Headed to bakersfield ca.

Well it is a rainy /sleeting day again . What can I say? A good day in Portland consists of sunny patches between rain showers.  We are travelling to California mid southern part. A 14 hr drive that we are doing in 2 days.
   We will be stopping to see Arleta's ( Dereks aunt) mom who lives right on the way for a little. We stayed a night there last September when we drove through here.
    Life has been a challenge this week for me . I felt like I was finally getting on top of things and something happened and threw me off course and I feel so behind again. Sometimes all you can do is pray snd let God handle some issues. Easier said than done. Hence Late credit card payment, struggling to keep up meals and dishes and miss arianna is running a fever again and not her happy self. I'm about ready to put a restraining order ( lol kidding)on Austin as all he wants is to play and rough house with her but everything sets her off when she's not feeling well.  Just being honest!
   We are so ready for warm T-shirt weather and pack our coats and winter stuff away.
  I caint wait to start a daily walking routine again.

Portland

Its a cool rainy day here in Portland Oregon. Austin is mowing grass and entertaining sissy. I have dishes done , camper picked up by noon and that's a good day for me.
Need to do  Baths for the kiddos yet before naps and I need to run get some milk for sissy. I have her on raw goats milk and she is doing really good on it.

Travelling

Well we are starting our trek west. We left Milwaukee wi this am and are hoping to be in Portland Oregon by sat sometime. It is -5 f here this am so we are so excited about above freezing temps in Oregon. Children are both sleeping right now . Pray for safe travels and patient children :)  
  for some of you asking. I am not working right now as it was just too stressful for the children and trying to keep up with my other responsibilities.
   We are ready to be back in our camper after 2 weeks of living in a hotel room.

Day 2 it is 6 am we are ready to head out again. Yesterday it just kept getting colder by the end of the day it was -13 f . We went past the bad lands and mt  Rushmore in the dark. I so would have lived to have seen these places. Maybe next time ( he he)   children did relatively well travelling. We travelled till 10 30 pm to the s Dakota /Wyoming line and got a hotel instead trying to warm up the camper in these sub zero tempos and arriana  was running a fever so we thought we best get a warm place to get some sleep. Day 3 it was another day on the road. Ariana running a high fever , she was hardly eating anything and refusing her bottle which for her menas she is not feeling well. shes always begging for food and her fever didn't help. shes cutting her top 2 teeth through . its just tough work. we hit a record low of minus 30 c ( talk about brutal coldnesss where it hurts to breathe cause the air freezes in your lungs. thankfully the roads were clear, we did not hit any snow on the roads till our drive from Spokane Washington to Portland Washington where snow storms are unusual. guess we just culdnt resist but to bring the cold with us. Austin was sick one day too. he never gets car sick so im not sure what happened if it was the mountain curvy road in the dark or what. I was wore out till we got to our destination. we had one icy snowy mess in Portland. the city was in shut down mode the first 2 days. the drive from Spokane to Portland should have only been 6 hrs but it took us close to 10. we hit bad roads and lots of snow but we kept telling ourselves were almost there.we got stuck in a gas station parking lot and had to use chains to get out. every body else was chaining up on the road but we didn't actually use ours for driving.praise the lord for safe travels.

arrianna 8 months

I am 8 months and I love to eat and play with my big brother. I am happy most of the time. but my mom complains about my sleeping habit at night. i like her close beside me when I sleep to give me my pacifier whenever I think I need it to go back to sleep. :) I go crazy about any food in sight. I pick everything up off the floor and try to eat it. I laugh at my brother and his antics as long as hes not pushing me around or kicking me. I play with my brothers toys . these photos have not been edited yet and im still trying tp pick my favourite ones. which do you readers think is the best one? Austin had to be in on the photo shoot too. lol

Austin conversation

I was cleaning up the room and Austin came to me and said." Mommy I want to ask you a question. " he led me to the window ." There's a truck and a bus and they are driving down the road. And there's a bridge. And the bridge broke and what is the bus gonna do? Is it gonna fall down the cliff? If it falls the wheels will be broked  off and it will crash. And another bus is going to come and have to pull it out. ".  Seriously he comes up with the longest stories. Love this kid!!!!! 

surviving in cold snowy wisconsin

well I never got pics put on here. but I have a few minutes while both children are sleeping so ill just write a few lines. we are still in cold weather . have had lots of -20 c weather since we started in northern Indiana jan 7. this week and last week we finally caved and parked the rvs and campers and are in a hotel but it just isn't near as homey as our rv is. here we are all in the same room and nap times are a challenge . in the camper we had 3 rooms that we could separate in to have accomadations for Derek sleeping and kids napping while I could do stuff in the living area. but I guess atleast we have a warm room and lots of hot running water and don't have to worry about the furnace running out of propane or the heater flipping breakers. Austin pulled the fire alarm in the hotel one afternoon. :) now he knows what that is ,lol. him and Derek had went down the hall to look outside and he asked. " daddy what does this do?" and had it pulled before Derek could stop him. we were walking down the steps the next day and he stopped and looked at it and said " mommy , I'm not gonna pull the fire alarm, it was loud! " but he still kinda acted like he would like to pull it. guess they have to learn it one way or another. I am sooo ready for my kitchen in my camper. they have a micerwave on the main floor but that's about the extent of my cooking. I did steam rice in the coffee maker and it worked and have used my slow cooker once. they serve breakfast here so I only have to worry about one meal. next week we head to Oregon, the west coast so I am so ready to let the kids run off steam outdoors and take them on walks in the stroller. we will be working our way down the west coast in feb. well I need to pay a few bills yet while the kids are sleeping but that's about all the news round here. God bless you all

update on our life

Update time again We finished up in texas after we were at the grand canyon and were done mid September. It was blazing hot in texas and I was finally ready to come home for a little. Our air conditioner could not keep up. Had a month off at home. Took a week to get caught up on sleep and then we had a cousins wedding here to go to and then went to Canada for a visit. Spent lots of time at home with my mom. Not sure who enjoyed it more Grandma or the kids. Then we got home with just 2 weeks till it was time to head out again. With a list of projects so long it was overwhelming. Picked up our place a little and painted our spare room and put trim up in 2 bedrooms, added a closet and went through a lot of stuff I had in storage etc. It was a stressful time trying to get lots done and I did not get my goal of getting Austin potty trained. I looked forward to our simple life in the camper again. Life is just so cozy in our camper and lots less maintenance than a house. Mid November we headed up to Michigan to start the next taco bell project. I will be working full time on this project doing the electrical again. See once how the kids do with a baby sitter. Not to mention it being cold in nov in Michigan. The first few weeks were very rough. Lack of sleep , long nights at work and little time to be with the kids. Kahleah ,Dereks sister travelled with us the first 2 weeks and took wonderful care of the children. We ended up getting colds and it was rough. After she went home my sisters from Canada came for a week to watch the kids and then Brians teenage girls did it till Christmas. It was a hard transition for the children and me working so I will take a little break for a while and not work and see if we can get in a good routine. I will miss working with Derek as I totally love the work and working along side my hubby. Jayson , Dereks cousin was helping us here till Christmas but he is done now so we will miss him. This job is a 3 man job most nights, some lines could be done by 2 people and others take the 3rd person. We are finally getting a good routine and feel like we are getting the hang of things and learning ways to speed up things and make it go smoother. Long and short of it it was a rough start. It is a big project and lots of little details. We have to take down all the monitors and put them back up after we are done with the line. They can be a royal pain, we always breathe easier once we turn thme back on and they work properly.we are taking everything off the top half of the food line and putting new back. Rv ing in the snow puts on a whole new aspect. Our water lines froze up for a few weeks so we had to use the shower houses at the rvv parks for showers and carried water for the bathroom. I think the children would have done better too if we could have played outside more. We worked in Detroit, flint and Toledo in nov and dec. we plan on starting in northern Indiana in January and working to il and maybe Wisconsin and then by end of January hopefully be out on the west coast, Oregon and then California. So we are soooo looking forward to warmer temps. Any one looking for a trip? Im looking for a nanny in a little while, anyone out there wanting to see the west coast and do some travelling with us?? I hope to be able to work again once we get in a good routine . We had a few days in canada with my family over Christmas and spent a few days in Michigan with all the Swartz family and now we are home for a week and head out again the next week. We may have found renters for our place, they are coming to look at the place tomorrow so I will have a busy week packing up all the stuff in the house. So much for a nice break. I caint remember the last time life was relaxing for me. Life as a mom I guess. ive been running on empty for too long. There is always a to do list yay long that feels like it never gets done. But we are loving our sweet kiddos and I guess they are only little once. Will post pics in just a ;ittle bit but here is our latest news.