Our Smoke detector works...

SO- We are a young family of 3 with 2 cats and 1 GIANT dog living in a 28ft travel trailer (named Aspen). We are loving life and making great memories. Although we are not constantly on the road (our jobs keep us stationary) we enjoy traveling and seeing the beautiful things around us.  We are not "crazy, dreadlock wearing crunchy granola loving people"  just average, normal people who don't need 2,000sq ft of house and big bedrooms to define who we are.  We enjoy life much more when its simple!
We've gotten a few weird reactions from family and friends but for the most part a lot of people have said they wanted to do the same thing.
Coming into this we didn't realize the Full time RV living community included young families with kids until I reached out for support. I thought Full time RV living was only for old retired people but you'd be surprised on how many young families you'd find who live full time in their travel trailer, fifth wheel or RV. I came across one family who has 12 kids in their RV! Yikes! God Bless those parents!  I have one and thats plenty!  I will say, we are the ONLY young family in our campground and have so far possibly driven away 1 neighbor (they moved to the otherside of the campground, Papa Bear says its because the site is bigger and their truck and trailer fit better but I think its because they got tired of hearing Buddy's hollering and carrying on while playing outside lol!)

So today is Day 42 of Full time Camper Living and this whole time we thought our Smoke detectors were working. Thank goodness we did not learn this lesson the hard way! Papa Bear assumed that the dealer activated the Smoke detectors when they handed it over to us but his assumption was brutally inaccurate. On day 39 he went to check the battery and realized this whole time the little plastic tag blocking the battery was still in place!!!  Thank Goodness we didn't have any fires!
This morning, just like every morning I made Buddy bear his waffles.Except today I did it the lazy way and threw in some Eggo waffles into the toaster not realizing a little hand had turned the "browning dial" to 7. I sat half asleep on the toilet to go potty to take care of morning ritual #1 while ritual #2 was burning cooking away in the toaster. I was shocked awake and nearly fell off the toilet when the screeching sound of the smoke detector went off!!! Oh my heart, it will never beat the same!!!! The Giant dog and Buddy Bear then proceeded to run from the back of the camper to the front and then back again the whole time Buddy is yelling "The Fire Flasher!! The Fire Flasher, Everyone line up!" He then swings the bathroom door open (i bet I was a sight to see!) and yells for me to get up and line up! I am still in shock but somehow realize I need to unplugg the toaster and open the door and hit the silence button on the smoke detector.  THIS WHOLE time Papa Bear is still asleep in bed!!!!
Now that I am calm and can laugh hysterically at the situation, I am thankful my Buddy has payed attention in school and knows what to do if a Fire Alarm goes off and that he was thoughtful enough to grab his Mama out of the bathroom.
There is never a dull moment and I am glad our smoke detector works.

-- Mama Bear

Oh, we are full timers...this is our home...

Hi There, Ho There...how do you do? Welcome to My Life as his Camping Wife. We are a full time RV living family. We are just beginning this awesome journey but so far have no regrets and have no desire to go back!
Today marks Day 39 40 41 of this crazy, awesome, new adventure. (it took me a few days to write this!)
This blog has been created to share our experience. Our crazy times, our pull- our- hair- out- in- frustration times and our stomach-hurts-from-laughing-so-hard-times. Maybe even share how we run things along the way.
I will be sharing everything....EXCEPT our names and faces.
Throughout our stories you will know us as Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and Buddy Bear.

Living Full time in a Travel Trailer is something we have talked about for years and have spent the better part of the last 4years researching travel trailers. Going back and forth over whether or not we should take the plunge.  Papa Bear and I both knew we could make it work and the idea of how much $$$ we would save was very appealing!
In November 2012 we decided we would at least get one for when we travel and see the neighboring states, when we go to Disney for Thanksgiving and go camping. We drove up to Sonny's Camp and Travel and met with Stephen. Papa Bear had been emailing with him for a few days about a few different models. We got a late start that day and it is a 3hr drive to Duncan, SC so we really should have left before 11am but we didn't.....instead we left at 1pm and got in a little after 4pm. They close at 5pm during off season.   oops! Once we got there we were immediately met by Stephen and he showed us all the models we had emailed him about. and of course we turned into the annoying people that could not decide on the same camper. I liked one and Papa Bear liked another. We kept saying 'Can we look at the other one again?' and Stephen- being such a patient and nice guy would say "sure, no problem, take your time..."   By the end of it all we decided on one and of course by that time everyone but Stephen had gone home for the day. HAHAHA!  What makes it worse is that when we got home we started looking at the 2 campers we couldn't decide on online and then saw another and decided it was the PERFECT compromise  between the 2 campers Papa Bear and I liked!! Only bad thing was it was not at the Duncan, SC location but in the Concord, NC location...so Papa Bear sends Stephen another email and Stephen has the camper brought down from their NC location. A week later we drove up to Duncan to  pick up Aspen!! Buddy Bear was just thrilled to go to Duncan to see campers! He had not  been to look at Campers since he was 8 months old and of course did not remember it. I remember we went to an RV show at the Tacoma Dome and Papa Bear carried him the whole time in a Baby Bjorn baby carrier. We had given Buddy a piece of pretzel to chew on and he just held it the whole time and even fell asleep holding it. By the time we got it from him, the pretzel had his finger indentations.  We must have looked at a hundred campers that day. and thousands since that day!

We drove Aspen home from Duncan and parked it along the side of the road. The neighborhood we lived in did not allow parking of recreational vehicle for more than 3 days.  We were leaving for DisneyWorld in 4 days. We asked for permission to park it there till we left for Disney and HOA was nice enough to say it was ok. We 'played' in the camper every night and even cooked dinner in it a few nights. We felt like the biggest dorks 'playing' in the camper in our driveway but we didn't care. We were having fun. My Buddy Bear loved being in the camper. The best part-- we were making memories.
For me, it was the night we made a big spaghetti dinner and played Candy Land at the dinette that I knew I wanted to Camper live full time. I'm not sure when it clicked for Papa Bear but by the time we got back from Disney we had made the decision to give notice of moving out of our house the first of the year. We ended up moving into the Camper mid-December to help give Buddy Bear a better Christmas and to secure a really great spot at the campground.
I think our original plan was to only Full time Camp till we moved to New Mexico but we quickly started to feel like we never wanted to go back to a real house.

This is our story, we hope to meet other Full time families and share our great experiences with them. WE also hope to show that Full live RV living isn't just for the old folks. ;o)

Till next time--
Mama Bear