Raleigh, NC - Parenting Seminar, Capitol Visit, Catching Up With Friends & Making New Ones!

I have to apologize for confusing anyone as to where we are currently since I am about a month behind on posting our travels:( !!! Sorry about that! Since the end of April we have been in Raleigh, Charlotte and Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  Then, we traveled to Virginia, West Virginia, and back to Virginia again. Just last weekend we stored the RV and took our mini-van on a road trip to Nashville, TN for the Show Hope 10th Anniversary Celebration weekend.  We came back to Virginia and soon we will be heading to Delaware. After writing that out, it makes me realize why I am so exhausted this week! It has been wonderful to see friends and all kinds of historic and fun places, but we realized after this month, that we need to find a travel route with more down time.  That is a big reason why we are on the road full-time in our RV. We love doing ministry on the road together, seeing and exploring America, but we also want to have time to just relax, go fishing, hiking, build a campfire or play a board game together. Hopefully we will have more time for that this month!

So- back to the end of April...we stayed in Raleigh, North Carolina where we held a parenting seminar at Emmanuel Baptist Church.  Below are some pictures from the seminar.  During the seminars, I actually do participate with Alan through a few skits. (I get to play the role of the teenage daughter in two scenes.)

Here I am being all dramatic...(OK- I know my family will recognize this. Yes- I may have thrown a few fits as a teenager...ha ha!)

The church also had a great program for the children during the seminar that Saturday. The boys made some new friends and had a blast! The leaders taught Bible story lessons, helped the kids make crafts & Mother's Day gifts, and played games outside together.  If you live in Raleigh or you will be moving there and you are looking for a church home, we highly recommend visiting this church!

We had the blessing of staying the whole week on the parking lot next to church in our RV.  It was a very convenient location, and we had the chance to get to know many of the people at church. We had such a wonderful time during our stay here! The staff was incredibly generous to us, inviting us over for dinner and taking us to lunch after church on Sunday.  Everyone was SO friendly and kind. Our boys LOVED the children's program on Wednesday night so much that they went back to attend AWANA on Sunday night as well.  Thank you again to the people of EBC, for welcoming us with open arms!

During our time in Raleigh, we toured the capitol building that was built in 1840 and learned some history about the state of North Carolina.  In the front of the building is this statue which shows three U.S. presidents that came from North Carolina - James Polk, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson.

Every capitol building that we have toured so far has had the famous dome inside...

This capitol building housed all of the North Carolina state government until the 1880s. The building is still occupied by the governor, lieutenant governor, and their immediate staff.  In the past 10-20 years, the Capitol was restored to its 1840-1865 appearance. The stonework, ornamental plaster, ironwork, legislative desks and many of the marble mantels are originals!

It was a great visit, but after all that walking around, the boys got just a little tired:)

This is a statue of George Washington inside the capitol. We have never seen one of him like this before!  It was designed by the Italian artist Antonio Canova in 1820.  Canova had never met George Washington and so he based his sculpture from a marble bust of Washington done by another Italian artist. Interesting!

The boys got there second wind and had some fun while we were taking pictures of the outside of the building...

While we were in Raleigh, we also had the chance to meet up with some friends from St. Louis!!!  They were in town visiting family and they drove out over an hour to meet up with us for dinner! Tom and Sally are dear friends who have blessed our family so much! They are great mentors, friends and they have taken care of our boys many times.  We have all missed them very much, so it was so wonderful to see them! (Thanks Tom and Sally - and your sisters too- for driving to see us while you were in North Carolina!!!!)

We had to get a silly picture too of course!!!

During our week stay here, I was thrilled to find this really cool playground not too far from the church for the boys one afternoon!

The boys had a great time making new friends here. They had a blast playing tag, having contests jumping off the swings, and playing hide and seek.

During the week, we also had the chance to catch up with some other friends from St. Louis who had moved to Raleigh! It was so neat to see TWO families we know from St. Louis in the same week!!! Thank you Melissa for a lovely dinner at your house! We had a great time catching up with you!

And then it was time for another silly picture...

Sam impressed the boys with his juggling skills!!!

We really enjoyed our stay in Raleigh, North Carolina! It was a great week of ministry, visits with friends, making new friends, and exploring the area.  We hope to come back again to visit someday!

Blessings to you and yours,

Jill and the boys:)

RV Q &A - LAUNDRY! How do you get laundry done while traveling full-time in an RV?

AHHHH...laundry! Whether you live in a sticks and bricks house, or an RV...the job of laundry is just unending, isn't it?!? As I have mentioned in earlier posts, doing laundry while living full-time on the road can be full of interesting challenges!! I do have to confess that I still miss our washer and dryer from our home in Ellisville. My good friend now has it and when I was in St. Louis in March, I did get to see them again...and yes...I did give my old washer and dryer a big hug. It that strange?!?! :)

Below are some pictures of the laundry facilities at an RV park we stayed at.  We usually try to find a site close to the building, so we can just walk over with the hampers if possible. Otherwise, I just load up the van and drive there to unload/load the laundry hampers.  Most RV parks have 3 to 8 washers and 3 to 8 dryers at each facility.  They sometimes will have TV like this one did as well.

Most of the laundry facilities have been very clean and usually not crowded either.  It is nice when you can just throw all of your dirty laundry in at the same time and get it done quicker than when using just one washer and one dryer.  The washers run around 20 - 28 minutes, and the dryers around 45 - 60 minutes.  I usually spend the time waiting for the laundry to make phone calls, read a book or go for a quick jog.  Sometimes I end up staying in the laundry room the whole time because I have struck up a conversation with someone else there.  I have met some really nice and interesting people while doing laundry!  

At one place I did have to purchase a laundry card, but usually the machines take quarters and cost anywhere around $1.25 to $2.00 for a washer load, and $1.00 to $2.00 for a dryer that holds 1-2 loads. Adding that up really quick for a family of six, we spend an average of $20-$30 a week on laundry. We have definitely learned to wear clothes more than once if they are not that dirty!  It may sound like a lot of money, but remember, we do not have other bills that come with a house.  We do not pay electric, water, or sewer bills anymore. Also- cable is usually free at each RV campground, but we have actually never used cable in our RV or when we had a house. If we want to watch something, we use Netflix or Red box. So- overall, even with paying for our laundry on the road, we are still paying less than we did with bills from owning a house.

There was a time when we had been staying at two different church parking lots for 2 weeks in a row and so we had to find a Laundromat.  I have to admit, I was a little nervous.  I know it seems silly, but I just didn't know what to expect.  Well- to my surprise and relief, I found a very nice, clean laundromat in town. They had very nice attendants, a children's play area, vending machines, and several TVs.  To use the machines, you first had to purchase a laundry card with cash or credit. Then, you picked your machines. I think they had over 100 washers and dryers there!!!  There were small, medium, large and HUGE washers and dryers!! The bigger the machine, the more laundry would fit and more money it would cost. The huge washer holds up to EIGHT loads of laundry! WOW!

I accidentally poured too much detergent in the first time, so my clothes were really soapy! oops!

The large dryers were nice for big blankets or for several loads of laundry.  It cost about .99 cents for 8 minutes for the large dryer, and .39 cents for a small dryer.

OK- so I have a funny story about laundry...or should I say confession?!?! Many years ago (before I had 4 children), I would wash the bed sheets once a week, every week, like clockwork. Well..as you have more kids sometimes you need to wash sheets more often, sometimes you go more than a week for various reasons, right? So- after we brought Joshua home from South Korea, things were pretty hectic in our house for awhile.  We were all adjusting,  and Alan had a very busy summer schedule with children's ministry activities.  We were tired, frazzled, and in survival mode for several weeks.  One day while Alan and I were talking, I realized I had not changed the sheets in awhile.  I asked if he had changed the boys sheets recently. "No, not recently," he replied. As we discussed it further, we figured out neither one of us had changed or washed the boys sheets since at least a week before we came home from South Korea. That was well over a month before!!!! YIKES! Well- I am happy to say, that we all survived, the boys did not get sick, and nothing monumental happened because we forgot to change the sheets for several weeks! HA! So- now that we are living in an RV and paying to do laundry, we figure unless it is absolutely necessary sooner, once every two weeks is just fine!:)

Blessings to you and yours,

Jill and the boys:)

Happy 5th Birthday Caleb!

Last month, Caleb celebrated his birthday just eleven days after Joshua.   Yes- for eleven days, we had two 4 year-olds in the house!  Then, our precious Caleb turned FIVE!!!! He was SO excited!  It turned out we actually had a seminar on his birthday, so we made up for it by celebrating the day before, and then in the afternoon after the seminar. Caleb thought that was pretty cool to celebrate for 2 days! The other boys enjoyed the extended celebration too:)

He requested doughnuts for breakfast. ALL of the boys were excited about that!

Then after breakfast, he opened his gifts.  The boys gave him a spiderman mask, along with some legos, coloring books and markers.  We also gave him the movie Nemo. (He has been asking for that movie ever since we visited DisneyWorld in January.) He decided to go shopping with his birthday money from family.  He bought a huge lego set that he had wanted for a long time.

Micah helped Caleb build part of the lego set he bought with his birthday money.

 "Yay! We did it!"

For  Caleb's special birthday lunch, he wanted macaroni and cheese.  Almost every time we go shopping at the grocery store Caleb notices the cool juice bottles with characters on the lid. He always asks for them but I tell him no since they are more expensive and we don't need the extra bottles.  The day I took him shopping for his birthday meal, he saw the juice bottles and said to himself, "No...I know I can't ask for those for my birthday."  My heart just sank.  I immediately told him it was his special day, so he could have those special juice bottles!!! I just wish I could have gotten his reaction on video!! He was beyond excited! They had avenger characters, so he was totally overjoyed!!!

We found a really cool children's museum called "Marbles" in Raleigh with our national museum pass.  The boys and I had visited one time during the week before Caleb's birthday.  He loved it so much that he wanted to spend the afternoon of his birthday there too! (Some of the photos are below are from the first visit.)  All of the boys had a great time playing, building, and exploring!

One exhibit focused on teaching kids how to earn and save money.  You put green balls in the machine and work together to get them into the piggy bank. When there is enough money in the piggy bank, it opens up and spills all the balls out!!

Alan built this really cool house out of big block legos for Caleb.  It was so cool that other kids there asked him if they could get their pictures taken with it!! (I think the other Dads there were a bit jealous...LOL!) Here is the modest builder giving me his show off pose:)

There was a building area with real life tools for children to make all kinds of projects (with parents' help.) Caleb wanted to build a rocket!

Caleb and Joshua loved the submarine play area too...

Everyone got a good workout in the kids' gym area...

Whoa! Look at Nathanael lifting up 50 pounds on each side!;)

 Time for hockey!

Caleb loved the microphone! Maybe he will be an announcer someday:)

Trains are always a favorite too!

In the afternoon after the seminar (on his actual birthday), we found a fun place called Monkey Joe's with a variety of bounce houses, mazes and slides. We knew all of the boys would enjoy having some time playing, jumping and sliding around!

Caleb said, "That was AWESOME!"

For Caleb's special birthday dinner he chose Chick-fil-a. For dessert, he wanted strawberry cake with chocolate icing and sprinkles. Caleb liked it so much, he even licked the bottom of the "5" candle!

Happy Birthday Caleb! We love you and we are SO blessed you are in our family! You always make me smile:) 

(These photos were taken on our Lift - Off Day - November 2012 )

Blessings to you and yours,

Jill and the boys:)