Month: June 2017

Nicole’s last day of work

My last day at work.
It’s real now! My last day of work was June 14th. Why did I choose this day? The biggest reason was for my daughter. Her last day of school is the 21st. While I was working we utilized the amazing before and after care program the school offered to help with care from 6am to 6pm. Although the program and staff are wonderful I felt I needed to drop off and pick up my daughter from her classroom for her last few days of third grade. Our lives are about to change completely. Leaving the only school she has ever attended, the friends she loves and adores. It is a roller coaster of emotions for me as an adult, my nine-year-old deserves for me to be there to support her as the realization and emotions set in. Plus, I got to be a chaperone on the last field trip of the year. As a working parent, it is hard to justify taking time off work to participate in such events. There is that little voice inside you where you are jealous of the parents who can be classroom volunteers and be so active in their child’s school life.
I took the opportunity to be a chaperone on this last field trip. The class went to Heritage of the Americas Museum. If you are in San Diego and looking for a nice little museum with lots of information and knowledgeable volunteers, then you should head to Rancho San Diego area on the Grossmont college campus and visit this hidden gem.
https://www.heritageoftheamericasmuseum.com/

My last day of work…. It’s a unique feeling to be leaving a job you like and enjoy by choice. I have been working since I was 15. I’ve had jobs that I hated and couldn’t wait to leave. I’ve had jobs that were ok, but got a better opportunity so switched jobs. I’ve had a job I was laid off from, and even one I was asked to leave due to “not being a good fit” with them.
This time the feelings are different. I really liked this job. I wish it didn’t take me so many years to realize I like math and working with numbers. If I had known sooner I may have chosen a related major in college. Anyway, I liked the job. The people are great which made it very easy to drive through traffic to get to work every day. A collage of the lovely ladies who I got to work with every day. Thank you so much for supporting me in this adventure. ((hugs))

Here is a short video I posted on Facebook before going into work that day. (need to post it here too as “not everyone is on Facebook ya know”)

The next logical question people seem to ask is “When are you starting your trip?”. Well…… We do not know exactly yet. I do KNOW that there is still a laundry list of things to do before we go and I could not concentrate on them fully while also working full time. Right now, we are shooting for the end of summer 2017, but will keep you updated. ** Thank you again for your continued support!!**

First Trip in Winnie

Last weekend we decided to take Winnie out for the first time and it just happened to be Memorial Day Weekend. What luck? We kind of decided last minute (the weekend before) that we wanted to go somewhere. Well, I’m sure you all know that holiday weekends are busier than the rest and you kind of need to plan ahead for that. Not us. We did it on a whim. Great idea. The only place that Nicole could get us into was in Ramona. For those that aren’t familiar with the San Diego area, the road to Ramona is up a mountain and is all twisty turny. The day that we got Winnie, it was raining. I know that I can drive pretty much anything if I’m given the chance, but come on! Rain the first time I drove it and up a twisty mountain road the second and then back down it the third. All in all, it went really well. I’m sure that I upset some of the car drivers that got stuck behind me, but they lived and so did we. Win, win. All of the driving went well and nothing exciting happened while driving. That’s good.

So, Ramona Oaks RV Resort, what’s it like? That’s a good question. It’s very nice. The park is very well maintained. There are maintenance people that live on site. They have a playground, swimming pool, club house that looks like a barn, horse shoe pits, kind of mini golf, a dog run. The place is pretty cool and we had a great time. I personally didn’t meet a lot of people but that’s kind of my style. I like quality over quantity and I feel like I got that this time. Our neighbors where really cool. The resort had a lot of things set up for the weekend like all you can eat pancakes in the mornings, a hot dog roast on Saturday, and an ice cream social on Sunday. Nicole and Rebecka went for the pancakes Saturday morning and the hot dogs that afternoon. On Sunday, however, they went to the ice cream social thirty minutes after it started and they were completely out of ice cream. What a bummer, right? Our neighbors took it upon themselves to go to the store to get some ice cream and they brought some back for Rebecka, as well. Way cool! Thank you! You know who you are and I am still touched by that. I believe that we had a good time together and I would love to be neighbors again someday. We’ll get more posts up after we are done with work and all that and have a little more time to focus on us. We will definitely be back in the area in the not so distant future.

Oh, I forgot to mention that there is fishing there, as well. Lots of grown men who have been fishing for a long time couldn’t catch anything. Our neighbors 14 year old girl was able to catch four or five fish in one night. I lost count, sorry. But I thought that was really cool. Guys were jealous as heck about that, but good for her!

Be sure to check back soon. There will be at least a video added to this post soon.

Just A Quick Update

I know that it’s been a while since I posted anything, but I have been extremely busy the past couple of months. I’m very close to being done with the Navy for good. I start “house hunting and job hunting leave” next week and that lasts 20 days. Then I work for one more week and go on “terminal leave”. I finally made it to the end of 20 years of service. It feels awesome. I got my old project truck running again. Not everything works yet but it does move itself. That’s gonna make it a lot easier to put on the trailer for hauling it half way across the country.

Ok, so some people already know about it but a lot don’t. We have traded the Toy Hauler named Toby for a Winnebago motorhome. For those who want to know exactly what it is, it is the 31BE. The whole driver side is one big slide. At the front of the slide is the dinette. That’s followed by the kitchen, and then two bunks beds and lastly the wardrobe for the bedroom in the back. I know that we didn’t have Toby for very long, but we decided that we really wanted more space. We thought that there just wasn’t enough room or storage in Toby for us to live in for a year. We realized that we need to have clothing for all four seasons for all three us. We weren’t going to be able to do that comfortably in Toby. I think that if we needed to, we could have made it work. But we were able to get the “Winnie” and I’m very happy that we did. Nicole made a video of why we decided to trade up for a bigger one.

Check back soon, I plan to add pictures and a video to this post.