life at the swartz homestead: July 2013

A Day In the Swartz family as life on the road

I had this all typed out a few days ago and didn’t save it correctly so here goes again.

Tuesday July

The day started at 9 am when I had to go move our truck so the rv beside us could get out. We are in a tight little rv park and when Derek had come in from doing his jobs early am someone else had taken our parking spot and parked their vehicle right by our camper door, ( oh the nerve of some people ) so Derek had to park halfway on the driveway. Kids were both up which wasn’t all bad as we have a busy day ahead including Baths, photo shoot, clean up, dishes, check out at 12, drive to next jobs, find rv park for the night.

Arianna loved her bath, she was just a kicking away. I stuck Austin in as I dried her and got her dressed. He was grouchy and did not want to play with his bath toys cause he had got woke up too early ( he often sleeps till 10 or 10 30) , she was fussin cause she does not like being cold and wet so poor Derek had to sleep with a lot of noise. Thank goodness for ear plugs. She sat happy in her seat , Austin watched cars as I took my shower. 10 30 we are ready for our mini photo shoot in the gorgeous flower garden over looking the ocean they have here. we are out on a little pier out on the ocean, absolutely gorgeous here. The lady who does the rv campground web site loves taking pictures so she was more than happy to snap some for me of the kids and I. Arianna did really good even though she was tired and ready for a nap. She fell asleep as we were walking around the garden taking pics. Love it when she is this good. Trust me we have had some rough days. She thinks she has to eat all the time and also would not go to sleep for me with out eating. We are working on it and she is doing a lot better . Austin of course would not pose for pics, he takes after his daddy, so we just took random ones of him playing. He is such a stinker, he’ll stand there and smile and as soon as she is ready to take the pic he looks down or runs off. It was nice and comfortable with the sun trying to peak through ( it has been so chilly here on the coast. 63f during the day. ) Thank goodness for our sweatshirts.

At 11 we headed to our camper, I quickly picked up our mess of a camper. Amazing how quickly this place can be a wreck, with toys ,blankets , shoes etc strewn all over. We have a 26 foot rv with a slide out so it is a nice size for a camper . She woke up at 12 ish so I had to feed her . Then dishes and out to help Derek load up our scrap stainless steel that he collects from his taco bell jobs. He had been working in a bad part of San fransisco where they say not to leave any thing valuable in the vehicles so we had unloaded our 600lbs ( worth about $250 ) of stainless steel and kept it under our camper. Lots of homeless people and theft. We were parked out of town thank goodness. We are so sick of San fransisco, it is such a tight town and just busy and people are so rude. Don’t get me wrong we love life on the road , getting to see lots of sights but there is a few places I could not live permanently. Los angelos and San fransisco. Or California in general.

All packed up and Headed out around 1 pm. We were driving right through San Fr so stopped to sell our scrap . Had it all unloaded and the guy comes out to tell us he caint take it after all cause in the san fran Township he can only buy from people who have a California ID. Grrrr.California and all their rules and bylaws is rididculous. So back in the truck it all goes again. Drove our 2 hrs to the next jobs and were going to park with our friends Brian waglers from our home area who we work for. They are a wonderful Christian family w 3 kids ages 7 to 14. Austin loves to go play with them in their camper, he is always asking to go to brians. The rv park they were at was all booked full so we found a cheap little place 15 minutes down the road. Basically just a parking lot , Their was some creepy looking people in that one so when Derek wasn’t there we stayed in the camper with the door locked. But atleast we had ac , it is getting a little warmer as we are travelling further inland. Stayed there 2 nights and then moved over with our friends for 2 nights cause that’s all they had open and on the move again. Around SF all the rv parks are always booked full so we had a hard time finding spots. But we will be headed out of the big cities soon so it should be easy to find stuff again. We are in the napa valley where they have acres and acres of beautiful vineyards.

We are out of clothes so tomorrow have got to go find a laundry mat to do some laundry, and go get some groceries. All I have is few hamburgers to grill.

Derek took a nap from 7 pm to 10 and then he got up to go to work and me and the kids went to sleep. He usually sleeps when he gets back in the am till 1 or 2 pm and then sleeps again a little before work. He will be back any where from 5 to 8 am and we will start another day with more adventures J