus we are taking a Disney world vacation next month)!

One of the keys that I felt we needed in this debt elimination battle was a plan. I had heard of Dave Ramsey from friends and on the radio, so at a conference I picked up his book The Total Money Makeover. If you are thinking of this lifestyle or have any other dream and find a wall of debt standing in your way, I highly recommend this book. I have never taken his Financial Peace University Course, but I have friends who highly recommend it as well. Check out Dave's website at http://www.daveramsey.com/!