Moving Day - August 4th, 2021

It's finally moving-in day, the start of our RV living adventure.

The RV we selected had not been cleaned or inspected when we visited the dealer, so it was a several day wait for that process to be completed. We are also required to go through a several hour class so that we know how to operate all the parts of the RV before we bring it to our spot at Lake Jericho. A young married couple from church graciously offered to watch the kids and bring them to Bible class for us, and we hoped that we could get the RV settled at the site and bring them home after class to a little bit of settled peacefulness.

Of course, that's not quite how the day went.

The class went fine, and the walk through was helpful. I am glad Aarron has more of a head for some of these details, because the technical instructions on how to empty tanks and operate the various systems was a lot for me to process in the moment. My head was full of how we were going to actually LIVE here. Where I was going to put this and that, what we still needed to replace, how it was all going to function. How to make it a home.

We waited around for a while for the guy who was supposed to tow it to our lake spot. As it turned out, he had been told the wrong day and was still a little ways away. We were thankful he was still willing to come despite the miscommunication with the dealer, and a while later we were finally on our way down the road, our new home driving in front of us.

We had originally planned to park the RV at our property, but the intervening few days had convinced us that none of us could handle that emotionally. We were also concerned that cross-contamination would be more of a problem if we were parked in our driveway, close to all the remediation work and the contents of the house. Thankfully, there was a nice spot at our favorite local lake, Lake Jericho, about 2 miles from our home. This was close enough to allow us to care for animals, yet separated from the constant reminder and stress of everything that was happening and would be happening at the property (more on that later). Since Lake Jericho allows for long-term site occupancy, some of the sites have decks and storage buildings and we were blessed to be able to get a site with those extras - plus a nice view of the lake.

By the time we got to the lake spot, got everything lined up and hooked up (a more time consuming process than I expected!), we were already running late for Bible class. We prioritized getting the kids' beds ready, but had to leave the rest of later. I wished for more time, but we made the best of it, and I am so thankful to finally be able to begin this chapter of our journey. I pray it will give us some normalcy and stability in the midst of this storm.

Our First Night in our New RV Home!