Our Year of Adventures on the Road!!!

I am SO sorry to all of you who have asked me to post sooner!! I know it has been MANY MONTHS since my last post, but I am just now finding the time to write a summary of our adventures being a full-time family on the road for a year! The past couple of months we have been busy settling into our new community and ministry. We have visited with lots of family & friends, celebrated birthdays (Alan turned the big 4-0!) and the boys are getting involved with our church, a local homeschool group, soccer, and library programs! One weird thing that happened - in February,  I ended up getting Bell's Palsy (temporary paralysis on the left side of my face). The symptoms lasted for about a month.  I am just relieved it was temporary and did not last longer than that!

Overall,  everything is going really well! The boys are making new friends as well as enjoying quality time with old ones.  Alan is loving his new ministry! We are so blessed to be serving at such an amazing church here in Texas. It is exciting to see God working through His people!

So- finally...here is the review I promised!!! Just to start, here are some fun facts and adventures by the numbers:

* We visited/traveled through 28 states and Ontario, Canada!

* We were on the road full-time in our RV for 13 months.

* We traveled a total of 12,270 miles in our RV and 22, 769 miles in our mini-van exploring the states we camped in. That's a total of 35,039 traveling miles!!!!

* We stayed in 57 different RV campgrounds/state parks.

* We visited an estimated 35-36 different churches.

* The boys participated in 13 different Junior Ranger Programs with the National Park Service.

* We ate ice cream in EVERY state and another country (Canada)!

* We visited with family, reconnected with old friends, and made lots of new ones!

* We enjoyed serving with the National Center for Biblical Parenting doing seminars all along the east coast.

* We saved all kinds of money during our travels when we joined 9+ grocery/convenience store clubs (that we can remember..ha!) and 5 camping memberships!

* The boys took turns buying a postcard from every museum/state capitol/national park we visited:

Our year on the road was full of amazing adventures, museums, parks, campfires, s'mores, miles, history, firsts, laughs, family time, nature, new friends, and memories of a lifetime.  We are forever grateful for this wonderful opportunity God gave us!  When I first started to narrow down the thousands of pictures from our adventures to post a slideshow on the blog, I still ended up with almost 500 photos!!!! I decided that was WAY too long! (I figure even our family would not want to sit around to watch a 35 minute slide show!)  I tried to get it down to around 300 or so, which was really hard for me to do. So...here is the 20 minute slide show :) ...for anyone who wants to see, click the link below to view our year of adventures:

****UPDATE**** We fixed the video so that everyone can see it now (It was password protected before, but now you can view it! Just click the link below:

Haigood Family RV Adventures!

Blessings to you and yours,

Jill and the boys:)

State Capitol Visits - Hartford, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island

During our stay in CT at the end of July, we took a few field trips to visit the area.  We have tried our best to visit all of the state capitols during our travels whenever possible. Most of the capitol buildings offer free public tours, which provide great history lessons and interesting facts about each individual state.  One afternoon, my Dad joined us on a road trip to Hartford to attend a public tour of the state capitol building.

The state capitol in Hartford was built in the 1870s.  Before that, the Connecticut General Assembly met alternately in New Haven and Hartford.  After the Civil War, plans were made for one state capitol meeting place and building in Hartford. 

The building is very ornate and although it has been modernized in many ways, you can still find evidence of the past as you explore it.  For example, there were two watering fountains for horses located by the interior stairwell.  Many years ago, people came here to fill their buckets with water for their horses.

Inside the capitol, there is a statue of Nathan Hale, who is known as "Connecticut's Hero" for his brave service during the Revolutionary War.  Hale, who was born in CT, was a soldier in the Continental Army and volunteered to go behind enemy lines as a spy to determine the movements of the British.  He was caught and hanged at only 21 years old. His famous last words were:

 "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Of course, I always have to get a picture of the dome in every capitol building!!

During the last part of our tour, we stepped inside the senate chambers.  The tour guide was very careful to remind us NOT to step on the Connecticut seal on the carpet in the middle of the room.  Yes--it is a sign of respect not to walk on it, but he also mentioned it is very difficult to clean :)

According to local legend, the Lieutenant Governor Chair located at the center back wall was made from an oak tree that hid a special document hundreds of years ago.  Apparently, Connecticut's Royal Charter of 1662 was hidden inside the hollow part of the oak tree.  It was hidden there in attempts to avoid its confiscation by the English governor-general, Sir Edmund Andros.  In 1687, Andros arrived in Hartford and demanded the document be handed over.  There are a few different accounts of what happened, but the most popular is that after Andros made the demand, the lights were doused, and the document was taken out a window and then hidden in the Charter Oak tree.

All of us on the tour were invited to participate in the tradition to sit in the chair, "make a wish", and take a photo...

Our next state capitol visit was to Providence, Rhode Island.  Although we did not make it for a tour of the building, we did get to drive by, get our photo, and mark it off the list:)

We spent most of our time during our day trip into Providence at the Children's Museum.  This is one of the museums valid for a discount with our national museum pass. A huge sea creature marks the front of the museum...

There was a building table with all kinds of shapes to make anything your imagination could come up with!  Or, you could use their suggestions listed in the instruction booklets.

Micah made a turtle (pictured above) and an apple (pictured below)...

I think all of the adults had just as much fun building as the kids did!

Caleb and Grandpa worked together to make a really cool, tall tower with wooden blocks.

Caleb and Joshua enjoyed the water room full of all kinds of water pumps, balls and water toys...

Micah enjoyed building a tower with the small wooden blocks. Then, he enjoyed taking out one piece at a time to watch it come tumbling down...just look at his mischievous smile :)

There it goes!

"It is a happy talent to know how to play."

Blessings to you and yours!

Jill and the boys:)

WASHINGTON D.C. - Part Two!

We started off our second day in D.C. early in the morning with a visit to Arlington National Cemetery.   I remember visiting here many years ago.  It brings up such emotions to see the grave markers of so many soldiers who fought to protect our country.  

We explained to the boys about the President Kennedy and the special memorial there.   In 2012, the flame began to malfunction and so plans were made to upgrade it.  In May of this year, the newly refurbished and permanent eternal flame was put in place. 

The Kennedy Memorial also has a wall with several quotes from JFK and it has a beautiful view of the Washington Monument...

We took the boys to the Tomb of the Unknowns (also known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) and watched the changing of the guard ritual.  The Tomb is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in any type of weather by Tomb Guard Sentinels.  The Sentinels are all volunteers, and they each undergo extensive training before they earn the privilege of guarding the Tomb.  (One of the many requirements they have to meet is to memorize seven pages of Arlington National Cemetery history and recite it all verbatim!) It is truly humbling to witness such dedication and respect for the soldiers known only by God.

We left the cemetery and decided to walk to the other memorials and help the boys finish their Junior Ranger books.  It didn't look too far across the bridge until we had been walking for awhile...

We walked and walked (and tried to get out of the way of bicyclists...they were everywhere!)

and then we walked some more:)

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial...

Then we did some more walking:)

Thomas Jefferson Memorial...

After lots of hard work (and lots of walking around Washington D.C!) the boys earned their Junior Ranger badges!!!! YAY!

After all of that hard work, we headed over to the Smithsonian!  Have you ever seen the movie, "Night at the Museum 2"? This is the place where many of the scenes in that movie were filmed! The boys enjoyed watching the movie for the first time the night before we visited the museum.

Recognize this T-Rex??

For our final day in D.C., we started off visiting the National Archives.  We saw the original Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and U.S. Constitution.  The rotunda and display cases are very dark, and photography is not permitted.  Unfortunately, over time the ink has faded on the documents so much that you can barely read them.  It was pretty fascinating to see though! 

Our next stop was to tour the U.S. Capitol building...

Can you see all of the black SUVs parked in the front of the capitol in the picture below? There were also several armed guards everywhere.  I almost felt like I was in an action movie or something:)  At least I felt very protected!

The capitol building was very crowded, but we were very impressed with how they managed all the of tours.  Each person received a headset that was linked to a tour guide.  That way we could hear over all of the crowds during our tour.

Joshua fell asleep before the tour even started! I think all of the walking and sight seeing over the past few days just wore him out!!!

The beautiful rotunda..

The Old Senate Chambers...

After our capitol tour, we stopped by the Library of Congress for a quick visit.  Can you see us in the photo below?

The boys are busy "reading" some books:)

Next, we stopped by the Air & Space Museum.  The boys enjoyed seeing all of the cool aircrafts!

The photo below is of the original Apollo 11 Command Capsule that took the astronauts to the moon and back!

After a full day of sight-seeing and fun, we headed back to the Metro Station.  While walking back, we realized that we were very close to Ford's Theatre, where President Lincoln was assassinated many years ago.  We made a small detour just to see the outside of the Theatre...

Across the street is the house where Abraham Lincoln was brought after he was shot.  He died there the next morning.

We really enjoyed our time in Washington D.C.  It is such a great place to visit, and everything we visited was FREE! All of the museums, tours and monuments are FREE and open to the public.  That is great news for a homeschooling family of six!!! So much history and learning! I wish we could have spent more time here, but we still got to do a lot in just 3 days!

Blessings to you and yours,

Jill and the boys:)