Making Progress

We have finally received an appraisal the bank is happy with.  So within 5-7 months our new house should be built on this 5 acres of Texas.  We are very excited to be moving forward after being stalled out for several months.  By the time we move in we will have been in the trailer for 12 months.

Reviewing

As a new year starts so does a new season in my homeschooling.  I have been chosen to be a member of Homeschool Mosaics review team.  Stay tuned for homeschool reviews by me.


Are you interested in reviewing too?  Check out this link for the application. Mosaics team applications

Mud

Central Texas has been in a sustained drought going on three years.  When rain is predicted Texans rejoice.....except for the seven of us.  We cringe and dig out our rain boots.  We move all things inside or far under the trailer.
We are expecting over 3.5 inches over the next 24 hours, over half an inch has fallen during the day.  Texans rejoice, we cringe.  I take that back, the dog loves the mud and flavored water.

Piper in a previous puddle

From that to this.....

A little post of comparisons.

From 4900 sq ft with 4 bathrooms

To under 400 sq ft with 4 wheels

From this lovely multiple butt multiple half gallons of blue bell

To a one butt kitchen (if you are lucky and haven't had much blue bell)

There is more comparisons but I will let you gawk at these for a bit :)

Living the high life

We have electric, water, filtered water even, and a washing machine, and as of last night a dryer!!  We are finding our groove here.

John travels to a drop in office each day.  I school the children each day.  The big girls work on their stuff in the bunkhouse, Ian works on his work on the couch in the middle of the trailer, and the littles and I commandeer the master bed.

Every Wednesday our porta potty gets cleaned and restocked with toilet paper.  Every evening we work on the out building.  At least once a day we drain gray 1 (shower water).

Each Tuesday when I pick up my daughter from dance carpool I raid our deep freeze that friends are graciously housing for us for the next weeks worth of meals.

Yep the high life :)

The real house is still in the bidding process.  We wait....

Where were we?

Well, after spending a month at the koa we needed to move. They were going to double our rates and we were blowing through gas driving everywhere. So on a day after two days of torrential downpours we hooked the trailer up and towed it to the property. We got stuck...in the mud...in the rain. After hauling cut cedar and jamming it under the wheels we managed to pull it onto the pad we had built. We managed two nights with cooler temps and then some friends offered us the use of their house for a month while they traveled. Convenient enough it was in our old neighborhood. Life was good :)

Our oldest turned sixteen, our middle one got braces, both cars decided to break down, the electric pole was dropped ( but still no electric) and it became Texas hot. Those are all my excuses for not blogging. I'll catch you up more on our adventure later this week. Right now I'm missing my wash machine and dishwasher... And a bed that doesn't shake the whole trailer.

Handy (wo)man even for a trailer

Just because one lives in a brand new trailer doesn't mean there are not maintenance items that need to be addressed.  Yesterday armed with a phillips screwdriver I added three coat hooks to various walls, installed a hand towel rack and the toilet paper holder.  I was unable to get the bunkhouse door to latch again.  I have one hinge off but I need to get John's help to rehang the door.  As it was his birthday yesterday I did not press him into any of my honey do lists.

Out on the property John was busy working on the frame for the trailer pad and also building a lean-to attachement to the shed (to cover bikes and such)