Life in our new (motor) home!

Currently... we are in Iowa!: ) Though that is not where this journey started... 

After heading out from California on May 17th, we headed to Texas for a few different reasons: Ben received some claims there for work, we needed to register as Texans and we needed to pick up our other vehicle (Ben had left it there when he was done working there in March). The first day of the journey to Texas went great! It was our first time pulling our fifth wheel across the country and just as expected, it was VERY slow moving... towing our home behind us definitely does not get us there quickly, but as Ben says, "it gets great gas mileage for a house!" :) I think we found out we get roughly 10mpg... 

Day 2 of our journey unfortunately was not as great... As we are driving through the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE West Texas a kind truck driver pulls alongside me and motions for me to pull over. I look over at Ben and he tells me to just pull over to the side right where we are. Ben gets out of the truck, walks to the back of the trailer and around the sides, and then comes back to report that a tire blew out. Each side of the trailer has two tires front to back, so we were still driving with at least one tire on the left side, but I never felt ANYTHING, so we have no clue when the tire actually blew and how far we were driving with just one tire on that side. Unfortunately when the tire blew it took some of the fifth wheel with it, everything works fine there, it just doesn't look as nice with a large chunk out of the bottom side of the fifth wheel:( BUT on the positive side, we were safe, the trailer didn't sway and there was no accident, PRAISE GOD!) 

So... this is where we sat for about 2 1/2 hours until help arrived... (the fifth wheel is parked next to the interstate so we walked a little ways away, brought chairs, sat and hung out!)

As we were sitting and waiting, Ben went back over to the trailer discovered that our OTHER tire on the same side was flat as well! (All four of these tires had just been put on about 1 month before) Apparently some of the debris must have blown from the first tire and slowly popped the second one as well. So the AAA man helped us get a spare on so that we could make it to the next closest town, Fort Stockton, but we weren't going to be able to go any farther than that until we got new tires. It was Sunday and in that small town nothing was opened... So we stayed the night and waited until the morning to go look for new tires. 

To make this long story, a little shorter, we ended up finding out that the wheels we had on were not the correct size for the weight of our trailer, which were the wheels the RV technician, who was working on our trailer, recommended we put on. So we ended up buying 4 completely new wheels and tires to save us from the same thing happening again. The nice thing is that now we have a peace of mind knowing that the tires are made for the trailer and are incredibly strong... the not so nice thing was the price tag for four more brand new tires when we had just purchased four the month before! 

After two days in our little Texas town of Fort Stockton, we had new tires on and headed the rest of the way to get to where Ben would be working in Killeen, Texas. We dropped the trailer off and drove 3 hours North to Dallas to get our other vehicle. It was there that Ben and I said goodbye; I headed up to Minnesota for a wedding and Ben headed back South for his work. 

For the next two weeks I spent time with family and friends and got to celebrate the wonderful marriage of Annika and Kevin Warkentien :) (dont have any pictures from the wedding, unfortunately!)

Annika's Bachelorette party 

Spending time with Kelsey, being excited about our little additions coming soon:)

Getting good practice with this little one:) (Thanks to Gram for the baby carrier!) 

 And spending as much time as possible with my precious niece and nephew!

 AND I was also Incredibly blessed by my family (especially my sisters and mom!!) and friends who threw me a baby shower to celebrate this precious little baby Logan! 

Four Generations starting with the beautiful one on the right:) 

All the while my sweet sweet husband was finding all sorts of new things that needed to be fixed on our new home while staying there in Texas. I guess no one ever said that owning a home was easy, but when you own such a small thing it's amazing that it can have so many problems! As I would talk to him on the phone, almost daily he would tell me about something else that had broken and needed fixing, poor guy! But he sure is Mr. Handy man... he figured out how to fix many different things with the water, plumbing, our washer/dryer unit and MANY other little details that needed to be fixed....

And since I got back it has been working like a charm:) What a wonderful husband I have! 

After the two weeks in Minnesota I left our truck at my parent's house in Minnesota and flew back to Texas just in time for our three year anniversary! What a blessing and incredible journey these past three years have been!  The Lord is faithful and has given me the best man I could have ever imagined! (He brought me flowers to the airport and he said that they were a two for one... they worked as "picking me up from the airport" flowers AND "anniversary flowers", he sure knows how to spend our money wisely;) 

Our anniversary dinner... steak:) 

About two days after I arrived back with him in Texas we found out we were going up to Nebraska for a hail storm that went through...So we packed up our things and pulled our trailer from Texas up to Nebraska with no problems.  Then Ben was given claims that were all in Iowa, so that is how we ended up in Iowa! 

We are staying at a very simple RV park right off of an interstate. The nice thing is it's $15.00 a day and it's worked out great for us so far! We havent met our neighbors really, I think this park is mostly filled with people who are here for work... so unfortunately most people stay to themselves inside their trailers, which makes sense.

In the beginning I was staying home doing random things while Ben went out to inspect the claims, but his days were so long because of all the damage, so I began to ride with him again (like we did when we first got married, only this time I DONT climb the roofs! ;)..) So I sit in the car and when he is done with each inspection I will begin working on labeling the pictures on the computer while he goes out to the next claim. It helps a little, but he is still having very long days because of how bad the damage is here from all of the hail! 

Currently we are here for at least another week... but we never really know how long it will be. 

I think that is all the latest for our fifth wheel living! Oh, one more thing... I had a slight panic attack the other night as we found out a severe storm was heading straight for us... possible tornadoes, large hail and high winds! We are supposed to come after the storm, not during... I wasn't so excited about the combination of all that weather when we are in a MOBILE home that is being held down to the ground by nothing. I'm quickly learning how different it is to own something on wheels:) Luckily the storm passed through the night and we slept through it with just the wind and the rain that we noticed.  I guess living in California made me forget what it's like to have severe storms!  

Updates on the baby will be my next post! I figured this one is long enough:)