Adventures with Annie!

This is Annie.  

We bought a pop-up camper! We may be crazy or brilliant and I haven't quite decided yet but so far its been an adventure, which is exactly what we wanted.  I'm not really sure when or why we started looking for a pop-up, but suddenly we had all these reasons it made sense to do it and a crazy desire to make it happen.  One of my resolutions was for us to spend more time outside together as a family,  and on a camping trip there is an abundance of both of those things.  With our transition back to civilian life, this is the perfect way to travel back home! And also, with a young child and parents that are transitioning between school and careers, this is the perfect easy (and cheap) way to go on family vacations for years to come.  Mark's family had a pop-up when he was young and some of his favorite childhood memories are of camping trips.  How cool would it be to be able to give some of those amazing memories to our son?  To instill a love of the outdoors, a sense of adventure, and a solid foundation of a strong family.  So we started to look at some campers, and as soon as we saw this one, it felt right!  She's a 2007 Coleman Santa Fe, and is in pretty great condition, we got her from a super nice guy in Anaheim, hence the name Annie ;)  There will definitely be projects in the future, the floors, counters, painting the cabinets, replacing the cushions, so that we can really make it ours.  But I love that its still ready to go right now and we are squeezing in as many trips as possible! Heres a little tour of the inside when we first got it and on our first trip.

Its the perfect size for us and it was so much easier to camp with a toddler then I ever thought it would be. The quiet, technology-free weekend was just what we needed, (Mark's smart watch told him he slept better that weekend then he had in months).   We've got two more trips planned for May and June and tentative plans for two more this summer! Then Mark and his dad will road trip her back to the east coast and i'm already making lists of places to visit next year.  

If you had asked me 5 years ago what sort of adventures I hoped to be going on at this point in my life, I probably would have told you somewhere in Europe or the Mediterranean or fancy resorts in the Caribbean, and maybe someday those things will happen.  But I honestly could not be happier to get to explore a little closer to home with my boys in our sweet little pop-up. 

Resolutions: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

For the first time, maybe ever, I set some specific resolutions at the beginning of the year, and I was determined to see them through.  One of my first goals for the year was to reduce my plastic use. There are several reasons why I wanted to do this and I think it deserves an explanation.

It started last year around the time of the election.  And without getting too political or declaring sides, I'll say that much of the country was showing its uglier side and I was feeling small and semi-helpless.  I was feeling that there were no good options for me to really make a difference, and while I've never been the person that needed to make grand gestures, I felt like I wanted to do something to make this place a little better.  And so I started thinking, what is something that I could do on a daily basis, that might not change the world tomorrow, but could make a difference and make me feel like I was doing my part?  You see, becoming a mother has given me this need to show my son that the world is mostly good, and to raise him to be a good human, and to leave him with a planet that will still support life, and to make sure he has the chance to see how beautiful people and places can be.  But I am not a scientist or an activist or a politician, and so most days I can not make life altering decisions for this country, but I can use less plastic.  So thats where my resolution started.

The first thing we did, even before the new year, was buy reusable shopping bags.  This has been a huge help because 1. the commissary baggers like to put approximately 3 items in each bag so you can leave with a small landfill and 2. the rest of the stores in California now charge $.10 per bag and this momma does not need to pay to carry the crap home she just bought.  (We have the Grab Bags from Amazon, pretty awesome) Step two was replacing our tupperware and water bottles.  I have been so incredibly happy with this decision.  Plastic tupperware gets gross when you wash it or microwave it, it can leak chemicals into your food and it cracks.  Also our tupperware cabinet was seriously anxiety inducing.  I threw it all away, with the exception of one or two containers that were still in great condition that were in a size I would not be replacing with glass.  We now have about 10 glass storage containers that are perfectly clean and in tact, stack nicely into the cabinet and will outlast any piece of plastic we have ever owned. I have yet to use all of these containers at the same time so the wanna-be minimalist in me is feeling slightly guilty for having so many.  But thats a separate resolution...and blog post. We also bought nice new Hydroflask water bottles, which come in fun colors and keep things cold, and have made a commitment not to buy cases of water.  Then I bought a few reusable sandwich and snack bags! They are awesome and I love them so much! We have Bumkins and Planet Wise brand bags (which have the cutest patterns!) and I use them daily.  They are easy to wash and I feel like I have used so many less disposable bags.  I do still have some ziplocks because things seem to disappear when they go to work with my husband.

Lastly we started actually recycling all of our cans and bottles on a regular basis.  At the beginning of the year the base sent out a recycling guide, which made it super easy and I feel like our bags of trash have decreased so much because of this.  All these small changes make me feel like my little family is making a difference, and there have been very few changes or inconveniences in our everyday life. I hope you'll check out some of the products I mentioned because we could all stand to be a little nicer to the planet.

Two Year Old Jackson

One of the big reasons I love this blog is being able to look back and read what Jackson was doing at different ages.  And there are definitely things I want to remember about this age.

At two years and 4 months, my little guy is a feisty one!  He talks in full sentences and has started trying to use such grown up words.  He listens and repeats everything and is constantly asking "why?" or what's this?" or "what are you doing?" We talk a lot throughout the day, and occasionally I long for those days when his vocabulary wasn't quite so good ;)  But I am so proud of him, he is incredibly smart and intuitive.  He describes things as being beautiful, delicious

or amazing, he thinks every time we go somewhere its an "adbenture" which he always has to shout.  He says things like "no thanks, i'm cool" and tells me i'm his best friend.  He repeats the not so good stuff too, which is like having a giant parenting mirror in my face.  Last week he was playing by himself and started sternly asking his toys "do you hear me?!" When asked a question he likes to think about it, "ummm nope" and sometimes he drops everything and says "oh, I gotta go get something real quick" and then runs into the other room, pumping just one arm with a smug look on his face.  It makes me laugh every time.  And he can say the Pledge of Allegiance! Hearing a two year old try to say indivisible is probably the cutest thing ever.

He's afraid of a lot of things right now, which we are working on.  Loud noises startle him and he usually comes running to me telling me something is scary.  When I tell him that something isn't scary, just loud, he laughs and says "Oh yeah! Not scary! Thats just loud!" He also doesn't really like big slides at the moment.  He loves Harley, but tries to drag him around and take him for 'walks' around the house.  He always wants to play fetch with him but usually just ends up yelling at Harley to go get the ball and then he goes and gets it himself.  He adores his daddy, wants to follow him everywhere and do everything just like he does.  He pretends to mow the lawn and fix the car almost daily.  He says no, a lot. Its one of the biggest things I am working on right now, trying not to say it to him as much, and trying not to get so annoyed when he says it to me.  I have tried really hard to talk to Jackson like he's a whole person for most of his life, which I like to think has helped with his verbal skills and independence.  But man is that independence hard at times, and it can feel like I created my own little monster.

He is definitely not lacking for personality and right now he is doing everything he can to find himself and test his boundaries.  He's completely exhausting and frustrating, but wonderful and hilarious.

(Forcing me to hold onto his foot)

Back and a little better than before

Over the last year I have worked a ton on myself, and I feel like i'm at a place where i'm ready to start sharing about it.  The first year of Jackson's life was all about him, and after a year I finally decided to claim a little of myself back.  I was in new mom survival mode that first year, where I was just trying to get from one day to the next.  I was setting unrealistic parenting expectations for myself because I didn't know any better, and so much of my identity was wrapped up in being his mom.  I would still define myself first as being "Jackson's Mom" but i'm working on adding some other labels back to the mix and it is doing wonderful things for my well-being.

Last year was all about positivity for me.  There is so much negativity in the world, on the grand scale and in small everyday encounters.  One of my first changes was to focus all my energy on being positive and surrounding myself with positivity.  I started with the people I surrounded myself with, the activities I partake in, and just my general out look on life.  I made conscious efforts to think differently about people and situations and really choose which environments I wanted to be in.  This led me to some really great people, and without trying I formed deep meaningful friendships that I haven't had in years.  I also became more involved with a running group on base and really committed to it and improving my physical health.  This was so crucial in giving me a purpose outside of the mommy role, and giving me a sense of belonging.  And then I just chose to be happy.  I chose not to let so many things bother me, to not talk badly about other people or things,  to accept situations and make the best of them.  I am for sure not perfect about any of that, of course I have days where everything is awful, but there are so many less awful days.  

So if last years word was positivity then this years word is goals.  It started slowly last summer, I created a "command center" for our family.  I wanted a calendar for us to stay organized and keep track of activities, I had also started meal planning and budgeting a ton.  So to pinterest I went and now our wall is covered in things that keep our family going, a calendar, a menu, our keys, but also a few quotes and our family goals.  I love having a place to look at everyday to remind me what i'm working towards, what the day to day will actually lead to and why each one is important.  Then a friend of mine started telling me about minimalism and how her family has slowly been working on living with less.  I had been trying to declutter the house but didn't have a whole lot of focus or knowledge about how to actually do it successfully, so hearing about a movement I could research and find support for was great.  Then the new year came and while i'm usually not a resolution person, this year I was all about getting some goals on paper and really working towards something.  Some of my goals included: reducing plastic use, spending more time outside as a family, and doing more yoga.  I also made a bunch of small goals in different areas, I have minimalist goals and relationship goals, moving goals, and financial goals.  All of these things will probably show up in other posts because a lot of them I am still working on! But I have made significant progress in a lot of areas, and it feels amazing.  

So here I am ready to talk about all sorts of things, adventures, food, parenting, marriage, goals and more.  And I appreciate you being along for the ride.