2022 Update
It has been a while since I posted a blog on here and there is a lot to share about the past few months! To keep this organized, I am going to write this in a series of dates to help you follow all the events from the middle of September until now!
September 14th:
Morgan and I were on an evening walk in her neighborhood noticing some houses that sold for amazing prices. With the dream of one day living in a camper in our conversation, we decided to put her house on the market at a high asking price. We prayed over the decision and knew that if anyone was interested in buying at that price it would be God giving us an opportunity to buy a truck and camper once we were married to chase our adventurous dream.
September 19th:
A married couple had an interest in Morgan’s house and came by to look at it. They were early on in their home search, so even though they liked it, they wanted to see other homes and gave no promise of returning or making an offer. We were amazed at the sudden interest just a few days after listing her house, so it raised some excitement, but we also knew getting overly excited wouldn’t be the greatest idea and patience would be more rewarding.
October 30th-November 4th:
Morgan and I got married on October 30th!!! We had a beautiful and peaceful wedding at her parent's house with our families and a few friends there to celebrate with us. After the wedding, we spent about 4 days relaxing and finding some fun activities around Dallas for a fun honeymoon on our way back to Houston. One fun activity was shopping for a 5th wheel camper at one of the largest RV dealerships in the world! MHSRV At this point, we shopped for a 5th wheel just for fun. We hadn’t received any more interest in the house and with all the wedding detail going on we forgot it was even for sale!
November 10th:
I was on my way to the golf course for practice and I got a call from Morgan informing me we had an offer on the house!!! I quickly turned around because my mind was now racing and I knew we would need to sit down and talk through all the details before making any decisions. After many many conversations between Morgan and me, many hours of research, many prayers, and many conversations with our parents and mentors.. we decided to accept an offer a couple of weeks later!
Week of Thanksgiving:
Wanting to spend time with both families for Thanksgiving, Morgan and I spent some time in Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Searcy, Arkansas to see everyone we could. We had a great time on the road during that trip and were so excited to share with everyone our progress in searching for the right camper and truck! On our way from Houston to Dallas at the beginning of the trip, we stopped at a dealership to check out the truck we would eventually purchase! Outside of this trip, we were doing pretty normal things at home enjoying our new married life but a lot of our free time outside of work was filled researching campers and trucks as well as making to-do lists to accomplish before the closing date of December 23rd.
December 1st-23rd
This stretch of 3 weeks was loaded with to-do lists. Packing a house, cleaning a house, finding a storage unit, loading the storage unit making sure things we would need for the camper were easily accessible, finding a camper, finding a truck, selling a bunch of stuff, packing for a Christmas trip, etc! Between work and trying to stay on top of our new project, the days were flying by and becoming a blur. We traveled up to OKC for a quick Christmas weekend on the 18th but quickly got back to Houston to work on clearing the house. It was also during this time that the closing date was moved to the 28th of December. That didn’t change our plans much because we still needed to be completely moved out of the house by the 23rd before we left town.
December 24th
Morgan and I woke up on a blow-up mattress in the kitchen with just 2 backpacks and 2 suitcases remaining in the house. We were able to complete our part of the paperwork online and after saying our final goodbye to the house, we dropped Frank (our pug) off at the pet boarding place and headed to the airport. We were meeting Morgan’s family and some friends for a Christmas trip to Disney World!
December 24th-31st
We had a great time at Disney World with the whole group. I’m a huge fan of theme parks and roller coasters so it was a blast to spend a few days walking around the parks, seeing the creativity, and riding everything we could. The only unfortunate event was getting sick on the 3rd day. After eating dinner in Epcot we rode Mission Space. It's a fun ride and I had been on it before but for whatever reason, it rocked my world and I spent the entire next day in bed missing out on Animal Kingdom. Morgan was very sweet to sacrifice her day at the park to stay at the house taking care of me while I recovered.
December 31st
Morgan and I seem to always buy tickets on the early flights. We left the house in Florida around 3 in the morning to catch our 6 AM flight. Even at 4 in the morning, we spent over an hour in line for security. Thankfully we made the flight and landed back in Houston around 8 AM. Our day was just getting started though. A quick trip to pick up Frank and then we hit the road to Dallas. We had a truck to go buy! Saying goodbye to my little yellow Honda, we bought a 2018 Chevrolet Silverado 3500 with a long bed. It's a huge truck!! But we need every bit of it to tow our camper. We didn’t waste any time in Dallas and once we had the truck we were back on the road to Houston. We arrived just in time to go celebrate a friend's birthday with some roller skating and a few fireworks for New Year.
January 2-6
Now that we had a truck it was time to navigate picking up our camper…which was located in Sturgeon Bay, WI. Only 20 hours from Houston! On January 2nd (in the afternoon) we got on the road beginning the long journey north. Our immediate goal was only to reach OKC to show our families the truck and stay the night. 6 hours down. January 3rd had an early start and we were able to drive for about 10 hours making it all the way to Willowbrook, IL leaving only 4 hours remaining for the next day. We arrived at the RV dealership around noon on the 4th and there was our camper!! A 2022 Forest River Sierra 384QBOK fifth wheel camper waiting for us! We were so excited but it was all becoming so real now and looking at the massive trailer in their showroom we were feeling a little overwhelmed. After a very quick run-through of the camper and getting hitched up we were back on the road… only this time towing our 42 ft home behind us and a long journey to Houston in front of us. After a couple of days of driving, we were able to reach OKC where we parked at Morgan’s parent’s house. We spent a few days here for some rest, repair (unfortunately our camper came with a long list of problems even though it was new. I’ll share the details in another blog), and the enjoyment of showing our new home while getting a little more settled with everything.
January 9th
OKC to Houston. We made it!! A long adventurous trip from Houston to Wisconsin and back to Houston. We parked our rig outside of the storage unit to load up everything we had ready for the inside of the camper and then officially set up at an RV Park. We lucked out and were given the biggest spot in the park with plenty of room for the trailer, truck, and Morgan’s car!
January 9th to Now
Since getting set up in the RV park, we have been able to settle into this lifestyle a little bit more. Organizing our things and learning more about the camper every single day. It’s a lot of fun! It’s also taking some work as well but we have enjoyed the challenge and are getting adjusted to our new home.
To be continued…
As I have written this blog, it's easy to see so many ways God has taken care of Morgan and me through these busy months. We are so thankful and excited for the truck and camper He provided and we hope our stewardship and faith glorify Him. With the golf season starting soon, we will really get to put our new camper life to the test. I will be sharing all the golf detail as usual, but it will also be fun to share the adventures of camper life too! Stay tuned!
