Mobile Mama

We spent the past two weeks getting away to an area that Cleve is very passionate about - the Monongahlia National Forest and Pendleton County, WV, where Cleve’s father’s family is from. 

We got a great deal on vrbo.com on a cabin (two weeks for the price of one). It was a simple one bedroom/one bath with a loft for the kids to sleep in. Quaint. And all we needed. 

The family has an old house, but it’s not really in the right shape for three kids under five years old to stay in for two weeks (Or one 29-year-old woman, for that matter.)

This wasn’t a vacation. While we did have a lot of fun and spent a lot of quality time together as a family exploring the area, Cleve and I both worked. We have amazing flexibility in life right now to be able to work from anywhere. (Thank you, Chapel, and clients.)

Our Adventures

We spent time literally watching the clouds roll by. Nothing makes you slow down more than stopping to watch the clouds. I wish we had made more time for that on this trip. 

Lots of dirt roads, hiking, baking, telling jokes, gun-shooting, fishing, deer, bugs, homemade meals, waterfalls, more stars than I’ve seen in years, a train ride… We took the kids to their first drive-in movie. There would have been more bonfires if the snakes hadn’t spooked us. 

We spent time in solitude with God. What better way to spend some quiet time than in the middle of a national forest with rivers and mountain peaks and the most beautiful valleys!

I believe there were a few days when we had more interactions with the wildlife than we did with people. 

Different Perspective

Life in Pendleton County is different. It’s a different perspective of the world. On the surface, it seems a bit post-apocolyptic/Hunger Games-like with all the hundred-year-old abandon homes and no-redlight towns of a couple hundred people.

But when you take a closer look, a look that can only come from becoming part of the community and taking a few extra backroads, you start to see the people. People who are just like you and me. 

We all need community. We all have or need joy and a sense of humor. We all have layers and layers of history and heritage wether we know what it is or not. We all need to know the Gospel. 

A Valuable Lesson 

A mild winter equals more snakes and rodents in the summer. I’ll never forget this after our two rare run-ins with rattlesnakes.

Cleve and I have been asked several times how we’re able to get away so much on church and ministry incomes. Well, most people aren’t rude enough to actually ask it like that – they’re more creative - although we’re not easily offended. It’s actually pretty simple.

First, we make getting away for quality time a priority. It’s a fun way to take a break from day-to-day chaos and focus on our kids and each other. This means sacrificing in other areas so that we can afford to have this fun.

So, here are some of our tips. When combining these efforts, we get pretty great deals.

SAVINGS ACCOUNT

We have a savings account that I put just a few dollars a week into. It’s not enough to pay for whole vacations, but it’s enough to take the sting out of writing a big check for a cabin reservation. Spreading out the spending over the whole year is a huge help. 

SET A BUDGET AND STICK TO IT

This summer, Cleve expressed interest in not only our typical beach vacation but also some extended time in West Virginia around the area where his dad grew up. At first, I totally dismissed the idea because there was no way we could afford to do both.

At a second glance at the budget, I realized if we took the resources we had already planned to spend on vacation and took on one extra freelance project, we may be able to make this happen. Eventually, we were able to find a small beach front condo and a cabin in the mountains that fit our budget using some of the tactics below.

COST SAVING HABITS

Diligence.
Don’t just sit down and book your travel plans. Look at all of your options and keep checking back to see if rates change. Book when you see the lowest rate through the lowest vendor. Southwest Air will also let you lock-in a rate, but allow you to get a lower rate if it becomes available later.

Check different days of the week when making travel reservations. Tuesdays, for instance, are often better days to book lower-cost flights. Whatever algorithm travel sites use to determine prices means some days or weeks are cheaper than others. If at first you don’t get the price you want, try and try again.

Be Flexible.
Adjust your travel dates around non-peak times. This year, we went to the beach the week before peak-season began. That saved us hundreds on our condo.

If you have your heart set on a particular location or hotel, planning ahead is usually important to get the best deal and have the best availability. But there is something to be said for waiting until the last minute to get last minute fares. Sometimes spontaneity pays off. 

Discounts.
You wouldn’t believe how many discounts we get simply by applying visa discounts and making reservations with a visa. AAA, AARP, and other discounts are also helpful when you can use them. 

Friends.
For years, we stayed at the same beach condo owned by a family friend. We didn’t stay for free, but we stayed at around a 50% discount. Huge savings on a beach front condo. Who do you know? 

Loyalty to discount sites.
We’ve used Hotwire so many times, we’re “valued” customers and get a few more perks. Many people don’t book through places like Hotwire because of the cancellation policy, but most of these sites love your return business. Once you’ve proven your loyalty, they treat you differently. We have the ability to cancel and change reservations of all kinds (hotel, car rentals, and even airfare) because we’re loyal. 

Negotiate.
When we book cabins through vrbo.com, we never pay the asking rate. Sometimes we ask for the cleaning fee to be waived (and still get cleaning service) or we’ll ask for a lower nightly rate. 

The cabin we’re currently renting in West Virginia for a couple of weeks is a great example. It didn’t have internet (and mobile hotspots don’t work in the mountains), so we negotiated two weeks for the price of one plus the addition of internet. We were able to do this because in this particular location (which was important to us) had a good chance of not being booked at all. The owners were happy to have the same family there for two weeks even if they couldn’t make as much.

Ocean Isle Beach, NC - June 2012

Last set of vacation pics: Part 3

Vacation pics: Part 2

Vacation pics: Part 1

Cleve and I have heard from multiple parents (mostly dads) that going on vacation with small kids isn’t “worth it”. I get their point. They’re saying that you pick up and go to a different place to do the same things you do at home: discipline the kids, cook, clean, laundry, etc. I just disagree with it.

One of the first mornings of our vacation this week, I started to wonder if they were right? Could it be that all this money we spent, time we invested, and miles we traveled to come on a wonderful beach vacation weren’t worth it?

This was a fleeting thought after nearly an hour prep to get everyone beach-ready with bathing suits and lots of SPF 50 and shovels and buckets and other sand toys gathered. Have you been there? It’s no easy task to tackle three little kids and make sure all exposed skin is covered in lotion.

As the day went on, my thoughts and attitude changed. I wouldn’t change anything. I wouldn’t take away watching them build a sand fort or jump in the waves for anything. (And by day two, we had the process down to a science.)

It’s about priorities.

What are your priorities for family vacations?

If your priorities are to sit back and relax with newly transformed perfect angels for children, then you probably shouldn’t spend the resources to go on a big family vacation.

Our priorities are to re-engergize and spend extra quality time together with a change of scenery. Some secondary priorities for me were to catch up on some much-needed sleep, not work (or at least a lot less), and read a book or two that I’ve been waiting a year to read… all while getting a nice tan enjoying God’s creation.

If your goal is to not do laundry for a week, take enough clothes with you. If your goal is to not cook, save up to eat out. If your goal is to not clean, make sure you have good maid service. Whatever is important to you, make it happen.

This week, I have cooked a little, I have cleaned a little, I have done a little laundry. I have even dealt with throw-up and diarrhea. But I’ve had an amazing, restful vacation. I will be going home on Saturday refueled and refreshed from a full week of investing in our family in a cozy beach condo.

It was worth every gallon of gas, every dime spent to have this week away from home with my family.

Only regret: paying for Cy to fish with his little Spiderman fishing pole instead of a real one. It broke before the first cast. :-)

Mobile Beach Pictures
Here are some of my favorite mobile pics (taken with my old Blackberry) from our beach vacation the week after Father’s Day.  It’s taken me this long to reflect on our first big adventure since Warner was born. I’ll share another post soon with some pics from our real camera.

Whew… the time is almost here.  I’ve been waiting on this beach vacation for a llooongg time.  Early Friday morning we leave for our favorite beach spot, Ocean Isle, North Carolina.  As a working mom, prep for a big trip is a lot of work.  You should never have to work this hard just to get out of town and relax.  

Preparations

In addition to packing lists, laundry, dusting off the suitcases, catching up on work for seven clients, and making sure we have all our sunscreen, we’ve had to think a little more strategically taking three kids under four years old to the beach for a week.  

Some of our tools and strategies:

• A “Hitch Packer” to take our load of stuff: our midsize SUV doesn’t hold a lot of cargo when we have three kids in carseats, so we need something to carry suitcases, strollers, etc.
• Packing light: take clothes for five days instead of ten and buy things like diapers for the week when we get there.
• A Radio Flyer red wagon: My hope is that the wagon gives us mutliple uses.  It can carry two kids like a double stroller or the piles of buckets & shovels, towels, water, baby seat, etc that we’ll need to take every time we head to the beach.
• Breakfast and lunch at the condo everyday then fun dinner out in the evenings. Prep for this includes a grocery list made en route and stopping at the Wal-mart on the mainland on the way in.
• Plenty of waterproof, tear-free high SPF sunscreen and water diapers.
• Plan ahead for something fun to do on Father’s Day (as if a week at the beach wasn’t enough already) to make the day a bit more special for Cleve (I’m still working on this one).
• List of free wi-fi spots on the island (freelance consultants don’t technically get vacations if they want to get paid).
• Relax and stop planning. Only goal for the week is to stay half a step ahead of the kids to prevent as many meltdowns as possible.

Further Beach Prep

With limited time juggling our life, I wasn’t able to do some of the fun prep I would have liked, but one of my favorite new mommy blogs from an old college friend has a lot of beach prep goodies for you to try.  Hold On To Your Hats by Danielle Morgan

Now just to get through one more day of preschool, work, swimming lessons, and packing.  Then by Saturday afternoon this will be my front porch view for 7 whole days…