2016 Summer Vacation Part 1 - Monahans Sandhills State Park

So we just got home from our 2016 Family Vacation!  We had a wonderful time touring Texas!  We saw an awful lot in the 2 weeks we were out!  We stayed in 5 different state parks in 14 nights!  We saw many sights!

Our first stop was Monahans Sandhills State Park, which was just west of Odessa, TX.  We stayed there May 27-May 30, 2016.  This was quite an interesting place.  It was miles and miles of sand!  I kept thinking we would see the ocean but we were nowhere near any body of water!

Climbing the dunes was very difficult and sliding back them proved to be difficult as well.  Aaron did the best and gained the most speed of anyone in sand surfing!   In fact we only spent about an hour trying before we decided we were done!

Our 2nd full day we spent at a water park in the town of Odessa LOL!  We decided that this state park was a good one night, possibly two night park!  It is neat to see and would be a good stop over if you are headed out to Big Bend (God's country).  While we were in Odessa we also discovered that Fuddruckers has gluten free buns so Alyssa and I got to enjoy a REAL hamburger!  It was awesome!!

One thing to note about this state park is the STARS!!!  With it being away from a major city and only a couple of hours from the one of the darkest places in the United States (Davis Mountains), coupled with the fact that there were NO TREES, you got a SPECTACULAR view of the night sky on a clear night!!  We brought out the telescope and enjoyed the clearest view of Jupiter that we have seen yet and saw 5 of it's moons surrounding it as well!!  We also got to watch the International Space Station fly by!  That was a super fun evening and THAT is what will draw us back to a repeat trip to this park! :-)

Here are the pictures from our stay!


Day 1 - arriving and checking out the park, stargazing

Day 2 - sand surfing and kite flying

Day 3 - spending the day in Odessa - swimming and eating hamburgers

(I am dividing up my blog posts by the parks that we stayed at!  Stay tuned for the rest of the posts!!)

Until next time,

Kellie

Decorating and Organizing!

It's funny - it seems like after every trip I figure out a different way to organize the camper to make it *hopefully* work for us!  I keep wishing for the day when I will finally have it all figured out.  :-)

In trying to get ready for our big family vacation that we will be taking soon I have thought of some different ideas!  I have also found a creative way to decorate the camper without having to worry about making sure pictures are securely attached or having to take them down and reattach them every time we move to a different spot.  (We are going to 6 different spots on our next trip so that would be a pain!)

So here are some pictures of what I come up with.  After our vacation I will post about how well they did or didn't work!

So for decorating I found on Amazon some really cute vinyl decals.  With the camper having smooth walls I thought this would be the perfect solution and it was!!!  :-)  And I found them for really cheap on Amazon - so that was another bonus.  They were not hard to attach - just took a little bit of patience.


This was put in our bedroom.



This was put in the bathroom over the toilet.  This is a curved wall so it would have been impossible to find a picture to hang there!  This was a perfect solution!



This is on a small wall in our living area.




And look at this cute one I found for the kitchen!!



And there was plenty of space below our tv - so I was able to put a nice sized one there!



I love them and think they are perfect for our RV!!

For organizing - after researching Pinterest :-) and scouring through Amazon I found some cheap solutions to try out!  I am hoping they all work!  This vacation will be the test for these!

One thing I loved seeing on pinterest was a shoe organizer they attached to the screen door.  I couldn't find a mesh one to fit but I found this one.  Hubby doesn't think this will work - but we will see.  I am hoping it does!  If it doesn't I am out less than $5 for trying :-)




I found some cute little hanging pockets that I thought the kids would enjoy to stash their stuff!  The pockets were a little smaller than they looked on the pictures but at $5 a piece again...it is still worth a shot.  The kids love them!  They always want to take little toys with them - this should be perfect for storing those away.  (they each have one at the foot of their bed - Alyssa's has polka dots and lace but I forgot to get a picture of it)

 I also fell in love with this organizer - I have put it in the kids room and it nicely holds all their dvds plus a few other stuff.  (all of these are hanging on the wall using those nifty 3M hooks (with the easy to remove tabs).

 I was super excited for this find!  This was a stick on white board!  The kids suggested one so that I can put a calendar on it or notes about their clothes or stuff to help them!  Plus if we are ever out in the RV and want to school this will come in handy!  This was only $7.  It took a little work to get all the bubbles out but I did and it stuck great!!

 So also found this over the wall organizer and saw on Pinterest how they used it on the bathroom door to store bathroom items!  I thought that was a great idea!  I was impressed with the quality of this item (once again - less than $10).  And the colors match our color scheme in the camper!!  And it is behind the towel rack so we can still use the towel rack!



In fact I was so impressed with it that I ordered another one for the kids room!  I thought it would be perfect to store their socks and underwear in!  In the picture below I put some in there just to see how it is going to work out!  It will be pretty much full for vacation.  I will have to make sure to get a picture of it all filled up for vacation.  I am hoping this works like a dream!



And I was so excited about that and was getting carried away LOL that I decided to use the left over of the shoe organizer I cut for the screen door and attach to the inside of my wardrobe to hold my panties and socks!  I am hoping it works.  In the picture I put some stuff in there just to see how it would work!  (and you can barely see my hanging organizer in my wardrobe that I already had to put my clothes in - I got that when we first got this camper and it works great!!

 And I have this skinny hanging organizer that I have put in the long skinny closet in my room to store cleaning supplies in.  (and you can see my hanging pockets for my bed - this was a $4 add on when I ordered the others so I thought why not!



So I am excited to see how all of this works out!!  I will let you know!

Until next time,
Kellie


(oh and I realized that I am super behind in posting our trips.  I have all the pics ready and most of the write ups - one of my goals this summer is to get caught up on getting them posted.  I am also hoping to make our next book from these posts (we have already made one!)

Atlanta State Park - March 31 - April 4, 2015

We just got back from our annual "Spring Break" camping trip!!

We spent 4 nights at Atlanta State Park in northeast Texas and had a fun time!

Here are some picture highlights from our trip!  :-)

I have to point out that ALL day Tuesday Anna was either laying against the camper or the truck!  She was going to make sure we didn't forget her! LOL!  In fact as soon as the kids opened the back door to the truck she jumped in (we of course had to pull her out to put her in the kennel in the back of the truck...but she was one excited puppy dog)!

So our first full day there we decided to do some fishing...of course no luck there (we NEVER have any luck fishing LOL but the kids sure do enjoy trying).  And of course, wherever there is water they are going to find a way to get in it...even if the water is freezing cold!

That afternoon Alyssa and I went on a walk by ourselves!!  We had such a fun time finding all different kinds of wildflowers, that we later drew in our nature journals!

At one point of the hike we came across two wild hogs...they were in the distance a bit and I was going to get a picture until I realized that they were running towards us.  I figured I better find a way to keep Alyssa and I safe.  If they wouldn't have stopped when they did I was going to have her give her loudest scream!  That would have definitely scared them away, along with the rest of the wildlife in the park! LOL!  Hindsight - I wish I would have gotten that picture!  They were HUGE!

For dinner that night we had grilled chicken wings!  YUM!!  I tried three new recipes and all were very good!!

So the next morning we decided to take another hike, but this time we brought along the boys, Daddy and Anna!  :-)

We then came back and played around at the camper for a bit.  The kids had a rope.  Oh what fun you can have with a rope! LOL!

That afternoon we decided to take a trip into town and of course had to end up at Wal-Mart!  I mean, what's a vacation without a trip to Wal-Mart?!?!  We found some really cute suit sets for the boys for Easter and realized that they needed hair cuts!  So we got their hair cuts, ate supper, and even went and got some ice cream!  We also bought a movie to take back to the camper to watch that night (it was RV of course LOL!)

Here is Aaron with his haircut :-)  (he was being silly and putting it into a mohawk - which it does so well going into a mohawk LOL!)

Friday morning I tried a new breakfast recipe - monkey bread! YUM!  It was a hit!  :-)

We tried some more fishing - still no luck!  :-(

That afternoon it was threatening to rain so we came in the camper and played with our new book we got - Sea Creature Origami.  (Daddy took a nap).  We managed to get a seal made!  It was not easy!!  I am going to have to do some studying on this before we do much more with this book!

Later that afternoon the kids, Anna and I went on another hike!  This time we ran across a cottonmouth snake!!  OH MY!  The trail was suppose to cross a creek, but it was flooded (the lake was WAY up!)  So we had to walk off the path to find a point where we could cross the creek so that we could continue on the trail.  We came to a point that looked like a good spot to cross - until I spotted the snake!  Of course I screamed!  But I did manage to get a picture of it!  We just moved further down the creek to find another spot to cross and left that guy alone!

Check out the dogwood in full bloom in the background of this picture!!  There was wild dogwood everywhere and it was beautiful!

See that lake behind us - that was suppose to be the trail...but it was just a wee bit flooded.

And here is our snake friend - YIKES!

One last picture - the last morning - the kids are getting too big to pile in bed with us!! LOL!

We had an awesome time!

Until next time,
Kellie