So we bought our 1st van (Vanessa Hudgens) December 18th 2017. Drove that baby home from Missouri. On January 13th 2018 we proceeded to live in it full time. Well than van is now for sale at a dealership and we just picked up our new van (name TBD). I’m going to miss Vanessa. I run a Argo Riolink for a sense of security. It has captured some of daily life adventures. Overall theme here is dishes. Lots of dirty dishes. Living in a small space you sacrifice your automated dishwasher. Also pictured is us wearing jackets as most of the pictures are from Pacific NW in the winter/spring time. Some of the pics you can see where we have parked, I cherish those locations too.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May 2019 bring you joy and happiness but above all this I wish you love and I will always love you. Haha.
I had every intention to update each day but obviously that didn’t happen. It was a good drive overall.
Highlights:
Highway 1 is super amazing. Ocean views and the ocean air, can’t beat that.
UCSB is the place to be; when you live in a van. The coastal access parking made for a very inexpensive stay with the perk of waking up with this view:
Family! Got to spend quality time with the Borromeo side. We will eventually make our way back to SoCal.
Pismo Beach State Park and Campgrounds had some pretty nice showers. Hot showers, enough said!
The new van drives way more like a car compared to our big van. I like it. Driving and parking it is super easy. We did have a slight oopsie when the check engine light came on! Googled the closest auto store and bought a code reader…it was the glow plugs which apparently is a common thing that comes up. And the guys at Vancraft gave the okay to continue driving.
Spent our last night on the road here:
It was good to have a place to charge our battery pack and of course a hot shower 🚿
We’re almost to our final stop…Bremerton and the kids! Glad we will be together for Xmas eve. Even more glad he survived 5 days on the road with me.
Well, there you have it folks. We picked up our new rig thanks to the guys at VanCraft, LLC. It’s far from luxurious compared to our last van but I love it. Actually, love it more that VANessa. Why? Because there less moving pieces, no tanks to dump, and just a much smaller space.
We arrived SD Thursday night and spent the weekend with my family. In between fam time, we spent a lot of time in Oceanside getting a few things check out for “To be named van.” Minor issues that were quickly fixed, again, I can’t say enough good things about VanCraft!
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday – all we did was eat and drink but managed to get one okay run in, it’s better than nothing right? We got everything packed in Tuesday morning and headed out mid-morning to get past SD and LA traffic. Decided to head up highway 1. Super beautiful drive making mental notes of the different places we could potentially move to.
We spent about 7 hours driving only making our way up to Santa Barbara. We found a place to call home for the night which was at the UCSB! They have overnight coastal access parking and it only cost us $4!
So far, day 1 was easy. Slept good. Cracked the vent to have the sound of the shores come through. Woke up to the sunrise. And now working until the next stop.
Here she is! Name TBD!
Christmas Decorations!
Our first set of passengers!
My dad is better than yours! He built us a box for our toilet.
Family pictures!
This morning’s sunrise. LOVE.
Hooks for jackets? Nope, it’s for our Christmas stockings.
So in my last post Nov 12 I was just getting ready to head to the Philippines for a little recon. Some friends of ours were planning on moving there and they wanted to check it out 1st hand. Flash back to the day we were leaving. I head to Puyallup to watch Tara’s high school team go 1-0 during the 1st half of the 3A state finals. They lose 2-1. Shit happens like that. As soon as it’s done I rush back to Seattle finish packing and we head to Vancouver to catch a flight.
Really the 10 days in the Philippines were filled with really good food, walking, sun, and getting to know each other better. These are some quality people right there. We 1st met these friends from baseball, he was Teren’s coach. He had two of his kids on the team. Instantly these kids became buds. We talked about how him drafting Teren put us in the position to be in PI together. Shit just happened for a reason.
We also checked out a few schools. Grocery stores. Lots of malls. Met with Donna. Met with a visa guy. I got to finally check out Taal. Hung out with the cousins and the 3 Nava Aunties. Even got to talk to my Auntie in Sweden for a bit, the 4th. RIP to the other 4 uncles. My blood father passes and my family makes it to the US. Imagine if he didn’t what my life would have been like. Reason(s)why shit happens??
Got to give props to Almie for watching our 2 kids and their 3 kids. They had a good time for sure. I’m sure they ate really good since they have a full sized kitchen and Almie went to town. Props to my mom and dad for helping out too. I arrived home Wednesday as she was on a flight to North Carolina with Tara for more soccer that morning. They came home Sunday but Almie had to catch a flight to Calgary. Luckily the flight got there early and we were able to hang out for like 10 minutes. Shit happens like that. She’s back to tomorrow and I can’t wait! Tara’s soccer team, some parents, the coach got heat about van life.
Speaking of van living. We will have had Vanessa a year this coming December 18th. We will have been van dwelling a year come January 13th. I just started pulling up some pics of Vanessa in preparation to sell her, we are about to get our newly converted house/used van. Change is always scary but we crazy family we are will get thru it. Still want to give props to everyone that has let us park, get water, shower, sleep, eat etc etc etc at your house. Love y’all, you know who you are. The reason for the van downsizing has its own reasons, they ain’t bad though.
The homie Tara getting called at the final game. 1st team Metro honors for the season. You played well and grew as a player and as a person.
Me and the homies taking a bamboo bike tour of Intramurous.
Philippines, that traffic though.
Singing sob
Dinner, 2016 the family raved about this place. Big Bad Wolf. 2018 we still raved.
Thanksgiving. Teren’s bday. Almie’s and I anniversary all wrapped in the same day.
Inside the lake with in a lake.
Another view of the inner lake. Thanks nature.
At my Aunties farm, I’m feeling at home here.
Fam dinner 1.
Fam dinner 2.
Almie sends me crazy stuff like this.
FaceTiming while I’m in a mall like that is like Venice in the Philippines.
Halo halo. 3 times at 3 different places. This is #2.
A farmers market/eating market in the middle of a metro.
The homie getting taken to medical before the flight home. She almost passed out right when we getting our luggages scanned.
