We're still here!

     I've been feeling bad for quite some time that the blog has been so incredibly silent the last 2 months. It just seemed like we weren't going new places and doing exciting things so why bother? Then I remembered that I love to read about the normal nitty gritty in other people's lives so here we go! I'll take you on a picture post of the last 2 months. 

     At the beginning of May we were still in San Angelo, with Eldon working 3 days a week at a local hospital. He also started mowing for the State Park a few hours a week as a volunteer. It's a great way to get our area of the campground mowed in a timely manner as well as the trails we want to hike :).

     
     We still don't have a quote carved onto our table yet because we can't settle on one. I don't think it will be either of these 2 but who knows. We aren't usually indecisive so I know when we find the right one, we'll know.

My mom has a fabric store and had been saving the samples she receives from her suppliers and Makayla kept piecing them together . I helped her a little but tried to stay our of it and let her learn from her mistakes. She is quite pleased with the size of her "blanket". It's taken her over a year because she just added on as mom gave her more samples.

Mr. Fishy is still alive, in spite of being vigorously stirred around with a spoon,  being fed "coffee", and even dumped completely out of his bowl. He's like a cat and has 9 lives! At least he's well loved by his owner!

Michael lost his first tooth!

Eldon and the children built this popsicle bridge one day. It held Ethan's weight without breaking!

I enjoyed watching the Harvester ants behind our RV work together to drag a cutie slice into their hole.

We went to another new park.......

.......and back to one of our favorite places in San Angelo - the river walk!

They had a blast taking an old computer apart one day. I was amazed how Makayla stuck to it!

Biking on top of the dam at O.C. Fisher Lake. It's like Kansas- flat and endless :).

     We had planned to be at my parents for 3 weeks in June before we ever started in San Angelo. My dad has a chicken barn with 20,000 layers and we enjoy doing their chores for short periods. They are currently on a cruise to Alaska and also spending some time visiting my brother and sister in Colorado. Their church (also what we consider our home church) had VBS the week before Eldon's scheduled time off so he brought the RV and us up then drove back down and worked his 3 days. 

     Makayla, Michael, and Emily all had SUCH a good time at VBS that it made the separation well worth it! The last night the parents were all invited to a program the children put on and it was so fun to see each class work together and share what they learned! They all did an excellent job. I didn't think about taking pictures until afterwards but another kind lady had taken of most of the classes and shared with me! I don't have one of Michael's class but just imagine a dozen hyper 5 year olds, guided along by 2 beautiful young ladies! Pretty sure they can handle anything after a week with that crew :)!

The 4 year olds might have been my favorite! Emily just adored her teacher and they sang Jesus in the Family at the program. So cute!

The 8 year olds. They had a lot of fun and Makayla was so happy to make some new friends here!

My sisters, Melissa and Melody, have 2 kittens that have gotten an overdose of love since we are here. Strangely enough, Ethan was terrified of them for at least 2 weeks!

My dad made an outdoor "kitchen" for all the kids and they pilfer anything they can to add to their stash. It entertains them for hours! Mud pies, coming up!

     When Eldon brought us up, he stayed for 3 days before he headed back to San Angelo. We finally had enough saved that we could go.......camper shopping! We have been trolling online for months and had a good idea of what we wanted.
-5th wheel
-no longer then 40 feet
-generator
-2 a.c.'s
-toyhauler, with the happi jac bed (it goes up......or down :) )
-queen loft area
-bathroom separate from the master bedroom
-second bathroom a plus
-under $30,000
     Whew. Pretty picky, I know! We'd narrowed it down to a few models that had everything on our list and were thrilled to find a few in the Dallas/Waco area. Friday we headed towards Dallas to check out a few. The 2 Keystone Raptors we really wanted to see were both dirty and stank and none had exactly what we wanted. We also browsed some new ones until our heads ached and I was feeling fairly discouraged till it was over.
    There was a 2010 Keystone Raptor an hour and half south so we made arrangements to meet the guy on Saturday. We'd had our eye on this one for a while but it was cheap-only $25,000 for all it promised to have so we were sure something was wrong that it hadn't been snatched up already. We laughingly made each other promise that we are NOT buying it today (we may be known for spur of the moment decisions) and hoped and prayed that it would be everything it said or just awful.

It was e.x.a.c.t.l.y. what we wanted. And it didn't stink. It fact, it was super clean. And the man was extremely nice. I finally just went outside because I couldn't handle the perfectness anymore. Eldon got done with his questions then told me we have to at least eat lunch before we make a decision :).

As it turns out, we brought it home that day! It just felt right. We knew. And the guy took a personal check. Who does that for that amount of money?! He even knocked a couple hundred bucks off since some other guy who was looking at it broke the black tank valve.

     That was Saturday. Brought it home and messed around a little, figuring out how it all works. Sunday afternoon Eldon headed back to San Angelo so I was solo parent. I worked at wiping out the cupboards and everything even though it was clean........it just felt like I should. My sisters helped me so much by cleaning and keeping an eye on the children. It also helped immensely that the 3 oldest children went to VBS every night and it was just Ethan and I for 2 whole hours. I started moving stuff over too. I didn't think that would take long though..........you know, we live in an RV, we don't have much stuff. What a joke!

And it rained and rained and rained.

Just to make you smile

Our garage! I was so very thankful that we could pile it all in there and put it away one box at a time instead of having the mess spread everywhere.

Although, it did spread everywhere. And no matter the chaos, one still needs to create pretty things if the the urge hits, right???????

Eldon came home late Wednesday night and helped me haul all our stuff over Thursday and Friday, in between rain bursts. Then we needed to clean and advertise our travel trailer. Happily, a man came from Arkansas last week and paid cash!

Licking the salt block at Tractor Supply just because we can!

Father's Day 2017.......this man totally deserves his own post but........this will have to do! As you can see, his children all adore him! I'm incredibly blessed to raise these munchkins with a man of God who puts spending time with his family above all else except God.

Our crazy little chicken man. He loves to go with Eldon to walk the barn and pick up floor eggs! Amazes me how he's scared of kittens but not 20,000 chickens!

Flying the drone

    That was longer then I thought! Hoping to get pictures of the new camper and post about that soon!

     As for our future, we've committed to stay in San Angelo until the end of September. It's a long time to be in one place but we have a good place to stay, good pay, and love the city! We do have a 2 week trip planned to Arkansas the end of July and hopefully will sneak in a few weekend trips to localish destinations. We'll be at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival from October 3-17 then we plan to hit the open road for a few months (after we help my dad get his chicken barn cleaned out and ready for the new flock). Pennsylvania is on the slate for Christmas but after that's it's wide open and we're so excited to see what doors God will open. Michael's praying Montana :) :).

Paint Rock, Texas

This morning we took the 45 minute drive to Paint Rock,Texas. The population is only 273 but it's the site of hundreds of Indian Pictographs along a rock bluff overlooking a once widely-used Indian campground. The site has been in the same ranching family since the 1870s and was closed to the public for years due to vandalism. However, there has been more interest so the owners have given guided tours for quite a few years now. 

It's amazing to see how well the rock art was preserved from 200-500 years ago. Most are red but there is also black, white and yellow paint. Our guide showed us how the red paint was made from zinc oxide and also gave us tons of history tidbits about the area!

My pictures aren't very good at all but I didn't want to miss a word Bill said and I was also pre-occupied keeping the busy toddler out of ant hills. If you look closely you should be able to see some of the paintings. Many tell stories of hunts and raids as well as some solar markers that suggest the site was once a spiritual meeting place of some tribes.

To the left of this is a river and Bill is certain that the Indians used this bluff in buffalo drives. It was a perfect set-up, with the bluffs and water nearby to aid in the butchering process.

The Campbells also have 2 bison that roam their ranch. We got to see them VERY close up when we drove out. They are huge! The visitor center is chock full of artifacts and antique items, many of which we assumed were family heirlooms. We didn't get to check it all out as much as we wanted but it was super interesting! If you're ever in central Texas I highly recommend visiting! The owners are Fred and Kay Campbell and can be reached at 325-732-4376 to set up a tour.

After the tour the the children were hot and starving so we drove 30 minutes to Ballinger and found an awesome City Park for a picnic! They have mini golf and a pool on site plus lots of playground equipment. After a few hours they were finally ready to head home. Except Ethan, he is almost never ready to leave a playground!

This nice newish playset and.............

............they preferred the old, rickety see-saw :).

A statue of an Indian named "Friend".

I think this was the Colorado River that flowed through the park. We saw several people fishing there when we left. The park also has water and electric hook-ups for only $15 a night. The road in is a little bumpy but here is no low trees to prevent an RV from easily getting in. 

Our table project

     Earlier this year we ripped out our dinette benches and table as well as the carpet underneath it. Eldon installed laminate flooring and we bought a lovely, practical table from IKEA. A few weeks ago Eldon got the brilliant idea to get a wood-burning kit and use it on our table top. I admit, I was a bit leery at first because I love this table so much and didn't want anything to mess it up but it turned out gorgeous!

By far the hardest job was getting it traced on but even that turned out to be fairly easy! We were able to print these huge maps free then simply placed carbon paper underneath and got to drawing over every little line!

All traced on!

The United States side completed! There is a mistake somewhere and it looks huge now that we found it. But I'm not going to say where it is- you can find if if you like :).

Working hard :).

The world map completed!

It was hard to get a shot of the whole table but here it is. Now we want to add a quote in the middle but haven't decided yet. We are open to suggestions :). 

Random picture post

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from the last few weeks.

An Art project...........7 days of Creation. It involved more then I thought it would. And it's not Pinterest worthy. But, I totally didn't try to match up the colors of the days like they came out so my OCD heart is super happy about that.

A Golden-Fronted Woodpecker visiting our feeder. We fill that feeder every 3-4 days.

Mostly we feed Red-winged Blackbirds, House Finches, Curve-billed Thrashers, Cardinals, and the occasional Woodpecker. As the weather keeps warming up we look forward to adding new birds to our list!

Spring!

Last week we took a 3 mile hike through this cactus field.

There was also Longhorns in that particular pasture but this was the only one we saw.

Art sculptures at the Sunken Garden Park in San Angelo.

A sailboat.

This child is constantly chasing birds away from the feeder because "Me hold one". Shirtless because he wanted a drink and "Me do it myself" and then "Help, mom, me all wet. Take shirt off." We adore him :).

Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue

A few weeks ago one of Eldon's co-workers mentioned a donkey rescue that she volunteers at and we thought it sounded like a good place to visit so today we made that happen!

This rescue is the biggest in the US and normally has 500-1,000 donkeys. Right now there is only 700 and it was A LOT!! Most of the donkeys, mules, burros,and the few horses they take have been neglected or abused. Occasionally it's a pet that someone can no longer take care of. The Rescue gets them cleaned up, tames them, and then delivers the donkeys to other rescue centers all over the US where they are adopted out. They also pick up donkeys from pretty much anywhere in the US. 

 Next month student vets will be coming to castrate 135 jacks so they can be adopted out (sound fun?!). Many need to be treated for ringworm and have hoof work done as well.

Lots and lots of donkeys grazing in the winter wheat fields that surround the farm. 

The mammoth mules! The King of Spain gifted 2 Spanish jacks to George Washington and many of America's donkeys and mules can be traced back to them.

This is Romeo, a sweet little mini pony. He was by far the children's favorite and would come charging in whenever we gave anyone else attention! 

That huge white mule is Lily. She didn't want her picture taken but I was astounded how massive she is. I couldn't even see over her back when standing beside her!

After 3 of the 15 workers spent a lot of time with us, we ended up in the gift shop. They gave the children each a coloring book, bracelet, tablet, pen, and sticker. We loved this place and most likely will end up visiting again to satisfy our homesteaders itch :).

We used to have a mini donkey and it truly was the best pet better ever. It followed us around like a dog. They are also great guard animals. I'd highly recommend looking into a rescue near you and adopting one, if you're looking for a new pet!