So Many Thank yous...

Our last few days in BC were kind of hectic with packing and cleaning and saying our goodbyes to family and friends but we managed to get everything packed and in the moving truck... including the hot tub :) 

I must say that craning the hot tub over the neighbours house was a little nerve racking but the crane held up and we managed to get it into the moving truck.

We were very thankful that we were able to find a truck that the hot tub would fit in and almost had to leave it in BC. We hired a moving company to move it for us but on the day he was to show up to pick it up he said his truck was full and couldn't move it. Needless to say we were scrambling to find alternate arrangements. 

Luckily we found Universal Truck Rentals and we were able to cancel the UHaul (they had no trucks with door openings wide enough to fit it in). They had a Diesel truck that happened to have an opening just big enough to slide in the hot tub and gave us a discounted truck that was bigger so he could get it back East (apparently more people move to BC from Ontario then head back to Ontario from BC). 

We expected to have lots of room left over in the truck but it's amazing just how much stuff we still brought even though we sold off twice as much as we are bringing in the last few months! It's incredible how much stuff accumulates and how fast. We thinned out sooo much but still managed to fill this huge truck and the trailer we towed behind it!

Finally everything was packed up, the house was all cleaned (A HUGE thank you to Ania for spending all day cleaning all the bathrooms and the kitchen...We owe you!And thanks to my mom for taking Sierra for the night so we could finish packing) Then it was time to load ourselves in the truck and say goodbye to our home.

Luckily our dear friend Jay flew out to help us drive across to Ontario. Believe it or not I have never pulled the trailer...I'm scared of having to back up (yes Ian did drive all 30,000km's we drove on our trip last summer!). The plan...was for us to rush so Jay could be back for work in 5 days! So we quickly threw the last few items into the truck and headed out.

I am extremely thankful Jay did come because the next morning Ian woke up and was very sick and we were only parked at a roadside stop just past Kelowna.

The girls had been sick before leaving and were still sickish too so our drive was anything but fun and I had to drive for the first time as we didn't have time to sit around.

 And would you believe it...two days later I was sicker then I have ever been in my life! I managed to drive from Kelowna to Winnipeg before getting sick and forcing Ian to drive again. He wasn't 100% but he made it to Sioux Saint Marie.

Jay had to leave us in Sioux Saint Marie and fly home to work and we had to sit in a truck stop while I recuperated. If Jay hadn't flown out to help then we probably would have been in Calgary still! After 2 nights  we had to move again because we needed to unload the truck and get it back. We loaded the girls into the moving truck with Ian so I could have complete silence to concentrate on driving. Whewww that was tricky but we arrived safe and sound! A HUGE thank you to Mark and Jeff for helping to unload the truck and to Ed, Keith, Matt and Alex for helping to unload the hot tub! (See the trend here of why this post was titled so many Thank yous... We have called on so many friends to help us with this move and we are very grateful for all their help)

Our next little hicup happened almost immediately. We couldn't park the trailer where we originally hoped so we scrambled to find an RV park that was open. Apparently no parks in Ontario open until May. Luckily the storage facility where our belongings are in storage had one space left we could rent until a local park opened. It was nothing more then a parking space along their driveway but it was a blessing to have as we waited for the camping season to open.

We spent Easter here...

Luckily the Easter Bunny found us and he brought wonderful nature bags and real binoculars for the girls. He also brought geode eggs the girls had fun cracking open.

Even though we were parked on the side of the road we were thankful for the hill beside us.

Sierra studies her snail she found

Remember curling dandelion stems as a child? They picked the stems
 too short but we managed to get a few curls.

The girls cousin Charlie came for a sleep over and had a great time on that little hill.

Sierra found an egg on a branch of a fir tree. It must have
been pushed out of the nest after it didn't hatch.

 The girls got out the bird book and tried to figure out what type of bird it was...we think it was a Starling's egg.

They also discovered how fragile eggs can be...

Charlie searching for clues

Charlie and Sierra doing some investigative work
under the tree where the egg was found.

 Then they caught a butterfly...

And if that wasn't fun enough...they also spotted a wild turkey on that hill...

So next time you see a little hill don't take it for granted. Be thankful for all it has to offer if you take the time to look :) It provided us with lots of fun rolling down it and also housed many dandelions and creatures to entertain the girls when we weren't out exploring Barrie and it's great parks or swimming at the fabulous pool here.

Many thanks to all of you who helped in so many ways with our move...we are truly grateful and appreciate everything you have done. Now we head off to our RV park to see what adventure lays waiting to be found.

Times they are a changing...and so do our minds almost daily!!!

The house sold (no changing of our minds there) and we have been sorting and selling and deciding what to keep... hence comes the changes of mind!

We decided to sell our house and move to Ontario where we can buy acreage which is more affordable then here in BC. We want to build our Earthship and still be able to afford to travel in the winters. Since we would be living out of our Surveyor travel trailer for a couple years while we build the Earthship we were planning on selling almost everything we own; keeping only the bare minimums and sentimental items instead of paying to move them and then store them for a couple years.

We pondered the possibilities... and changed our minds on almost a daily basis and sometimes two and three times in the same day!

Since selling our businesses over a year ago we have been investing in rental properties in Ontario. Originally we planned on buying acreage right away to start building our Earthship but since we want a large acreage and the bank wants 50% down payment on land, we have decided to buy a rental which needs some work, fix it up to improve it's value and then look for land. Since we don't have typical jobs any more we will have the time to do this once or twice and be set to start the Earthship and continue to not have to work :)

With this change though we realized that selling off of our furniture was silly as now it would need to be replaced since we won't be living in the RV for 2 years while we build. So we bought a small trailer to load up the furniture that we wanted to keep. I say a small trailer because we needed to find a trailer that could be shipped since our truck is pulling our RV (we want the trailer to store tools etc on our land while we build and use it for maintenance on our Ontario rentals).

So we started to plot out what furniture we could take with us by mapping it out on our floor :)

The original quote for shipping the trailer full was reasonable but then the fees kept going up as we had to pay by pound...not such an economical choice after-all...and we already bought the trailer! So once again we put on our thinking caps...do we sell the trailer we just bought and go back to shipping things by pallets with our friend at Air Canada, pay by pound to ship the trailer or do we rent a truck and pull the trailer???

In the end we decided to rent a truck and pull the trailer. Yes we will be paying for gas in two trucks now to move but in the end we know roughly what the cost will be and have budgeted for it. It feels much safer then hoping we are guessing correctly at how much our possessions weigh (our bedroom suite is enormous). I have heard horror stories from people where their moving costs doubled or higher due to weight and we can't afford to take that chance!

Now we had one last decision to make...our hot tub! We and I mean the whole family loves our hot tub and we use it many times each week. We put it on craigslist to try to sell it but it was very expensive to buy even second hand when we bought it and selling it for basically nothing breaks our hearts! Since we going to be living in one of our rentals for a couple of years we have decided we should take it with us. As luck would have it, it is a couple inches too big to fit inside the rental truck! Still it is more economical to pay to ship it then it is to sell it for nothing and replace it in Ontario. So yeahhhhh we get to keep our hot tub!

So as the days disappear and we have less then a month before we leave BC things are finally solidifying and our decisions are starting to feel real! Some more sorting, selling and packing and March 30th will be here before we know it! If I am lucky... Ontario's winter will be over when we arrive...I'm already looking forward to travelling next winter and getting away from the dreaded cold winters in Ontario!

SOLD!!!

The sticker just went up!

It's hard to believe that it has all happened so quickly. We had an accepted offer 7 hours after the first showing and now they removed their subjects early so it's SOLD! Packing and selling and simplifying life begins :) Yeah for the next chapter of our lives! So exciting!!!

Pinterest plus RVing :)

I just read THIS post on Rick & Paulette's RV Travels about using

for RV'ing and I just had to share it! In between cleaning and sorting and preparing to sell our house I have been totally addicted to Pinterest. I how ever have only used it for craft items, recipes, earthship ideas, things for the home, natural living etc and never even thought of the RV possibilities.

How many countless blogs do I follow? How often do I loose a blog post that was very informative, or a great camping review, or a place you read about on a blog and want to go there next time you are in that area? I loose ideas all the time and Pinterest is a great way to save all those ideas and know how to easily find them again.

I highly recommend you go read Ricks post if you aren't familiar with Pinterest...but beware...pinning is addictive!

I quickly went and made new pinboards HERE and pinned all my campsite and boondocking reviews from our 4 month trip last summer and can see many more pinboards being added soon :)

Crossing our fingers

Our house didn't end up on MLS until last Wednesday and on Thursday we has 3 showings. Seven hours after the first showing we had an accepted offer!!! Now we cross our fingers that everything goes well with their financing and their subject removal so we can make this a done deal by February 6th. In the meantime we are left continuing to show the house for back up offers just in case...and crossing our fingers it could be so easy!

Here's our finished yellow door...I'm still not sure if I LOVE it but heck it's better then the blue.

You can click HERE if you'd like to go check out our listing and see our home. Any of you locals looking for furniture? Most everything you see in the pics will be sold.

So the sorting and selling continues...thank goodness for Craigslist as it sure makes selling thing easier :)

It's official...

Our house is officially on the market

Since Christmas we have been busy little leavers...

When we closed the store in September 2010 and sold the daycare we basically piled up everything in every nook and cranny in our house.

Spare bathroom:

Upstairs hallway

So in September 2011 after returning from our 4 month Maiden Voyage in our travel trailer, I stated unpacking and sorting and selling off all that stuff.

Remember when my living room looked like this

I am happy to say that by January we were able to move everything that was left into the garage and my living room now is back to normal again :)

And my hall even though the walls need a wash still is beginning to look like normal again.

After removing all the "stuff" from the spare bathroom, Ian tiled the floor. About 7 or 8 of the old tiles were all cracked and old and ugly looking so in a couple days we now have a beautiful new floor. It was on our to do list for a few years...funny how when we decide to sell we finally get around to actually doing the things we wanted to do for so long!

And the spare bathroom now looks like this

Even though we've had a cold streak here for the lower mainland BC we managed to get our front door paint this week finally. We took our inspiration for the front door colour from these Black Eyes Susan's in the fall against the freshly painted brown...the yellow was so pretty.

So yellow we went (One door at a time as it's snowy and cold right now so we had to remove the door and bring it inside to paint)...

To be honest I am not sure how I feel about the yellow now that it is painted...it's a bit brighter then expected. I'll try to get a daylight photo tomorrow and post in in a few days as I didn't take a picture when the door was finished.

So as you can see we've been busy...not just ignoring the blogs...just no time to sit down and play :) So we have a couple days before our listing actually shows up on MLS and then hopefully we will get some showings and have a quick sale! Until then...I'm off to wash walls!

Welcome 2012!

This year brings lots of changes for us! We take on living another Year of Choice and are making lots of big choices and changes!

First though we hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We had an amazing 2011 with our 4 1/2 month trip touring the US and Canada. We made many memories and are looking forward to making many more in 2012.

We started off the new year with a yummy dinner inspired by Gordon Ramsey. We enjoyed a wonderful roast turkey dinner with lemon, parsley and garlic, roasted potatoes with chili and tumeric, and brussel sprouts. For desert we had Strawberry Margarita shots. I found the recipe HERE and they were sooo good! You can't taste the Tequila however they were quite potent as I put the left over jello mix in a container and when you ate it alone it was strong! The sweetness from the strawberry made them so yummy and you couldn't taste the Tequila at all. We will definitely make these again in the future!

With 2012 here now we are all set to live another year of choice! We look forward to it. We haven't set resolutions as usually they get broken. Instead we have decided to live our choices. We are embracing 2012 with all of it's possibilities! We are open to change and to all the hard work to get there.

January 1st means we have less then 4 months to clean up this chapter of our lives so we can move onto the next chapter. For some the changing of the years means cleaning and organizing...for us it means thinning out and getting rid of the majority of our belonging so we can hit the road in our RV again for a few years. During this time we will look for land and then take a few years to build our Earthship ourselves (so excited to be one step closer to our Earthship dream)!

Each day we will have to decide what is important enough to keep and what can we live without. We will chose to keep those things around us that mean the most, and let go of all those things we collect throughout our lives that we really don't need... you know all that "stuff" that piles up here and there and before you know it you have a room full of "stuff". We'll purge, we'll sell, we'll give away, we'll donate...we'll chose the life we want to live and go for it! It's amazing how powerful making choices can be!

Why 4 months? We have friends in Toronto who are getting married in April and we are choosing to sell off everything to be at their wedding and not have to come back here to tie up loose ends. So we have 2 weeks to get the house ready to sell and listed and then hopefully sold in time to allow us to be ready to leave and make it to the wedding on time and not look back! Celebrating a wedding seems like a grand way to embrace our choices and begin our next journey in life as well.

So with that...we wish you a year of choice, we wish you love when you least expect it and we wish you much happiness in the year to come! Happy New Year!!! with LOVE from all of us :)

We'd like to give big welcome wishes to Michael and Dee of gonerving and to Heinzrvjourney who are just beginning their choice of life in an RV as well. Welcome and thanks for joining us even though we are parked at the moment :) Glad to have you along as we start this next chapter in our lives.

I'd like to thank you all for following us this past year and hope you enjoy reading about our coming choices this year as well. Things have been sporadic around here since we have been "home" but there are many more journey's to come and we'd love you all to join us!