Missing Family

One of my favorite photos of my oldest daughter, Kelly

Feeling a little melancholy today, because I'm missing my daughters....They are both wonderful girls. My oldest has been in the military for quite some time, served active duty in Iraq, and now has landed a terrific job in the Washington, D.C. area. My youngest daughter is a self published writer, putting herself through school to be a teacher, and she has just published her third book for kids ages 8-13. Here is a link to her latest book, The Baby Inside Mrs. Maze. Both daughters are funny, loving, smart, kind and considerate young women. I am very proud of them! They didn't have an easy life growing up in a single parent household. I made a lot of mistakes that I'm not proud of when I look back, and I struggled in a lot of ways that was very hard on them, but what's past is past, and they both have bright futures ahead of them. The most difficult part of my life is behind me, and so is the difficult job I had. I try to look forward and not back, and am very grateful that Eldy is by my side now to share my life with me. His children are healthy, happy and good parents and we're proud of our children together. I have to get some photos of his two adult children, Brian and Kristi. We take photos of the grandkids, but we haven't done a good job of taking photos of their parents.

My youngest daughter, Kerry

Eldy's grandkids

So, one of the things that can be hard while full timing is not seeing your family often enough...When I lived in Indiana, it was very difficult to see my youngest daughter who lived in Las Vegas. My oldest daughter lived in Fort Wayne, about 45 min. from me, so I saw her often.Then she moved to Virginia for a great job offer. Eldy's children lived near him, about 45 min. away when he lived in North Webster, IN, so we saw his kids and 3 grandchildren much more often. Now that we are traveling, I have been able to see my youngest daughter who moved to Texas, and my oldest daughter  who moved to the Washington, D.C. area by either traveling in the motorhome, or they have flown out to where we are. Eldy's children are still in Indiana, so he has not been able to see his kids and grandkids since we left. How do you balance the full timing lifestyle with family visits? That's really hard when they are not close by or feasibly close to visit because of mileage and costs to get there. It's 2100 miles back to Indiana from Washington. We figure the cost of fuel is currently running .50 a mile for diesel, so it's quite expensive to just hit the road and head back to our homestate! As much as we'd love to do that when the mood strikes or to be there for the main holidays, we just can't. So, we try other ways to stay in touch. The blog is one...

Skype is another way to stay in touch, which is a free download to talk to your family on the computer. I used it when one of my daughters was in the military on active duty overseas. It worked really well. It was almost like having her in the same house with me. I wanted to reach out and hug her, she seemed so close! And she was on the other side of the world!

Recently, we tried downloading Skype on my new smartphone (a Motorola Atrix 4), and I could not get it to work properly, darn it! Eldy's daughter has an iphone 4 which has the Face Talk feature, nice if you have two people with the same model phone. We thought we could use Skype on both phones to see each other while we talk. Skype is supposed to work on my phone, but we haven't been able to get it to work yet. So-o-o-o, we'll keep trying different ways to stay in touch with the grandkids, Eldy's kids and my kids. We might just stick with the Skype on the computer. Here at the Thousand Trails park in Leavenworth, AT & T is really crappy at many spots in the park and at our site in the woods, we are not able to use our phones. The Verizon air card is not able to provide a signal at our site either, so there are communication challenges at this park!

I am really grateful that we were able to stop here in Leavenworth, WA, to be able to visit my brother Charlie. My family is spread out all over the country. I have a sister in Pleasant Ridge, MI, a brother in La Quinta, CA, a brother in Boston, MA, and my brother here in Washington. Traveling full time has allowed me to visit two brothers this year and my sister...I've seen them more now since we've been traveling than I did before we took off! All of Eldy's family is still in Indiana, so we'll have lots of visiting to do once we head back through Indiana! It looks like we can't get back there for awhile...we are sort of stuck out here in the west due to fuel costs. When spring hits, then we will be able to head back east to see Eldy's side of the family. For now, we will have to be content with emails, texts, calls and blogging!  We're headed to Leavenworth this afternoon for a little sightseeing...Leavenworth is modeled after a German or Bavarian town. Every building in the main part of town has to have a Bavarian architectural style...even McDonald's looks like a store in the German Alps! Photos tomorrow.....see you then!