Musings on life, parenting, Jesus, and more...

I drug the kids out for a walk this morning. I swear sometimes it’s like pulling teeth! “Forced family fun” is what I call it now, I stole it from a friend.  These Mayan ruins dating back to the 13th century are the only ones in the area you can visit for free. They are also the only ruins maintained in a residential community. And they happen to only be a 10 minute walk from where we are staying. The community is known as Playacar and consists of about a 4 mile stretch of beach just south of Centro (downtown area) and 5th Ave.There are two phases. Phase 1 consists mainly of single-family homes, condos, and villas. Phase 2 includes a golf course, shopping area and most of Playa’s all inclusive type resorts. It is definitely a tourist area and there is security at all the entrances. It is easy to walk or bike in, but to drive your car in you need to show proof that you are staying there. Here’s some interesting things I learned while reading up on the area (since there are no signs anyw

We arrived at our RV Park (Yellowstone’s Edge) outside Livingston, Montana on Saturday night. At that time our rental car had been canceled and we didn’t know if we would be able to find another, so we hit the road Sunday in the RV to see Old Faithful (and lots of other cool stuff!) Exploring Yellowstone National Park in a 32 foot motor home isn’t ideal, but it also wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and bonus: we couldn’t forget anything (like our next day trip into the park without our binoculars or bear spray.) We passed the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole, then arrived at the Mammoth visitor center where there were elk everywhere.  Here are some more pictures from the drive. We eventually made it to Old Faithful and we all watched her erupt for the first time. It was pretty epic day and I thought I posted this blog a long time ago but it was just sitting in my drafts unfinished. Oops!

We flew into Denver last Saturday and now Thursday night we are back again, this time with the RV. We planned to crash in a Walmart parking lot overnight but Walmart’s in Denver are not friendly. Rob drove until late while the rest of us slept and tried at least 3 Walmart’s going through Denver before finally giving up and resorting to a Target parking lot north of the city. He said one parking lot even had some sort of police surveillance van in the middle of it. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Here’s the circle we’ve made around the mid-west over the last 5 days 👆🏼and my handsome co-polite who loves to come chat my ear off when he gets bored in the back with the girls 👇🏼 A stop along the way at a random playground that happened to have an amazing swing! The kids played while I cooked up steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, and Caesar salad.  And that’s it for Colorado pics folks. We were just passing through this time. Yellowstone bound!

We didn’t see much of Texas, but it was probably one of the funnest stops of the trip so far for the kids. The night before, we made a Walmart run and picked out some fun colors of spray paint. Then first thing the next morning we drove out to the Cadillac Ranch, a field right outside Amarillo where 10 Cadillac’s have been buried nose down since the 1970’s. Kenton had fun finding the cans that still had some left in them, and then finding a matching cap. He also did lots of painting and helped me cover up some negativity left by others.  Jenica and Tenley had fun painting too. When we were leaving, there was a guy set up outside the gate selling souvenirs made from the paint chips that have fallen off the cars. We bought a keychain from him for our keepsake jar back home. I also decided when we got there that it would be the perfect place for my second #cleanupchallenge  🎨  I read in the Google reviews that there were spray paint cans left behind, so I brought a couple garbage bags w

We just cut through the very top corner of New Mexico on our way from Texas into Colorado, but thanks to google maps, we were able to see that there was a national monument along the route where the kids could earn another junior ranger badge. Capulin Volcano is an extinct cinder cone volcano that last erupted between 55,000 and 62,000 years ago. Unfortunately we couldn’t drive the RV up the road to the rim of the volcano but we were able to do a short hike at the base and see some pretty views. I had Tenley take this picture for me so I can remember these moments. One of Kentons favorite things to do when we are out exploring as a family is to hold Mommy AND Daddy’s hand at the same time. Kids need to know that both their parents love them, and I’m so glad that we can give our kids these experiences even though we are divorced.