Sometimes I shake my head when I see May on the calendar. It’s been such a weird 2 months since we arrived in Flagstaff on March 5th. Tomorrow will be our two month anniversary in this town. We got about 10 days to explore Flagstaff before everything shut down and we are so looking forward to continuing our adventure in the coming weeks.

As the country starts to loosen restrictions, we are hoping to start moving again. It would be really nice to see a few more places before we settle down in our new home for the winter.

No matter what we will be back on the road come springtime but, I really wanted to see Zion, Bryce, Canyonlands, Yellowstone and Yosemite before the winter hits. It may be an abbreviated trip but, I know we will get a few more stops in before the end of the summer.

The warm days in Flagstaff brought out the leaves, the green grass and lots of nature’s creatures coming out of everywhere. Jenn and I saw a snake on the trails a few days ago, lots of salamanders, beatles, squirrels, rabbits, jack rabbits and birds. The deer seem to have stopped coming down the mountain. I’m not sure if they like the cooler air ar higher altitudes or if they simply don’t like all the new hikers on the trails. It might be a combination of the two. Jenn and I miss seeing them and might take another shot at the peak to see if they are up there.

The warm weather has hit Flagstaff. It just keeps warming up here. Today it warmed up to 80 degrees for the first time since we arrived. We have noticed that the weekends here bring a lot of people from Phoenix that are escaping the 100 degree weather down there in the desert.

We are also seeing people from California that are trying to escape the lockdown. I understand their desire to be here and at the same time, I wish they would “stay in place” as the state order for Arizona and California both request. I know why the Coronavirus is killing more people in the US than anywhere else. Many people feel they are above the law and just do as they please. We’ll enough of my ranting.

These beautiful days in Falgstaff and awesome and it still drops to 55 degrees at night. This makes for great sleeping and the cool crisp air is extremely refreshing every morning.

We setup our home inspection today and a termite inspection and a radon inspection. I never even new radon testing was a thing or even knew what it was. Apparently Flagstaff sits on an old volcancic crater and in certain spots radon seeps up through cracks in the ground. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas. It’s produced when uranium, thorium, and radium break down in soil, rock, and water. It’s then released into the air and is known to be the second leading cause of lung cancer in America. So, I’m having that tested to avoid dying young in my new home. If it tests positive, maybe I can open a nuclear power plant. 💥🌋

My tooth has been hurting me all day today and I’m feeling uncertain about visiting a dentist during this pandemic. I really hope the pain goes away. It might just be my sinuses which haven’t been 100% since we hit this dry air. I’ll give you an update on that tomorrow.

We’ve been having some trouble with the brakes for the last few days. So, I got a referral to an auto repair shop in town and took the Jeep in for brakes today. Since the Jeep is our only car and taking a taxi isn’t a smart move during the Coronavirus, I needed to stay with the car while they did my brakes. 3 1/2 hours later, I was back in business. New brake pads all around and we had to replace the rotars and one caliper on the rear wheels. Back to the RV for some outdoor games with the kids and some lunch.

After lunch we found out some HUGE NEWS! We won the bid on our house! YES!!!

We are all looking at each other in awe. We have a house again. Wow. We couldn’t be more excited to get this house. We wrote a personal letter to the owner telling her our story and sharing that we are moving to Flagstaff after 10 months on the road. I believe that she fell in love with our story and that made all the difference. Its great to have an exciting story to tell. We will be completing all the paperwork on Monday. We’ll send you more updates as this progresses.

In the meantime, we are hoping to continue our journey as the Summer unfolds. We have 2-3 months until we can move in. Let’s continue the adventure.

It’s Friday. Remember when Fridays were exciting. Its the weekend and I can hang with my friends and family. Well, guess what? It’s the weekend and you can hang with your family. Haha. (Or anyone else you are locked down with.) I got excited with Jenn while driving to get groceries and shouted, “Whoooo…It’s Friday!” and she just looked at me like whats wrong with you?

I need to make each day exciting or it just doesn’t feel right. I live life from a very happy place. I have a great outlook on everything and can’t help but, find something good about the lockdown. Like I tell everybody when they ask how I’m doing, “I just keep smiling! I’m living the dream.”

We raised our offer on the house today and will most likely find out if they accept it by tomorrow.

Caitlin had a massive wreck on her hoverboard today and she is icing it down. No broken bones!

Talk to you tomorrow.

Today we put the offer on a really nice home I told you about on Tuesday. The real estate market in Flagstaff is tight. There aren’t many homes for sale here. So, when a nice house goes on the market you need to jump on it. I’ve got my real estate apps giving me constant notifications when anything new pops up or if a home gets reduced in price etc. This house came up Tuesday and we did a drive by to check it out. Then we setup a walk through which went well. Everyone loves the house and there are a few kids in the neighborhood. We liked a lot about the house and loved the openness of the neighborhood with every home on about 2 acres.

We should find out in a few days if our offer was accepted. Cross your fingers for us.

Jenn and I ordered hoverboards for the kids about a week ago and they arrived today. We are constantly looking for ways to get the kids off their iPads and Playstation so, hoverboards seemed like a good call. We didn’t have cool stuff like hoverboards growing up and I think all the running was good for me but, I’ll give in a little in order to get the kids outside.

The kids need the fresh air and we need them outside releasing all there energy. They love the hoverboards and Caitlin, in particular, is really great at balancing herself on the board. Jenn and I tried them out and we can both manage on them but, we don’t hit top speed like the kids do. I feel much safer on skis or a snowboard then on the hoverboard. Caitlin and Sydney had already been in 2-3 accidents before the day ended. Skinned knees, banged up hips and a slightly sprained wrist happened very fast. Now we have the rollerblade pads and wrist guards on them and they might live to see another day. Lol

Jenn and I have been taking our daily hikes and they really help to clear the head and reset us before dinner every night. As the lockdown wears on we feel the stress of 5 people living in 400 sq feet. Sometimes you need to take a walk. We are working on not losing it before this lockdown ends. 😨

Another day, another house. We didn’t move forward with the home in Walnut Meadows and we also passed on the home on the Continental golf course, after realizing all the work that home needed. Today we visited a home outside of town on 2.3 acres. Thats right, you heard me correctly, 2.3 acres. The home is very large and included a playroom downstairs with a pingpong table, pool table and a shuffleboard table. Wow, thats a lot of fun for one room. We loved the home and are putting in another offer to see if we can lock this in. This home is about 8 minutes from the Continental golf club and maybe 15 minutes to downtown Flagstaff. So, its just outside of town but, still close to everything. Wish us luck with this one.

We keep looking at one house after another and we keep learning more and more about what type of home we want. This last home hit the nail on the head.

Our plan is to buy a home and ride out this pandemic. Then we can resume our trip with a home base in Flagstaff. We have so many places to visit that are only a few hours from here. Our immediate circle includes the petrified forest, Sedona, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon Damn, Hover Damn, Antelope Canyon, Zion and Bryce. All of these places are between 1-3 hours from us. If you open up the circle to 6 hours we could see Lake Tahoe, California, The Canyonlands, Monument Valley and a good portion of Colorado. There’s also Albuquerque and Santa Fe NM if we get bored. LoL.

So, we are working on solidifying a place to stay for the winter and then we’ll restart our adventure. (Asuming the roads, parks and campgrounds reopen before the summer passes us by.)

I’ll send you an update tomorrow on that new house.

Today was a fun day! I personally love Mondays. It’s a fresh start.

The kids are really getting into a routine in the morning which we love. Caitlin works on her book a rug. Sydney stays in bed for a bit before getting up and starting her work- she say she likes to stay that way- and Luke plays with his cousin, Jake, on the PS4 and spends time connecting and having fun thing every morning!!

We woke up to find out our offer was not accepted and the owners want full price. We don’t think the house is worth what the were asking so we explained that to the kids and decided to move on. We didn’t really love it anyway. We liked it and as Joe said it “checked a lot of boxes” off our list.

We realized from this experience that Joe and I really have to love what we buy and not just make it all about the kids which is so easy to do. They are being amazing sports on this trip and we want to be sure they feel heard and respected for their thoughts and feelings.

Then THIS happened Monday afternoon!

This 2.3 acre house popped up on the market and we love it. Joe and I drove by it to check out the neighborhood and the land that comes with the house. We were enamored. It even has a horse stable for Caitlin someday!! To think we could own it made us giddy.

Next up is checking out the other houses and making sure there were some kids to play with! That’s just as important as having glorious views and a house that you can play hide and see in and not find someone for hours 😀

We got the go ahead to see the house on Tuesday with the kids!! That will be fun.

We ended our night with a movie- The Good Dinosaur. We all agreed while it was a heartwarming movie from Disney it was 90 minutes we’ll never get back in our life!

Well that’s all! We’re excited to see that potential new house tomorrow with the kids and keep moving forward with ur lives!! Joe and I say it all the time… life really is so short so let’s just keep moving forward and making decisions to better our lives and that of our kids.

I ran most of Fatman’s loop today for the first time. Joe and I have been walking it for 2 months working on expanding our lung capacity at such high altitudes. I woke up motivated to take it on by myself!

We also had an exciting day putting an offer on a house we all liked. The neighbor was pretty good with lots of kids but the house had a big backyard, the biggest in the neighborhood and we want that for the kids.

We drove around one more time with everyone in the car before calling our real estate agent as putting in a bid. They wanted more than we were willing to pay but we figured if they take our offer we’ll take the house and add our Edden magic to the place!

The days are all blending into one another and I’m sure you may be feeling as well. We’re just hoping this temporary stay home mandate lifts so we can enjoy the beauty that Flagstaff and Arizona in general has too offer!

Do you ever find yourself thinking about how busy you are and laughing? For me, I don’t have to go to the office, no lawn to mow or landscaping work, no repairs to do around the house, yet I feel stressed out a bit. I’m surfing the web for a new home, checking on the stock market, seeing how the Coronavirus is doing and feeding the kids 3 meals a day.

Add in some excercise and that’s my day. Why do I feel stressed? Why does it seem like there aren’t enough hours in a day? Humm….

Today we went into town to get Jenn’s cell phone screen repaired. Yes, it cracked….someday they will find a way to make cell phone displays last forever but, today is not that day. We got the Motorhome with the marble tile floors and cell phone displays don’t like tile floors. While the phone was being repaired we hit the road and looked at another house in the co continental golf course community.

This one was not on the course 😩 but, I’m pretty sure you can see the golf course from the upstairs bedrooms. We liked the neighborhood and will take a look at the inside of the home tomorrow evening. I’ll send you all an update as soon as possible.

The outside temperature hit 81 degrees today. About 3 weeks ago it snowed so, we are a little blown away buy the climate changes here in Falgstaff. I’m sure we’ll get used to this weather in time. It’s also become so dry here that the campground removed all the firepits and wrapped up all the charcoal BBQ grills. I guess we won’t be making and s’mores for a while.

We decided to do a quick hike to break up the morning and Luke came. He said he’s been wanting to get back in shape because he spends so much time in the RV!

Later that day we went out to see another house. It was a great house on a block filled with kids. There were mountain biking trails all around the home on 3 sides. The home was right up against the forest (which is the best place to live in my opinion). The back yard had a large astro turf field that just screams “play”. We are going to put an offer down on this home tomorrow and see how it goes.

Sometimes it feels like “groundhogs day” and then you find a house you like and the cycle changes. We decided to break out the ice cream and celebrate after dinner. These are great days for us and we continue to enjoy everyday, even in lockdown.

Jenn and I were talking about how we ended up in Motorhome 2500 miles from New York. We just have to laugh sometimes when we think about everything we were doing at this time last year. Garage sales, selling furniture, closing my office, turning in my leased car early, moving the few items we saved into my brothers house and the rest into my sisters house, cleaning up all the loose ends and buying the motorhome. Wow that was a lot of work and we have come so far.

We actually feel like we know what we are doing in a motorhome these days. We finally nailed the homeschooling part, we saw so many cool places and our kids are enjoying the experience. It’s amazing to see how well our plan worked out and to notice that if we waited even one year, it would never have been possible during this pandemic. We feel blessed every day. On the days when everything is going sideways, we alway think about how different our life could have been if we didn’t take advantage of the opportunity, we were presented, and took the plunge.

When opportunity arises in life don’t let it pass you by.