Happy Hooping

Last weekend, we headed to Austin with several of our friends for a hooping meetup...affectionately known as "Hoop Church", as it's held on Sunday. The girls hooped and hooped and hooped. We learned new tricks and we left with new bruises. It was a gorgeous day. The boys sat around and drank iced coffees and lavender lemonades. They had a good time chatting about life on the road and cheering us on.

(L to R: Bella, Michelle, Tracy, Me)

I just blogged about my hooping obsession over at Walk Slowly. Can't wait to hoop all summer in the sunshine! And then, when there isn't any more sun and warmth to hoop in, we'll drive to where there IS sun and warmth! Ahhhhh....the traveling life. Gotta love it.

Hoop Love photo set here. More to come!

The Syrup Incident

We had been noticing that our fridge door was not latching properly...but didn't really pay too much attention to it because we were always able to get it to shut tightly with a little extra push. Well...apparently we didn't push hard enough before we pulled out of Landa.

As we were leaving on the very bumpy and hilly road out of the campground, I looked back in horror to see the fridge door swinging freely and several items were being catapaulted out onto the floor. All of this was happening in slow motion of course as I was envisioning the mess that was about to happen before my very eyes.

We had just purchased a brand new container of pure maple syrup at Costco the day before. This bottle is made from plastic...perfect for an RV lifestyle! It won't break if it falls on the ground...right? Wrong.

It must have hit the top of the container just perfectly and it cracked off and dumped it's entire contents of onto our kitchen floor WHILE we were moving. Matt got the RV stopped. And luckily, Angie was riding in there with us at the time and she was able to help Matt clean it up (Lucy was sleeping on my back). There was also a container of maple yogurt that opened and splashed on every surface. What a horrible sticky mess! It was everywhere. We were able to stop most of it before it went under the slide out, which was good.

We've had SO MANY things happen like this...glasses breaking, water containers exploding, etc. But I think this one takes the cake for messiest road disaster so far. Good times.

The Magical Redwoods

"And whatever you do, don't take Bear Creek Road."

In hindsight, it would have been wise to read through Sarah's email more carefully before we headed into the Redwoods on Thanksgiving day. We ended up following the GPS instead of her directions and it took us on a rather precarious ride! Let's just say that a 40 foot RV towing a truck does not do well on hairpin turns with oncoming traffic flying by on the other side.

We ended up getting stuck on a turn with one wheel in the ditch. Several police were involved (to help block traffic) and about 30 other vehicles who were trying to get around us and get to their Thanksgiving dinners. I'm sure they were super happy with us. It's the first time I've been in tears over any situation on the road. Our lives were never in danger...but it was startling to say the least. We ended up with just a cracked windshield from the way the RV was twisted. We landed at such an extreme angle that it was hard to walk from the front of the RV to the back.

God sent angels that day to help us...one who was able to get our truck unhooked with great force while Matt stayed at the wheel and one who led us with his truck to the other side of the mountain. We are forever thankful for those helpers who graciously gave up time on their holiday to help strangers.

After such an intense beginning to our day, we were all rather emotionally burned out before we even arrived at our destination. But once we pulled up to camp* and I saw Sarah waving me in with her sleeve tattoos and her cute little red glasses, I knew it would be wonderful regardless of how we got there. We got settled into our campsite...down into the HUGE redwoods (see us waaaay back in there?). It's one of our favorite spots we've parked in the whole country. Ahhhhhh....I can smell the green moss and mushrooms now.

We spent the afternoon and evening with their extended family and many friends who came over for Thanksgiving. It was so nice to have a warm, inviting place to be for the holidays. Even though we couldn't be with our own families, we felt right at home.

The rest of our days there were filled with lives shared. Discussions about Jesus, parenting, unschooling, ministry, travel, worship, food, authenticity, and the blog world. We laughed, watched movies, sat by the fire, explored in the forest, walked together through Santa Cruz, enjoyed a fabulous farmer's market, gathered eggs, knitted, went to church, and shared meals. The girls played and played and played. We never wanted it to end.

This is an amazing family..truly like no other. They are artists. They have fabulous rituals. They know who they are and why they do things. They are speaking wisdom into other's lives. They are making a difference for eternity and living sacrifcially. We learned so much from them in the short time that we were there and we can't wait to be reunited...someday. Eric, Sarah, Ocean, Ellibella, and Phoenix...we love you guys!

We spent Sunday afternoon by ourselves exploring Santa Cruz. It's a BEAUTIFUL town, with fun shops, unique restaurants...and surfers! I could seriously sit and watch surfers all. day. long. I love it. Bella loves being in the ocean as well and she ran free at Natural Bridges State Beach...chasing Daddy and getting sand in her toes. We also walked the monarch trail and saw all of the monarchs coming out of their coccoons!

So many of you ask us where our favorite stop has been so far...definitely the Redwoods!

Photos from the Redwoods here.
Photos are available for comment on Flickr.

*For privacy purposes, I have omitted the name of the camp that Eric and Sarah run. If you are interested, please contact me directly for more information. I need to screen out the internet creepers :)