July 19-26 • Texas Summer Fun and Chef Malachi

We got to stay in Texas for July. I know its taken a bit to get everything updated and share all the fun adventures we experienced. My ultimate goal is to get this blog up to date and to do regular updates, Although I haven’t gotten very far on updating everything I will get there! We moved to our Texas campsite on the July 4th weekend you can read all about it here. One thing that I can say was that the best part of this year was moving to a new state or location once a month. The move itself was always a lot of work but, being in a new area and being able to explore there was always exciting.

As many of our family and friends know I am a USA citizen and Kevin is a Canadian citizen. This has made it difficult on this process as we need to get things filed in order for him to legally be able to live down here in the States. July and August will be our last months living in a “camper” as we had to get a permanent address for all the immigration paperwork. Right now we will be hanging our hat in Iowa you can read about the property we chose and why here. Eveb though we are calling Iowa our home that won’t stop us from traveling and being on the road. We still have plans to keep traveling and expanding our knowledge of this amazing country we call The United States of America.

I get many questions about why we are in the USA instead of Canada. I would say the main reason for this is my Nana(my paternal grandmother) passed away a year ago and with this Covid pandemic it was difficult to travel between the two countries to see family. My papa (my paternal grandfather) turned 89 this year and with us living in Canada for the past 7 years, we haven’t been able to visit much. Both Kevin and I decided life is to short to be away from family and we want our kids to know their great-grandfather and explore as much of the country as they can before they are grown and move out. We have always had a dream of hitting the road and exploring all 50 states after the 10 provinces and 3 territories of Canada. We never thought we would be so blessed to be able to do it before our kids moved out.

Despite the fact that we will now be living in a brick and mortar house on an acreage we will still be living our dream of traveling, being on the road, and having a great time with our family. We do have plans this winter to go to California to spend Christmas with our family our eldest daughter Ruth who is still living in Canada will be coming down to spend time with us. Then in January for my 40th birthday we are planning on spending the first couple of weeks in Las Vegas. It is a long drive from Iowa to California so I’m sure we will be doing some exploring along our way. The adventures are not ending this soon just because of some minor setbacks. I do love living in a house and having space for everyone to be comfortable doing school and other fun activities, I can’t wait to be on the road full time again.

Alright now to this weeks blog. We spent about a month in Springtown, Texas and it was insanely hot. We enjoyed things like BBQ meals and lots of swimming. Within a week of being at a RV resort with a pool, John was able to Swim everyday eventually learning how to swim with no floats! One thing about living or being in a warm climate is we can do things like swimming every single day. Something I can say for sure is if we ever do decided to move to Texas we would have to have a pool in our yard. The humid heat is a killer, if you don’t have a way to cool off. We spent almost the entire month in Texas at the pool. Here are some videos of John learning how to swim without floats. He can now swim with his head above water! It’s amazing how fast kids learn new things when they have time to practice.

While we were in Texas Malachi picked up a love for cooking and I am so proud of him learning and exploring new things. He started this adventure of cooking around the time we got into the camper. Watching videos, reading and watching how I cook to create his own style. Here is a picture of him in the camper getting ready for one of his recipes. This is Nutella crepe with yogurt and strawberries.

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A little back story in January of this year I went to California for my Nana’s funeral and left the family to fend for themselves and cook. They all realized how good of a cook I was, and Malachi made a couple of failed meals. I didn’t think he would be able to be such an amazing chef, But he took it upon himself to learn and try new things. He has impressed me with his talent and how he is such a natural at cooking and combining flavors. My mom would be so proud of her legacy that is being carried on. I can’t wait till Malachi can visit my parents and cook for them as well. He has also taught me to think outside of the box when cooking. Although I’m a good chef I get stuck in a rut and end up doing the same things and using the same flavors over and over. One thing about cooking is it is so diverse and you can learn so many unique flavors and techniques. I’m trying to learn to trust Malachi in what he is cooking and get all the random ingredients he request. I’ve not been disappointed yet. Here are some of the many recipes and things Malachi has created.