Rv living full time with 5 kids
For those of you millennials that were obsessed with the TV show Friends, like I was as a teen, you know that they named every episode "the one with..." and they would fill in the blank. Well this one is called "The one where the Dyers lived in an RV by the beach with 5 kids". I know, it sounds crazy right?! It actually made total sense to us and was quite possibly one of the best years of our lives! You can read the full article of how we got to this place in our lives here, but for now I'll give you the condensed version. After living in our dream home where we learned how to homestead, became gardeners and brought many more babies into this world, we decided that the northern mountains were calling. Being still tied to the military for another year, we decided to sell all of it! Sell our homestead and trade our country life for the beach life! We bought a 40 foot RV, gutted the whole thing and made a few improvements to accommodate our family. At the time my eldest was 7 years old and I was pregnant with our 5th.
The first day at the RV camp was a trying one as I woke up with more morning sickness than I would like to admit, and as I was in the bathroom getting rid of the breakfast I tried so hard to keep down, the older couple parked just a few feet away from me was trying to enjoy theirs. I remember thinking..."oh dear, we made a mistake!" How could we give up our very private quiet life of 20 acres in the mountains to now be this close to "neighbors" that were constantly changing. Doubt definitely entered my mind those first few weeks being out of our beloved home, but the Lord, as He ALWAYS does, knew exactly what He was doing and knew that we needed this adventure more than I could have ever imagined!
HOW THE RV LIFE HEALED OUR FAMILY
My husband served, at the time, 19 years in the military! If any of you can relate, you know how much commitment this takes. Deployments, the endless work ups leading to deployments, the constant shift in schedules, having to adjust the family dynamic when he would come home, the list goes on and on. As proud as I was and still am of my husband for all the hard work he had done, and so thankful for his career and how it shaped him in to the man that he is now, I was more than ready for a break. Little did I know what kind of homestead we'd be jumping into immediately following retirement and how stressful it would be! The Lord allowed us to have a full year of some rest and much needed togetherness by putting us in the RV. Days were simple, meals were even more simple, daily sunset watching, exploring the ocean, bike rides as a family, slow mornings, lots of reading, and lots of sunshine! We needed that break of the constant grind of a homestead, the constant deployments, and the constant schedule shifts in my husband's work.
HOW WE MANAGED TO RUN A HOME IN AN RV
One of our biggest questions that we would get from people was "how do you all fit in there, and how do you make it work?!" This question always made me laugh because to me it was common sense.
The kids dressed minimally, sleeping arrangements were shared which was easy because of their ages, meals were simple, and we spent lots of time outside! Being stationed in San Diego, California, this was an easy task. The sun was always shining and the beach was always calling. There was one week during Christmas where it dumped rain nonstop for about a week and a half, which was rare for San Diego, and that week was quite cabin feverish.
Other than that week, most days were lovely! We still did homeschooling and that was done outside while the little kids played in the sand or with legos in our parking space.
The RV life actually inspired me to cook more minimally. It could have been the fact that we had more eaters than we had ever had before. Or the fact that I could only fit one pot, one skillet, and 1 casserole dish in my small kitchen. Either way, after the RV life had ended I realized that I was a mother of many, and having simple, uncomplicated meals is something that I really needed to start implementing into my daily life. Now, dont get me wrong, I have way more kitchen utensils than I ever had in the RV however; I am running a full time homestead, processing milk, making cheese and various dairy products, making bread for a Farmstand, and feeding a much bigger army! I did have to adjust on what kind of tools I need in my kitchen, but I still stand for simple meals to make our style of living run smoothly.
