We tried on a small house for a few days, and not only was it a comfy place to spread out for Christmas, it was also a great way to see how a house that size would work for us. We LOVED it!

Our wheels have been turning since. Could we get a smaller (relatively, of course, compared to the 4k sq ft house we sold) home- maybe something older that we could put our stamp on? Where can we find that? How would we make it work? We’ve been talking A LOT since that stay over Christmas!

We’ll have lots more updates for you soon as we begin looking into next steps, so be sure you’re subscribed!
Click here to see the listing for the Air B&B we stayed at.

Once we decided last fall to head south for Christmas from DC, instead of west to the Smoky Mountains, we knew we would try to take the kids to Williamsburg, VA on our way to the Carolinas.

Unfortunately, a huge snowstorm and some sick kids kept us from visiting Colonial Williamsburg this time. It was just too expensive to buy tickets for what would likely be just a few cold, slushy hours.

Plans change, and we know that. We’ve become masters of rolling with the punches and finding joy in the unexpected.

This trip wound up still being fun because:

1. Snow storm! Our kids got to watch big fluffy flakes fall down and build snowmen, and then we got to take them inside for hot showers and baths.

2. Hotel! The Fairfield Inn & Suites in Williamsburg put us up for 2 nights in their biggest suite PLUS an adjoining room. It was HUGE and so much more comfortable a place to be stuck during a snowstorm. It’s a convenient location to Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown, and there are food options right near by. Scott actually walked across the road to Chipotle in the snow. 

3. Jamestown Settlement & The American Revolution Museum! We were gifted tickets to both locations, and we learned SO MUCH at both! They were both really well-done, and the perfect experience for the kids given the limited time we had considering the snow and kids not feeling well.

We didn’t feel bad at all about missing out on Colonial Williamsburg this time. The kids learned a ton and we didn’t overextend ourselves. Hopefully we’ll be able to make it back to visit when we have more time, less snow, and nobody is sick.

If you are on the fence about visiting Colonial Williamsburg, I have to say it’s really an incredible place and fantastic experience from what I can remember. But, if your budget is tight, definitely consider visiting the Jamestown Settlement or the American Revolution Museum.

Ticket prices for Colonial Williamsburg are $26/adult and $13/kid in the winter only. Jamestown is $17.50/adult and $8.25/kid. American Revolution is $15/adult and $7.50/kid. Or you can visit both Jamestown and American Revolution (Yorktown) for the same price as a winter ticket to Colonial Williamsburg.

If we had to choose between Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum, we would choose the ARM. The 4D movie was incredible, the museum was interactive and fun, and the canon demonstration outside was a family favorite. To be fair, though, the snow kept us from seeing Jamestown Settlement in it’s full glory since we were only able to explore inside that day.

We’re tired. It was exhausting. Why do kids always need to be fed?

It was not our greatest day, but I honestly think we will remember it fondly years from now.

Please stick it out to hear the story about the queso.

To me, it sometimes feels a little trite and cliche this time of year, and before I get any further I’m going to tell you this is not a post meant to shame you for buying your kids Christmas gifts.

We are,

This post is sponsored by Ask Listen Learn as part of my ongoing ambassadorship with Responsibility.org.

It’s been a stressful few months for all of us and we’re all looking forward to a little normalcy for Christmas. So we’ll be waking up in a house (a rented Air B&B) and there will be actual presents under an actual tree. That won’t take away from the very best gift- the gift of our time and presence- that we’ve given each other this year.

You don’t have to forgo wrapping up toys to get more out of your time with your children, and you don’t have to sell everything and move into an RV to travel full-time!

Instead, I want to share with you this lesson we’ve stumbled through learning since January so you can learn from it without doing anything drastic.

Your presence doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to look like a Hallmark movie. It doesn’t have to be a fancy vacation. Your conversations can feel awkward. You can get frustrated and annoyed that you’re spending time trying to create magical moments and nobody seems interested. You don’t have to enjoy every minute.

I think it’s easier to give our kids material gifts because we can literally wrap them up in a bow. We can mostly predict how they will react when they receive them. We can feel pretty confident that it will bring them, and us, some immediate gratification. And then, happy with their gift, we can feel good when they skip off to play and leave us alone to continue multitasking.

The gift of presence is messier. It may take longer to see the joy that results from it. It’s hard to control. It takes more of our time and energy when we are already running low on both just trying to keep the kids fed and educated and managing life as a family in 2018.

I spent a good portion of this trip at the beginning worrying we were doing this “wrong.” Here we were, showing our kids so many AMAZING places, and we couldn’t get through a visit to a National Park without meltdowns and whining. We had to drag the kids away from their devices, and I would feel stressed about the work I would miss while we were without WiFi connections. It was looking nothing like what I thought it should. It didn’t feel magical. It didn’t feel worth it.

But soon we realized that what mattered was that we showed up, that we tried, that we showed our kids that we can love each other through the messy and the impractical and the imperfect. It mattered that we weren’t going to give up trying to have meaningful conversations with them about things like alcohol responsibility and underage drinking just because they rolled their eyes and asked us to turn up the music. It mattered that they knew we could fight with them and get frustrated with them and we would keep showing up, whether that was with them at National Parks or simply over dinner that night.

You can give your kids those toys they are wishing hard for AND you can show up more for them. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

I realize the sentiment behind “experiences, not things” is mostly about diverting your resources toward vacations and day trips instead of material items. And listen, I totally support scaling back your shopping list this season to decrease the useless junk. But I also realize that not everyone has the luxury of taking vacations, and sometimes a wrapped toy will be more affordable than a day trip or experience somewhere.

You can give your kids presents and also the gift of your presence. It doesn’t have to be a surprise trip to Disneyland or mean taking a day off work to visit the zoo. It can just mean making yourself available more and being willing to talk -more importantly, to listen- about topics that may feel overwhelming and awkward. Let them help with dinner when you have time, read them bedtime stories, go the extra mile to have family game nights or movie nights. And then remember that even if you feel like you stumbled on your words, or it ends up a mess and your kids whine and you would kinda rather be knocking out your inbox, your imperfect presence still matters.

Luckily, my editors at The Points Guy came through with an idea for me. They would put us up in a hotel for a night if I wrote a post for them about it. It’s a really awesome hotel with rooms that sleep 6 comfortably! You can read that post here!

With that hurdle behind us, we decided to make the most of it for 2 very full and long days and one night.

And then the storm hit. You guys, we had no idea our train would be cancelled. It wasn’t on the web page we visited that day with train departure times, and the snow had long since melted from the day before. We found out at 8:15 pm that there were no trains back to our NJ station that night and we were WIPED OUT.

Thank goodness we found an overnight solution! Nope, not going to tell you where it was or how we booked it.

It may not have been the NYC trip I hoped for, but it was certainly memorable and super fun. We’ll have stories for the rest of our lives just from those 2 days and nights.

Also, huge thanks to Nintendo for having us out to their store for the launch of Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu and Let’s Go, Eevee games! Kendall loves the games so much it jumped to the top of his Christmas list, along with the Poke Ball Plus for his Nintendo Switch.

From now until December 20th, 2018 get $3 off Picture Play with code HAPPYLOUDLIFE

I wish I could say it was born of a creative surge of energy and an abundance of hours in the day, but truthfully I had to write the eBook because we weren’t getting paid. We lost a client pretty abruptly when they restructured, some didn’t pay on time, and others just didn’t come through for q4, despite my hustle. I tried, I tried, I tried.

This year has been humbling and very hard, and I kept trying to figure out what the lesson was, worried that it was “You’re so freaking stupid for doing this and thinking you could support your whole family all on your own, you dumb, little mommy blogger.” Sometimes my inside voice is very mean to me and sounds like internet trolls.

I wound up writing and writing and writing for about 10 days straight- and I mean through the day and some nights, rarely leaving the RV or my PJs. I wrote the book that’s been bobbling around in my head for over a year– a 161 page how-to for people wanting to learn more about taking and editing photos with only their smart phones called Picture Play.

It’s based on a couple popular Facebook lives and some Instagram tutorials I did in 2016. I always knew I wanted to devote more to the topic, but I put it off for a long time because I never felt expert-y enough to do it, and I worried people wouldn’t really care about it, and that maybe it’s been done before, or will be done soon by someone much better than I. That’s the short list of excuses. At the heart of it all, as with a lot of things this year, was fear. I was afraid I’d pour my time and energy into something I cared a lot about that wouldn’t pay off, both creatively and financially.

Professionally, I’ve put my time and energy into a lot this year that has left me disappointed and scrambling again and again. I resent those endeavors because they’ve taken time away from enjoying this trip with my family and only increased my work load, but I feel like I finally figured out this lesson the universe has been trying to teach me all year– Stop believing the hype other people sell you about what they can do for you if you do something for them, just make things happen for yourself. Stop being afraid of the things that really excite you, and bring them to life on your own.

I can’t take all the credit for the amazing, quick success of my eBook Picture Play. Desiree, my managing editor for Baby Rabies (my parenting and pregnancy platform) was the one who really encouraged me to make it happen, and suggested we start pre-sales when I was about 30% done with it. I figured we’d get a few orders. I figured wrong.

We pre-sold more copies of this eBook in just 10 days than of my published book earlier this year even though we certainly worked way harder to pre-sell those “real” book copies over a much longer time frame. The eBook pre-sale success shocked me, thrilled me, but mostly terrified me. Why would all these people believe in something they hadn’t even seen yet?

Check out my published book 50 Things To Do Before You Deliver: The First-Time Mom’s Pregnancy Guide

When Picture Play was done and out in the world on November 30th (thanks in part to Desiree for designing it, and Miranda Wicker, a friend who I hired to edit it for me), I waited anxiously. I poured my heart into it and stressed that every detail would be crystal clear- that it would be a polished, professional work, and not a haphazard word doc I had the nerve to call some kind of “book.” I hoped it would make people happy, and that they would feel it was a worthwhile purchase. I needed to feel worth the money I had already made off of it. 

Because, you guys? This book paid our bills for the entire month and then some over the course of a week. It saved us. It gave us more time on the road. And I’m kicking myself for not writing this book in Jan, Feb, March… anytime before November.

This has opened my eyes to a whole new side of this digital nomad life, and as the influencer/blogger/content creator landscape is rapidly changing, it feels good to have a little confidence in figuring this one part out for now, at least.

I’m on track to make more off of this eBook than I have off of my published book (so far) by the end of the year as long as sales remain slow and steady.

I’m really proud of Picture Play. It already has 15 5 star reviews, and the pictures people are sharing with me after they’ve read the book and applied the techniques I share are blowing me away. You can see a few on Instagram so far with the #BabyRabiesPicturePlay and #PicturePlay hashtags.

Photography is a big part of this trip for me because, of course, I want to document as much as I can. But also, photography is a big part of my life- a hobby and a passion that can exist with and without my lens focused on my children.

I get so much joy sharing what I know when it comes to taking pictures. I think because I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get those photos on my screen to look like the beauty I see through my eyes. As a parent, and simply as someone who travels and sees awe-inspiring sites, I am so glad I finally have the skills to capture what I’m really viewing. I want other people to have those skills, too!

If you would like to support us as we continue our journey, and if you also think you could put my mobile phone photography tips to use, I hope you’ll consider purchasing Picture Play. Not only will you get the digital download emailed to you immediately, but you’ll also get access to a closed Facebook group- Picture Play- where we share our photos, work on edits together, and I go into more detailed and advanced editing techniques.

From now until December 20th, 2018 get $3 off Picture Play with code HAPPYLOUDLIFE

All you need is a smart phone that takes photos and 3 apps, which I’ll list in the book. 2 are free and one is $1.99 (and that one’s optional, but it’s also everyone’s favorite so far). My book will walk you through everything else.

And if, like me, you mostly shoot with a DSLR and send those photos to your phone for editing and sharing, you will still learn a lot from this book! This book isn’t focused on one specific kind of camera or phone, and all apps are available for both iPhone and Android.

I’m breathing a huge sigh of relief tonight, knowing we’ll be able to fund a little bit longer on the road no matter what clients come through or who pays us when, And now my brain is really spinning with other ways to work smarter, not harder. I have so many YouTube videos to edit and blog posts to write and am hopeful I’ll find the time to do those again soon. Thank you for hanging in there as I paused the story-telling part of this journey, and thank you for listening as I tell the business part of this story.

From now until December 20th, 2018 get $3 off Picture Play with code HAPPYLOUDLIFE

On Thursday, we set out for Diggerland USA, a construction theme park in West Berlin, New Jersey. We have been waiting for this day for a really long time, long before we even planned to do this trip. Lowell has been infatuated with all things construction or “Mighty Machines,” as he calls them, since he was old enough to push a toy truck.

Kids often go through phases, loving something deeply one month, then abandoning all the toys Santa brought them to celebrate that joy the next. Lowell has certainly gone through his fair share of phases- Thomas The Train and Jake And The Neverland Pirates come to mind. Mighty Machines, however, have stuck. This entire theme park where he can actually operate REAL construction equipment has remained high on our family bucket list for years because of this.

I worried we ran the risk of over-selling this whole experience, both to him and to ourselves. We’ve set ourselves up for disappointment before in the past. Luckily, this day totally lived up to the hype and our expectations.

From the minute we arrived until the minute we left (after shutting the place down), it was incredible, not just for Lowell, but for the whole family. It’s not that common that one experience brings real joy to every person in this family of 6.

I really tried hard to soak in the whole day. Lowell’s happiness was radiating.

And even the big kids found themselves having a great time.

Time was on our side because not only was Lowell big enough to enjoy nearly every ride, but Wallace was just exactly 36″ tall, meaning he was tall enough to ride several rides with an adult.

While not a National Park or a museum or any place of historical significance, this was the kind of experience I envisioned for us- a place we might not otherwise take the time and carve out the resources to visit, a place that would have a lasting impression.

Diggerland USA gave us free tickets to the park, and if it wasn’t more than an hour from our RV park, I’d probably buy tickets and go back for a 2nd round of fun this week.

Since it was a bit of a drive from our RV park in New Jersey, and close enough to Philadelphia that we could hop on over there for a 2nd day adventure, I reached out to one of Diggerland’s partner hotels- Hyatt Place in Mt. Laurel, and they offered to put us up for the night in one of their suites.

Hyatt Place is one of the few hotels that comfortably sleeps our family of 6. The room had 2 double beds and a pull-out sleeper sofa, giving us plenty of room to pair off and get a good night’s rest.

After some of the kids took advantage of tub time while the others binged on Cartoon Network.

We began the next day with a wonderful, big breakfast. It’s free at Hyatt Place locations when you are a member of their free loyalty program- Wold Of Hyatt. 

The Hyatt Place, Mt. Laurel GM told me the Hyatt Place brand recently revamped their breakfast to offer cleaner ingredients, many locally sourced. The quality was above and beyond any free breakfast we’ve had at a hotel this year. And if we had gone out to eat, we could have expected to pay at least $50+ on feeding our family of 6 a breakfast like this.

I found this note on the desk as we were packing to head out. Leyna, like the rest of us, really liked that place- Hyatt Place.

Our 2nd day wound up being a far cry from anything I’d call magical. I want to say, though, that Philadelphia- the city- was lovely and fine and I’m sure is a fantastic place to live and visit.

We forgot the stroller, and it was raining, and we had to look hard for a parking spot for our dually truck…

And Scott didn’t realize you had to arrive early to get tickets to Independence Hall. They were all out for the day by the time we got there.

We still did some other Philadelphia experiences because we paid $25 for parking, but it was trying and exhausting. The thing about doing this life is we have a life to live in between these stops. What I think some people don’t quite understand is that planning out all these stops and experiences could be a full time job. So sometimes we look up and say, “Oh darn, we need to get to that place, like, tomorrow, or we won’t get to go there at all.”

And sometimes we make it happen, but it’s not always a well-researched day of fun. It’s a lot of improvising and working with the time and limited resources that we have.

So that’s what Philadelphia wound up being. I would have loved for it to be a full day of meaningful experiences. There is SO MUCH to learn about and learn from there. We will have to settle for the few connections we made for now.

For what it’s worth, Leyna was really excited to learn more about Benjamin Franklin since she just wrapped up a history unit about him.

 

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“Do more things that make you forget to check your phone.” We spent the last two days spending time with my awesome internet-turned-real-life friend @bebehblog and her 4 kids, who are nearly the exact same age as each of mine. Some of my favorite moments on this trip have been getting together with friends I’ve never lived near and pretending like we are next door neighbors. by @gingersnapspictures

A post shared by Jill Krause —RV Family Travel (@happy.loud.life) on Nov 2, 2018 at 4:25am PDT

Connecticut, if you’re not familiar, is like an actual Hallmark movie. No, I’m serious. They just filmed one there. When you mostly grow up in Texas and then return there and raise your babies there for 10 years, it’s easy to think of places with fall foliage and houses older than your hometown as mythical. The whole time we were trick-or-treating, I was just like, OMG is this for real?

It was, as was my friend Suzanne’s lovely hospitality and legit Halloween costume library. Wallace borrowed this lobster costume from them, in case you’re wondering. He has no real connection with lobsters. It was just available and free.

In years past, I’ve gone way over the top for Halloween. We’ve decorated, hosted parties, done the family costumes, I’ve sewn the costumes and crafted the costumes. This year, though, I swear I looked up and was like, “Well, crap. Halloween is in two days.” And we had nothing for costumes, nor time or a shipping address to rely on Amazon Prime to make me look like a better mother.

As if by magic, the Walmart we boondocked at on our way back through Vermont had exactly what each kid wanted for their Halloween costume.

Lowell requested to be a fox, and I found exactly one (mangled) set of fox ears and a tail buried at the bottom of the Halloween aisle.

Kendall settled on a werewolf, and they had just a few of those left, along with a pretty great selection of flannel shirts to finish the look off.

Leyna decided to shake things up from her costume last year as a unicorn, and wanted to go as a pug-corn- a pug/unicorn. Of course. Luckily Walmart had plenty of face makeup left, and felt, and the exact same unicorn horn that I bought for her last year and then donated because why would I pack that in the RV?

Scott continued his winning streak by carving up all the requested pumpkins, including, naturally, the pug-corn pumpkin.

Our kids ran down the street with a flock of other kids, and we had an impromptu Halloween party back and Suzanne’s house later in the night. It was a lovely bit of normalcy in a magical place.

(It appears some of the other comments that originally appeared have been deleted or hidden.)

Listen, I’ve been blogging for over 11 years, and I totally know how the internet can be. I knew not to expect all sunshine and rainbows in the comments, but figured there would be some people who were excited to hear about our adventure, maybe even wondering if they could do something similar.

As we were driving down the highway, making our way toward Yellowstone, I read comment after comment and my stomach sank. Every single one was negative. Not just in the “Ew, I’d never do this” way. Again, I expect that. This isn’t for everyone. This life is many people’s literal idea of hell. I get it.

And, it wasn’t the comments like this that upset me the most:

“My main concern is really that these kids will grow up believing that ‘influencer’ is a real vocation,” and “Basically, they are dragging their kids all over the place so that they can create internet content.”

I’ve been called a shill and a sell-out, and told to “get a real job” more times than I can count. This is a family business, and my kids are very involved in making decisions. I check with the ones old enough to have opinions before I post any video or picture. That’s why there are less of those with my older kids in them.

What completely caught me off guard were the comments like:

“Children need opportunities to grow away from their parents and siblings. This is a highly inappropriate way to raise children who you hope to be fully functional in our society. 
Children who move around a lot growing up have been found to have a poorer quality of life as they try to settle as adults and often perform worse academically once they have to re-enter the real world’s education system.
IMO, homeschooling is a form of child abuse. It may seem fun while the children are small but will leave them emotionally and socially stunted.”

and

“Yeah, this is f-ed up. They’re completely denying their children the chance to have friends, let alone be socialized normally. I can’t imagine how devastating this would’ve been to me as a kid.”

It’s rare for internet comments to make me cry. I mostly keep my houses (my blogs and social platforms) troll free spaces, and I welcome constructive feedback and productive dialogue, but I don’t needlessly expose myself to the opinions other people have about me. I don’t seek out gossip sites or click through on incoming links I think will take me to a place where I will read what people would never say to my face.

But there I was, as we pulled into a truck stop in Montana, fighting to keep back the tears, not wanting my kids to see me cry over a bunch of dumb comments on the internet.

And then the absolute craziest thing happened in the bathroom of this truck stop. I went to pee, shut my stall door, sat down, and looked up to see this.

In case you can’t read that, it’s a speech by Teddy Roosevelt “The Man In The Arena”
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 

This came at a time when I was not only faced with these ridiculous opinions about how we were damaging our children while doing this trip, but when I was personally struggling with what “success” on this trip would look like. We were half-way through the year, and nothing seemed “fixed.” It felt like we’d been holding our breath for everything to settle and fall into place in terms of routines and work-life balance. And it was becoming clear that that just wasn’t going to happen at all. Redefining that idea of success was beginning to be ok with me, but I worried a lot about others judging us for doing this and not doing it “right.” Whatever that even means. (Sometimes my brain is a real jerk to me like that.)

So I’m just sitting there, peeing and crying in Montana. I’m having like a weird God/Universe moment in a truck stop bathroom. I feel like I was supposed to read that right then and there. I mean, you guys, I went and checked all 6 stalls, and this was only hanging in 2 of them. The stall I used, and the one Leyna used. I know, right? What. Why is this EVEN IN A BATHROOM STALL??

Anyway, when I got back in the truck, I told Scott about it, and then Kendall wanted me to read it to him, so I began to read it to everyone… and then I totally broke down. And I cried those tears in front of my kids that I had been trying to hide from them. And I didn’t apologize or down play them. I talked to them about how hard and scary it can be to take big risks, and how people may try to tear you down when they don’t understand the choices you make, but that doesn’t make your choices wrong or dumb, even if you fail.

But, I guess we’ll have to see if my kids will be able to function in society after being raised in such an inappropriate way. What a shame they aren’t learning anything on the road.

Also, I wrote this blog in response to these comments and some others.

The good:

 

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A post shared by Jill Krause —RV Family Travel (@happy.loud.life) on Nov 5, 2018 at 12:32pm PST

A longtime friend who works in PR connected me with Sarah Cody of WTNH8 in New Haven, Connecticut, and she came out to interview us last week about our adventures. The segment aired today, and it’s so fun! (Kendall would like me to clarify that he was itching, not picking his nose. So…. ok.) We loved sharing our story with them. You can see it here.

Also, I was live on The Rhode Show in Providence, Rhode Island last week! My dear friend Audrey connected me with them. You can see that here.

The bad:

We specifically came down to New Jersey for a couple reasons, the biggest being so we could park our RV here and head into NYC this week to work with a brand on a project. They notified us this afternoon that they can’t move forward with the project at this time, which was going to fund our NYC adventures and lodging. So that’s a big bummer because without that we really can’t allocate the funds to make the trip in. We may still try to make at least a night in the city happen in a week or two before we have to leave New Jersey, but I have some sad kiddos who are missing out on a screening of The Grinch this week and some other things I already promised them, like ice skating at Rockefeller.

I hesitated to share this because, on one hand, it feels super whiney, but you all have expressed to me over and over that you want more “real” from us, and that’s really all I have in me to post about tonight. I have to get back to work, especially now that I have to make up for the loss in income from this. I’m trying to see this is in a positive light- I have some fun things I’m working on that could really use more of my time this week. So I’m going to go dive into those and I can’t wait to share them with you!