Standing around with all my uncles and Grandpa Mike on Evie’s birthday, someone said, “So Traci, what’s the plan?  Where are you guys heading?”  Good question.

Me, “I was dialed into Thailand, probably Chaing Mai.  But Scott lights up when he talks about Mexico.  I’m looking at housing options in both places to see if anything interesting catches my attention.”  My uncle, “Are you telling me that you don’t even know what hemisphere you’re going to be living in next month?”
Pause.
Big smile.
Me, “Yup.  That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

We’re all over the place with our plans and intentions.  I’ve looked at buying a boat (my ideal solution but $$$$), buying another RV, AirB-n-B, house/pet sitting in Australia and hopping on a giant container ship, destination flexible (did you know you can rent rooms on those things?!!?  What kind of an adventure would that be?  But….internet access….)

We’re ready to really put this whole world-schooling, digital nomad, adventure seeking plan to the test.  But where to start?  That’s turning out to be a hard choice.

These are my operating parameters:

• Live on $2 – 2.5k/month or less
• One way flight to destination should be $3k or less for all 4 of us and the dog
• The dog is part of the team, he’s coming with us (even though he makes things THAT much harder)
• We should have an idea of where we’ll be living for at least 4 weeks to get us started
• Decent internet access – Scott still has to be online – despite using the Secret, we are still not independently wealthy
• Warm weather.  I’m not over -26 deg F for 2 weeks in January (piss off, Arctic vortex).  I’m ready to be warm again.

Everything else is figure-out-able. Transportation, food, language, currency.  None of that bothers me.  It’ll be great for the kids and I to manage that together when Scott it working.  That’s worldschooling at it’s best.

Necessity is the mother of all invention.   -Plato (maybe, the author isn’t precisely known)

I am always so tickled by how creative we get when we need to be.  Speaking from experience, nothing builds and bolsters self-confidence faster and better than self-reliance.

We’ve set late March, or thereabouts, as our target date to travel.  I’m attending a homeschooling conference in mid-March to get some stick time with different curriculums. Right now I’m loving Torchlight.  I just don’t know how we’re going to travel with that kind of library.  We’ll be around for Jack’s birthday and then it’s time to get this show on the road.

While Grandmom was visiting Uncle Lance and Aunt Ronnie in Hawaii, we decided to surprise her with a renovation of her bathroom.  It was a bit more of a job than I realized (having zero experience with home renovations like I do).  I’m probably not going to try to do anything like this again.  Here it is, from start to finish.

That white stuff around the window and ceiling is wallpaper, not tape. I had to steam it off.

Underage help paid under the table (in lollypops):

Turns out red comes in 8,000,000 different shades…. and they all look different in different lighting.  Thank god for Todd.

More help:

Check out the new floor:

Always leaving a place better than the way we found it… it may look like a murder went down in the Red Bathroom thanks to Jack:

In other adventures, Evie got some time on one of Uncle Todd’s Toys:

Welcoming Mommy home at the airport:

He wouldn’t leave my side for a full 24 hours that day:

The only picture I took from Evie’s family birthday party.  Good job, Me.  Evie turned 5.