Christmas Vacation + Exciting News

To say I had a great Christmas Vacation is a understatement.

I had a fantastic one! I got to show my husband Colorado and all its goodness as well as spend much needed time with my immediate family and my Colorado family!

My husband, Jacob(my brother), and I flew in Friday the 18th. My parents and two other brothers flew in the next day. We split into weird groups due to working schedules and price differences. But we all made it and who knows when the next time all 7 of us can vacation together again. Pretty special and rare!

We got up super early to fly for cheap. I'm talking 1AM, drive 2 hours to be at the airport 2 hours early to catch a 6AM flight early. So excuse the bags and tired eyes. It was a rough trip just because of the lost sleep but it's a million times better than driving 22 hours in a car....a trip my parents, brothers and I have done our whole lives. Jaime got lucky this time. Next time, tickets may not be so cheap. ha! We flew Frontier, nothing bad to say about them. You get what you pay for.

My traveling outfit of the day. I wore my bulky items so I could shove more into my suitcase.

Jaime's outfit of the day. He was working that scarf he got in Afghan. What a stud.

We raced the sunrise as we landed into Denver. It was beautiful and all the snow made me super excited. I already miss it!

Our uncle picked us up at the airport and let us chose where to eat. Not knowing where to go,  I googled: "best breakfast places in Denver". Snooze AM Eatery was the highest rated place and it was so good! A must if you are ever in Denver!

Jaime had never been to Colorado so we had to swing by the Garden of the Gods and Manitou Springs. Thankful that I dressed in layers. It was freezing in Denver but the further south we went, the warmer it got!

The next day, my brother and I went exploring my Pa Pa's church next door. They still have this old wallpaper in the kitchen. It's a fun background!

  

Playing around with Jacob's nice camera.

Sunday, I had the privilege to listen to my Pa Pa preach in his church. 

After Sunday dinner, we played 13 rounds of Dominos. And I can't even count how many times we played it after that. It's one of our favorites to play as a family!

A beautiful double rainbow draped over the field behind my grandparents home. I love that rainbows are a sign from God that He will never flood the Earth again. What a beautiful reminder that He's there during a lazy Sunday afternoon.

We made a lot of Christmas candy before our trip to the cabin. There's no telling how much I gained from this trip but who cares.

Jaime interrupted added himself to my outfit of the day photo shoot I was having. 

But I don't mind, look how handsome he is.

My hair holds curl SOOO much better out in this dry state. It's amazing!

Monday afternoon we set off to the mountains to our cute cabin in the woods. The higher up we went, the more snow there was. The little girl in me LOVED every second of it.

What do you know?! We played Dominos while we waited for everyone else to arrive. 

It's hard to capture just how beautiful and big this cabin was for all 15 of us. My uncle picked it out and he did a awesome job! It was literally perfect.

This was Jaime and I's room. My Nanny insisted that we have one of the King beds.

There was a wood stove burner and it did it's job! We almost heated us out of the house! We also think it sucked a lot of the oxygen out of the house since most of us had trouble breathing that night while we slept. 

The elevation was at 11,000 ft above sea level. It takes a long time to get used to it for us Kentucky folks. Every single time we came up the steps, we had to stop and get our breath back. I'm not even exaggerating. It was tough to get used to. Not to mention the super dry air. I, along with my brothers had some pretty bad nose bleeds. But these two things were the only negatives to this trip.

Soaking in the hot tub in 15 degree weather while it snowed!

Our view the next morning while we sipped coffee and watched it snow.

Preparing the Camper for Winter Pt. 2

Oh hello! Charlie and Maggie know the command 'sit' so of course I took advantage of this beautiful moment. Here's the living room area of the camper and also the hardest part to keep warm!

Part 2 of preparing the camper on the inside for the winter is really simple. There's just a few key steps that campers have to take to trap hot air in and keep cold air out. 

The living room/kitchen area has the only big windows. These windows are made from a very thin glass. Campers aren't necessarily made to live in full time and certainly not during the winter, but crazy people like my husband and I are doing it anyways. So after some researching, the full time RV-ers suggest padding the windows with this shiny-silver-foil-like padding. We picked this up at Camping World for $12 a roll. I just got one but I'll need to pick up another roll to finish the windows. I am leaving the window next to the kitchen sink uncovered. The condensation can cause damaging effects to your camper if you don't have a dehumidifier and cook with a window open to let the steam out. If I find we're losing a lot of heat through it, we'll throw a blanket on it at night and when I don't need to use it. I also used foil tape to tape up the edges of the windows. Don't know if it will help but it can't hurt to try!

Not so pretty but hopefully it will keep us warm and toasty! Thankfully the lighting in the camper is pretty good so I'm not too worried about not having natural lighting this winter. Just remember, this isn't life as I know it forever. You can do anything in a temporary setting.

We bought two heaters at Lowe's. Our camper uses a 30 amp plug and we discovered that it couldn't handle two heaters going at the same time. We're either going to get a 50 amp plug and pay more monthly or bring the dogs in the bedroom area and shut the door and just heat where we sleep. ha! Isn't life grand?!

The last step we've taken to ensure the heat stays inside are these nifty pillows Camping World makes. The fit perfectly in the sky lights of the camper and are super cushioned. We have three skylights but just bought two. We're letting the bathroom stay open. It can't hurt to have a little air circulation in there...if we're being completely real about it. Ha!

Window Foil Insulation: $12 a roll x 2 = $24

Portable Heaters: $50 x 2 = $100

Sky Light Pillows: $10 x 2 = $20

Total: $144

Our water and electric are included in our monthly rent so only having to pay $144 to keep the inside of the camper warm is not a bad price to pay for all winter! I'm telling you, we've saved so much money living in a camper, we will be sad about that fact once we move into a apartment or house at the next job. Don't knock this lifestyle until you've tried it. 

Thanks for reading and following along our camper adventure. My next camper inspired post will be all the pro's and con's about this camper lifestyle. Sign up to receive emails every time I post or follow my Blog on Facebook: Faith In All Things!

Preparing the Camper for Winter Pt. 1

*Finished product*

Hello! Happy Monday! We've had one productive weekend! 

We finally got around to skirting the camper for the winter in Kentucky. After googling and Pinteresting, we decided it's only smart to block off as much wind from getting underneath the camper as possible. The tanks and the pipes to the tanks are exposed underneath and we don't really want the holding tank to bust this winter when it's full of you-know-what from the toilet.

All the blue foam insulation, fiberglass pipe insulation, and wood was given to Jaime free from his job site at work. HUGE BLESSING! This particular insulation costs $150 a board, we used at least 8 boards. I think 2x4's cost roughly $2 dollars a board and we used all of them (maybe 15 total).  We also got scrap fiberglass pipe insulation wraps ($13 a roll) from the job site. We used it on the pipes that would be holding water/sewage. We used about 6 of them.

When you add all that up, we saved $1,308 in supplies!!

That sounds like an ungodly amount to pay just to keep the underside of your camper from freezing, however, most people pay around a $1000 to buy the custom vinyl that wraps around the bottom of your camper. It's just one of those evil necessities you need when your camping in the winter.

We did buy a wood saw ($50) and a jig saw ($30), we bought those at Harbor Freights Tools. We bought one box of screws ($15) and we had gobs left over. Then we bought two rolls of 6 mil plastic ($50) to skirt the camper.

The drill and rest of the tools were gifted to us by my parents when we moved into our first home in North Carolina. We bought mainly IKEA furniture so we needed all the tools. Ha! 

So we only paid $145 to insulate and block the wind and rain/snow. I'd say we were pretty thrifty for a couple of kids living in a camper. I tried my best to document most of the steps Jaime took in building it for easy to follow directions.

Getting all the tools and supplies laid out.

First we wrapped the exposed pipes with the fiberglass insulation. It had adhesive strips to prevent air flow around the pipes.

Jaime then measured the height and width of the space under the camper for each piece of foam board. The lot we are on is VERY uneven, making his job even harder. Not complaining! But it did take longer. 

This rubber mallet was a life saver! Jaime cranked the jacks up, slid the foam insulation in, then cranked them down. But for some spots we just had to hammer them under there.

She is the biggest scaredy cat! Every noise we made in the beginning made her run and hide. But by the end of the day, she just chilled in the chair and watched us. 

Jaime built boxes around the jacks on the four corners of the camper since they stuck out and would let air in if not boxed in.

I was helping Jaime hold the wood steady but I took this picture with bad lighting mainly because look how cute Maggie is. *all the heart eye emojis*

Yes, Jaime let me cut with the jig saw. So much fun building with him!

Taking a picture with the hard worker! I'm so grateful for all his hard work and engineering he did.

It was getting cold and dark before we could finish so we called it a night!

Sunday afternoon we were back at it! Hot tea in hand!

This part of the camper is where we pull the handles to our holding tanks that have to be dumped weekly. It took us a little while to figure out how to make this closed off but easy for either of us to access it. 

Going around the wheels was the final stage of insulating. Jaime brilliantly made a box around the wheels to prevent air flow. 

We added more insulation on the front and back.

Last was the easy part!

We wrapped the camper with thick plastic we found at Lowe's and used Gorilla Glue Tape on the camper and then placed the unused 2x4 board on the bottom to hold the plastic to the ground. 

We're pretty sure we will be scrubbing tape residue after the winter is over and we take it down but we'll worry about that later.

We made a corner flap where the sewage and holding tanks were. Pretty ingenious.

 The finished product. Doesn't look too junky. I will update this post if this doesn't hold or we find problems along the way but for now, we are pretty proud of our hard work.

So that's it. Didn't cost us much and we think it'll keep the heat in and the wind/snow/rain/animals out!

We laughed at how ridiculous we felt putting plastic around our camper and just the reality that we've been living in a camper for 6 months. 

Jaime told me how thankful he was to have a wife who just goes with the flow. Most women would not live this way but really after your husband's been to war twice and you've been apart most of your relationship...living in a camper together is not that big of a deal. Yes, I'd love to have an actual fridge and kitchen..and all the things a newlywed could want but being with my best friend in a small space is way better than any of those material things. 

He always tells me that one day we will have our dream house filled with kids but right now, we're saving and learning to appreciate what we do have: each other (and the dogs). 

Life is so good guys. Don't take being with those you love for granted! Have fun and make memories!

Pt. 2 of Preparing the Camper for Winter will be up on the blog soon! Don't miss out.