Friday, August 21, 2015

We are so BLESSED!


Most people like their school. Some even love their school. We are the lucky few that are truly blessed by our school. Our boys have attended Zion Lutheran School for years. It is a very small private school in the middle of the most beautiful country setting off the beaten path. Our boys have had the same classmates since they started, making priceless friendships. We have fully embraced it and love the Christian education our boys are receiving.

 When we approached the school with our crazy adventure, we were blown away by the support by everyone there. We have a new principal and he is truly a godsend to this small, country school. He has a passion for children and a true calling to be a leader. He assured us that he is 100% in support of us taking the boys on this adventure and will do anything he can to make it easier for us on the education side. What a wonderful feeling to know that our boys have such an amazing place to come back home to and feel like they never left. Their teachers immediately gathered the boys books for this year so we could keep them on the same curriculum as their classmates (also making for a very easy transition back next fall!), as well as their year "maps" for me to keep us on target. They assured me they are simply a phone call away if I need anything. Matt & Luke are thrilled to be doing a Skype pen pal program with their classes all year, learning geography with all their friends as we take them places with us. All 3 boys joined their classes today for the back to school kickoff yearbook signing party! Picking up our books last week, the thought of leaving this place that has been our home away from home for a long period of time pulled on my heartstrings. Mr.Wrege (our principal) had small gifts for the boys to remember our Zion family and all the teachers came out to wish us well (not just our current ones) and talk with the boys for a few minutes. How blessed we are to have such an amazing school family rooting for us and helping us along the way. Zion Lutheran School...you will be greatly missed this year!!!

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

We Are Almost Officially homeless!!! (AGAIN!)

Well here we are, 8 years later and about to be officially homeless again for the second time in our 13 years of marriage! No worries though...both times have been by choice!! The first was when we discovered our ability to be spontaneous...we sold our house in Arizona and blindly moved 2 kids and 2 dogs halfway across the country to Texas, not even knowing what city we would end up in (and then managed to end up pregnant while we figured it out!)!!! Eight years later, we have had an amazing life in Round Rock, made lifelong family friends, enjoyed a great house in a great neighborhood and put our kids in a school we feel blessed to be a part of.

And... now here we are 25 days from being homeless. Our future adventure is exciting, insane and absolutely terrifying but we cannot wait to begin!!! Oh wait...did I forget to mention the absolutely crazy, life changing, completely AWESOME adventure we are about to take?!?!?! In the past few weeks we have heard everything from "you have lost your minds" to "you are the coolest parents ever" and everything in between! We actually completely agree with every comment people make... seriously, who does something like this? WE DO! We are the 1% of people with a crazy dream that are actually taking a HUGE risk and making that dream come true! Lots of y'all have a crazy dream, heck the whole world probably does! But how many of you can look back one day and say "we did it!"??? We know it may end up being a HUGE flop, we may not be able to make it all the way until next July, we may even be back by Thanksgiving...but we are gonna try! Very rarely do you ever get the opportunity to have all of the pieces literally fall into place right into your lap. We literally take this as fate telling us to go do it, as we know it will probably never line up perfectly again in this lifetime for us.

Now that I have built the suspense to an all time high...here ya go! We are taking the kids on a 49 state roadtrip all the way to Alaska in an RV! Yep...we are going from a beautiful 3400 sq.ft home with all the luxuries, into a less than 500 sq.ft (awfully deluxe though!) home on wheels!!! We are gonna either be that obnoxious, 'we all love each other' family when we return or we will not all make it back as someone will be left on the side of the road in no-mans-land America! I'm quite sure we will be ejected from an RV park or two when we really get our mouths going but heck...that's what Walmart parking lots are for!

Seriously y'all...we are actually doing this! (well...as long as the zillions of tiny details actually work out!) I'm sure you all know by now that we love to travel with our kids. Their teachers and school are WELL AWARE! We have been handed the chance to take our 3 crazies and show them all America has to offer! How often do you have it work out where Mom has a Master's Degree in teaching and is clearly capable of teaching her kids (at least that's what the piece of paper says...reality may prove otherwise!), where Dad can work from anywhere in the world with Internet and make a full salary while the adventure unfolds and where the kids have been playing year round sports since they were 3 years old and are at the perfect time in their lives to take a break from insanity, plus are old enough to come along and remember but not too old to resent us for taking them????

So that's our news...the Rose Family Adventure is officially underway! The house is a hot mess as we put our life into storage, Craig is busy figuring out the real life details and I am trying to keep my head from spinning right off of my shoulders as I prepare a family of 5 for something we have no clue how to do, something no one we know has ever done to ask for guidance, all while trying to figure out how we actually go about making it all work. The house closes August 31 and the local extended stay hotel will be our home for a few weeks as we finalize all of the details! While we both agree this whole ordeal would be much easier if we bought the RV first and then closed on house, we are not completely insane (yet!). The last thing we need is to be stuck with a house and an RV if the buyer falls through! So in the meantime, the RV has been picked out and as soon as our house is officially gone, it will be ours.

The adventure hopefully begins by mid-September. Wish us luck as we travel America and stick with us for a good laugh! I plan on sharing the good, the bad and the ugly on this blog!!! It's far more fun that way!!! We will be back sometime next Summer and the next adventure will begin, building a new house!