Shout out to YOU!

Terence here and I just wanted to say a big thank you to everybody.

Thanks to my mom and dad for helping out and being supportive in this adventure.

Thanks to the families that have allowed us a place to “surf” at. You all know who you are. The ones that have offered beds, parking spots, water…we love y’all.

Thanks to anybody that has taken a tour or Vanessa Hudgens. If you have been inside some of your light and magic has reflected on us.

Thanks to everybody that has reached out. Lunch dates. Texts. Comments on posts. Hallway conversations. If you talked about it with me/us it means you gave up the precious time in your life to have a meaningful interaction with us.

One of the outcomes that I really did not foresee is the amount of people that get to reflect on their on own lives. From the question and comments “I’m jealous”, “I need to declutter”, “where do you park” “how are the kids” “how do you do alone time” etc etc. Me, I can see your brain thinking about stuff like this and how it happens in your current life. Maybe we will spark you to go crazy and move into a van. Maybe you spark and decide you need to recycle more. Maybe you spark and clean the garage. Maybe your kids get an inkling when they grow up and they want to live out of a van, we helped you green light it, a little. Thanks again all of you!!!

Random pics:

dang, i played a lot of chess.  found this at my mom’s house

my dude Jon is crazy.  got me a 2nd God child.

found Tara’s shirt at mom’s house, recycle!

memories

i think i was 13? before glasses and a stache

showers at the pool and run in Joel

Tara wants to copy grandma and wear lots of rings

behind that storage box is where we got our 1st knock at 6am

cut a hole in the bottom to get the last drips, waste not want not

that one time i ran a lot and i was skinny. i wear this now and the kids say i look pregnant

Long overdue

It was a nice kid-free weekend! Tara was in Arizona for a soccer tournament and sent Teren off to grandmas! We decided to camp out at Lake Pleasant which is great; power, water and sewer hookups are always welcome. Its been a while since we had an open weekend…Had a chance to catch up on van stuff, movies, home cooked meals and date night.

It was really hard to get out of bed to get my training in but got it done and got back into bed after. We thought it was going to snow and prepared the van for cold weather, to our surprise, it didn’t snow one bit and instead had the pleasure of having a ton of sun even though it was still cold out. Hey, we’ll take it!

I finally got around to making our shower bags. While we have running water and a fully functioning shower, the tanks that hold both our fresh and grey water get depleted and filled fairly quickly…a solution to that is going to the gym and taking our showers. The YMCA is perfect for us since it forces me to train and a convenient place for the family to shower and maybe get their own workout in. So back to the shower bags…each person has their hair products, body soap, loofahs and shower slippers. Definitely makes it a bit easier to transport and keeps everything organized.

It’s pretty comfortable at this point living out of our van. We have our new normals and can’t see ever going back to living in a “house.” Maybe we’re still in our honeymoon phase but loving this new way of life!

A full month

We just celebrated our first full month of living out of the van this weekend! It’s been pretty amazing so far and looking forward to planning more trips!

We had our first drive as a family this weekend: Seattle to San Francisco. Tara participated in a college soccer id camp with SFSU…we’ll see how things work out and I’m secretly hoping she ends up in a school in California 😎

We ended up staying here for the weekend

It had a huge parking lot with power/water/sewer hook ups over looking the pacific! Can’t beat the view:

Other than soccer, we had a chance to catch up with family and friends, ate more than we should have and made memories. On the drive back home, Tara rode shotgun…I asked her to take pictures of the view and her response was she would rather just enjoy it in real view. 🤔 Good point, it’s a memory and experience a photo can’t really capture right?

We didn’t do a good job at planning or drive back to Seattle. Left SF at around 5am and got on the 101 to avoid having to drive through the snow showers over the Siskiyous. Taking the 101 added a good 5-6 hours to our drive back but on the flip side the kids got to see the Ave of Giants and a 30 minute beach break. It was a tough struggle to stay awake so Terence and I took one hour shifts and powered through the drive.

Made it back to Seattle at about 3am and decided to park it at the school and sleep. It was a long night and we both were super tired, knocked out right away and got a knock on the door from the facility’s guy letting us know we can’t sleep at the school. Oops, that was totally our fault. They did give us the okay to park during the day but nothing about sleeping…Terence chatted with our school office manager and explained what happened…All is good!

Overall, life is great.

San Fran Bound

Pretty excited for sure! This will be our first family road trip and looking forward to the much needed getaway.

I’ve mapped out all the Elks lodges that have RV parking along with full hookups, checked weather over the passes (Oregon – Cali border) and planning on getting VANessa filled and dumped before we hit the road.

I anticipate lots of pictures, videos and updates to both our blog and IG! Stay tuned!

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Water is life…

After Teren had his flu spell I started to get a sore throat. I thought it came from us staying at the hotel and Almie turning the heat to 78. Essentially cooking my throat. Water is life…It hung around and Thursday and Friday. Both nights I decided to take NyQuil. Dang that was probably a bad idea. I was fine on Friday, day time. But when I woke up Saturday morning I felt hung over and my foot hurt. I didn’t really have to walk on it cause I stayed in bed pretty much all day. Come that night it was hard to sleep, cause I pretty much slept all day. Other than the times I was eating and playing neighborhood watch, saw a fire truck and some random lady knock on Fel’s door. So come Sunday I pretty much limped around the van and my at parents house. Fel told me it could be gout and so did a bunch other people. Probably karma cause I saw a dude post something about gout and on the inside I was laughing.

Fel also said drink water. I drank about a gallon in less than 12 hours and spent most of Sunday night limping to the bathroom. Luckily it’s like 5 steps away!! I stayed at Teren’s school in the van on Monday cause I couldn’t bare walking to work. Water is good for drinking…..

Almie and I were able to get some water from Erwin!! We used up that water we got from my parents on super bowl Sunday. With dishes and 2 showers. I paid for it. I was thinking $10 for 24 gallons, putting it at .42cents/gallon. He offered .25/gallon. I would have been happy with $10, but of course I didn’t turn his offer down. If your in Seattle area and your hose bib is about 25 ft where my van could get to, get at me!!! Water in the tank, crucial….

Today I worked from home but the ankle swole up. Had a good morning appointment to achieve that retired at 50 mark. Then I had a doctors appointment at Vera Whole Healthcare, which I totally thank Children’s Hospital for. They gave me some steroids!!! Doc said it would bring down the swelling and make my heart rate go up. Sure enough in an hour my pain went down and I started overheating. Sweating not profusely, but who sweats in the car when the car has the fan set to cool while wearing a thin long sleeve and hoodie, while in Seattle winter. Water is perspiration….

We get to Tara’s practice today and turns out it’s a different field. Oops. Luckily it was at Archbishop so I got to visit with Cunanan and test his new bike, and Jill’s haha. I’ve had this Costco size laundry detergent in the crv and half box of bounce sheets. Every time the detergent would tip over. It would spill. I asked Mike is he was married to his detergent, he said no, so he gets them both. Since I haven’t done laundry, we’ve been taking it to a drop off spot on 15th and pinehurst way. Water is life, cause you could have pretty house and other nicies but if you got some smelly clothes nobody likes that. Water is for clothes washing….

Get home from practice and still juiced up. I decide to go work get my bike and ride it. Take a bottle of that h20 and have a 30 min relaxing ride. Shower up and then drive home. Earlier Tara put pandora on some trap music, drake station, so I moved it down the Ed Sheeren station. It played some weird song I never heard. Then it played frozen??? Then it played “Perfect” with Beyoncé. Oh my lord. I blame it on the steroids or the joy of being almost healed, or just the crazy shit Almie has followed me thru all these years, I started tearing up. Then it was like crazy person laughcrying to full on Water works….

the hommie with a new bike, i can’t to get this kid out in the dirt

stretching that 25 footer at E’s house, thanks for the tubig hommie

swole foot, if you want other pics get at me..haha 

tara testing out some photo features on my phone.  that chick right there is like this song                       We’ve been together since way back when
Sometimes I never want to see you again
But I want you to know, after all these years
You’re still the one I want whisperin’ in my ear
You’re still the one — I want to talk to in bed
Still the one — that turns my head
We’re still having fun, and you’re still the one