after our yard sale, we spent a couple of days getting the rest of the stuff cleared out of the house (which mostly consisted of paying our painters some extra cash to get stuff out of the house). and the following monday, we left for a local thousand trails campsite.
here is the official “we are leaving our house and living in a camper” pic…
shortly after settling in, some pretty aggressive ducks descended upon our site. the girls were excited.
there’s a little local bbq place right near our campsite, so we hit that up a few times, during our stay. it has this weird sign. i’m pretty sure this is some sort of statement about western carolina barbecue.
we were about 30 minutes from winston-salem, and wound up coming into the big city quite often. we usually made some friends meet up with us while we were there.
back at the campsite, our kiddos made friends with some stationary kids a few trailers over. and then they were permanent fixtures at our camper anytime we were around.
on one night, we came to town to hang with our long time pals the pattisalls. the dads chatted. the moms had some drinks. the kids played. isaac and alden have been pals since they were born. and goofballs.
the “kid’s table”.
i decided that i needed a bike trailer for our adventure, so when that came, derek quickly assembled it and the girls were happy to let me pull them around the campsite.
during our first weekend at camp, derek’s parents rented a cabin on the lake and came out to hang out with us. the kids and derek did a lot of fishing from their “backyard”.
a delightful campfire with the grandparents.
more fishing at the cabin. the girls LOVE fishing. isaac is definitely completely uninterested.
this goony face.
the days were mostly rainy and kind of cool until whatever day this one is and we rode over to the lake for some sand, surf and sun. isaac is primarily “surf”…
anna is “sand”.
and hazel, who is usually “sand”, was suddently super brave and went with “surf”. (FYI, i was “sun”).
the girls and i took an evening stroll on night. isaac was too cool to walk.
all was well until hazel was walking along a wall and one loose brick made her nervous.
finally, the time came to bid farewell to some of my closest and oldest friends from the 336. we headed out to foothills for some delicious beers and food. many delicious beers. except the one that tasted like an ash tray.
three amigos burger. bacon and guacamole. i forget who the other amigo was.
oh, and of course, the friends. i go way back with some of these people. and have known most of them since pre-lidkids. it was also a fun get together, because due to some semi-recent nasty business with our old church, some of them don’t see each other all that much.
stephanie took this pic of me with all of my other closest friends. heeeeee.
gramma spent a LOT of times with the kids while we did house stuff, or camper stuff, or doctor visit stuff, or, well, you get the picture. here she is, having a picnic with the tiny folk while we try to figure out how to cram some our finest treasures into her garage. (fabric, sewing machine, tools, memories).
we took the kids by the house to see the fresh paint. we decided one more pic in front of the (formerly) blue wall was in order. this is what i got.
back at the campsite, this kid suddenly became an expert bike rider. like, she JUST learned to barely ride a bit with me following close behind. the next thing i knew, i was glancing out the camper and she was riding back and forth. on gravelly hills! before the night was over, she was getting started on her own, standing up to pump, and stopping via the skidding rocks method. all in a sundress.
campfire glow.
so, now we are at last monday. (it seems SOOO much longer ago). we dropped the camper off near charlotte, so it could get a new roof. (we had damaged it on our first trip and repaired it, but insurance was willing to foot the entire bill for a replacement, so we obviously chose that option). the plan was to pick it up on friday and leave town for real for real. but, like most plans, there was a kink… when they pulled off the roof, there was excessive water damage. mold. rot. good stuff. so, they would be keeping it longer. i mean, i’m glad it was found or we would have eventually had a huge problem on our hands, but we were really itching to get on the road.
during the week that it was being repaired, we camped at derek’s parents house. during this time, i completely documented and purged our kids artwork and schoolwork, my old notes and letters, and all of my newspaper clippings, trophies and other artifacts from my high school and college sports careers. they had been boxed up for sooooo long. i’m hoping to someday make a photo book of it all, but for now, they will have to live on digitally, because they are heading to the dump.
kids art collage. 🙂 this is about 1/20th of it all.
as time was running out on our final days in winston, i planned a little drop in at the park, where folks could come say goodbye, to me or the kiddos. i won’t lie. i was very disappointed with the turn out. sad. but, it makes that all the more easy to split town.
but, some super cool folks did bother to take some time out of their day to bid us farewell, and for that, i am thankful. 🙂
josiah. he and ike also go back to 2007. the good old days.
johnlee and his brother, jake. and dawson. buddies from kindergarten and lewisville and now boy scouts.
kaylin! my pal steph’s daughter. she and i go way back to the toddler room at church. she is pals with ike and good friends with anna.
and the big surprise of the evening was when my old coaching counterpart from my teaching days strolled in. coach matthews! i love this guy. and i haven’t seen him in YEARS. we were assistants for the softball team before i got pregnant with ike. so much fun. we were able to chat and catch up, since, you know, no one else was there.
the next night, we had one last hangout with isaac’s buddy jarod. he is also in scouts with ike and they’ve really only started to become good friends as we are leaving so that’s a little sad.
and then, the week was over. the roof guys said that our camper would be ready by monday at 4, so we planned a weekend in charlotte and we could just leave on monday when we got the go ahead. we dropped by the house to have one last goodbye selfie and drop off some information sheets for would be buyers. the house listing went live on friday and by sunday night we already had an offer and we are now in “due diligence” and hope to close on june 22. so exciting and relieving and awesome and surprising.
