Gearing Up For 2019

Mind-blowing explosion in 3…2…1…

We’re finally back on track! First, we must wish y’all a VERY late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We truly hope you had a cozier season than our family. Now don’t get us wrong, we had a great Christmas; spent the day with family, had GREAT food, and made memories. The one thing that threw us off as a family this year was the feeling… We weren’t home. If you’ve been with us since the beginning, you know that in August last year, we sold our house, most of our possessions, and went full-time RVing. With those possessions went our Christmas decorations. Not only that, but we didn’t have the luxury of continuing most of our traditions that we did in the house: picking out the perfect tree to put in our living room, decorating the tree, going to the symphony, Youngsville Christmas parade (aka – the BEST Christmas parade EVER), a party for Christmas Eve and New Year’s, etc. You get the picture. It just didn’t feel the same. We all found ourselves missing our old traditions, but our season wasn’t a total bust…The single most important tradition our family will always keep on Christmas, no matter where we roam, is Dad reading the Christmas story from the chapter of Luke in the Bible (our favorite family book) on Christmas morning before we even TOUCH our presents. This year was no different and it set the Christmas feeling for the whole day. The Range Monster also made Stuart, Florida it’s home for the month of December, and we were about ten minutes away from most of our family… so we WERE with some of the best people to be with during the holidays. Over all I must say this was an awesome Christmas, although hard adjusting to a few changes. It’s just part of the lifestyle!

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New Year’s was also different. A little back story: every New Year’s Eve, for the past eight years, we would have our good friends come over for a party. We would play games, have a bunch of snacks, and watch the ball drop to ring in the new year. This year, at our grandparents house, we missed our friends but had a good time spending extra time with family before we head out again.

Yes, Christmas and New Year’s were an important part of winter break, but our month held so much more…

Sunday, Dec. 16, our family took a day trip down to the Everglades. But not just any old trip, an airboat tour! Our guide, Jose, was awesome! He really knew his way around the Everglades, and took us way out into the remote parts looking for gators and gar. We must’ve seen close to twenty! There was so much adrenaline coursing through my body while zipping down the channels and through the sawgrass. My favorite part was when our tour guide did a donut with the boat (he really knew what he was doing), and seeing all the animals in their habitat. It was also insane when you looked out over the huge spread of grass, it was ALL water…sometimes we went through grass that looked exactly like land!

We didn’t want a normal holiday season either, so instead of going to the orchestra like we’ve done in previous years, we decided to spice things up a bit and find some upbeat shows to attend. I’m talking like, For King and Country, or maybe the Blue Man Group? Knowing that we went and saw two incredibly fun and upbeat bands, if you ask us which one was our favorite, you won’t get a straight answer… Just saying:) They were both so cool! For King and Country is a contemporary Christian band that we saw during their Christmas tour; it was also my birthday present from my parents. The other group performed a completely different show, but just as fun, and when they say “blue man”, they aren’t teasing! Probably the funniest and most energetic concert I’ll ever see, so definitely worth it!

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Buying Christmas presents this year was a little difficult; you know, the whole “we live in a camper” type thing…our family didn’t know what to get us, so it was a Christmas of experiences, rather than presents. Our aunt and uncle made it easy and took us and our cousins to a trampoline park called Flying Panda. It looked like a lot of fun, until, on Ann’s very first jump, she broke her foot :(. My cousins and I still got to play, but it kinda stunk for Ann. We greatly appreciate the wonderful gift you gave to the whole family Aunt Colleen (you know we’re kidding)!! On a side note, she still was able to capture great pics while on crutches, and she totally dominated!!

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About a week before it was time to head out, another Christmas experience given to us was a gift card for trap shooting at the OK Corral Gun Range. Let me tell you, that was the first and best time I’ve had shooting. The whole range is set up like something from the wild west, and there was SO much land! It reminded me of a golf course for target practice. We all got to shoot (even Benji with a little help), and Ann didn’t let her injury slow her down either; she shot a Remington 1100 shotgun with a broken foot!

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Time flew by so fast while we were in Florida, but we enjoyed every minute of the time we had with the ones we love. On that note, happy 2019!