So... We Decided to Live in an RV
Hi. I'm Kat - stay-at-home mom to two little girls - a six year old and an eight month old.
Which means I'm also a teacher, baker, cook, maid, nurse, chauffeur, activity director, snack distributor, finder of all missing things, and whatever else the day happens to require. You know. All the completely ordinary things moms do.
My husband is a CDL driver who currently drives a bus. He works hard, picks up overtime, comes home to all of us, and does it all again the next day.
And we have a scruffy mid-size mutt, Alfie.
For the most part, we're a pretty ordinary family. But our lives are about to become anything but ordinary. Until very recently, we were living in a pretty normal house, doing pretty normal things, and talking about buying another pretty normal house.
...And now we are preparing to live in an RV. So, you know.... Things escalated pretty quickly.
We always knew we wanted to travel
Traveling has always been something my husband and I talked about.
We wanted to see more places. Take the kids places. Experience things outside of our little corner of the world instead of constantly talking about everywhere we wanted to go someday.
For about a year, though, our plan was pretty conventional. We knew we wanted a change from where we were living, so we started talking about buying another house somewhere else. Maybe in the same county. Maybe in the same state. Maybe across the country. We just knew we wanted a change, so moving was the solution.
That just seemed like the next logical step.
Until one night I said something along the lines of "What if we saved up enough money to take part of the year off and travel in an RV?"
That was the plan.
...for approximately an hour.
Because somewhere during that hour, my brain apparently worked through the entire concept and came to a slightly different conclusion. We weren't going to travel in an RV for part of the year.
I decided we were going to live in one.
So, I informed my husband of the adjustment to our family's future. Thankfully, I married the most agreeable, easy-going, go-with-the-flow human being on Earth. Because his response was basically "Okay. If there was ever a person to figure it out and make it happen, it'd be you. When are we going?" (He's so supportive and loves me so, haha)
Two days later, while my husband was at work, I texted my mom's best friend, who also happens to be our real estate agent. And with no explanation or conversation leading up to it, I said "Jenny P, sell my house."
And I meant it.
Because within two weeks, we had packed up the entire house, moved ourselves and the two kids into my mom's house, and officially entered whatever chapter of life we are in now. Haha.
The best part?
We don't even own the RV yet.
But this was never really about an RV
The more we talked about moving, the more we realized something. We weren't craving another house. We were craving a different life. We wanted more time together as a family and an escape from the same mundane routine.
We were tired of collecting STUFF.
...and debt.
We wanted to start collecting memories instead.
There is always another thing to want that promises that life will somehow feel better once you finally get the thing. Then you get it... And eventually, there's something else. Another thing.
I started wondering what would happen if we stepped away from that cycle a little.
What if instead of teaching our kids to constantly yearn for more things, we could teach them to yearn for more adventure? I want them to appreciate the little things - to see the beauty in places that don't require a ticket or a gift shop, to feel connected to nature, to notice things. I want my kids to get dirty like kids should, and explore the world, and ask questions that our adult brains would've never thought to ask.
I want them to learn that being entertained and being fulfilled aren't necessarily the same thing.
And watching our oldest daughter get deeper into technology played a big part in realizing that.
I started watching her curiosity disappear
Our oldest is six, and the more screens started becoming part of her world, the more I felt like I could actually see some of that natural childhood curiosity fading.
Although we love Danny Go! in this house, real life doesn't always compete very well with that. A bug crawling across a rock isn't going to flash and sing and dance to make sure you don't look away. You have to actually stop long enough to really notice it.
And, I admit, I've fallen into the instant gratification trap too. I know I've spent plenty of hours in bed doom scrolling TikTok. And my husband has spent his fair share of days couch trapped in video games. Screens aren't bad. And I'm definitely not saying they're the enemy. They have plenty of useful purposes.
But we still found ourselves wanting something... more. We realized we needed to disconnect a little in order to reconnect. So we started changing things.
We started taking school outside. We loosened our grip on what we thought learning was supposed to look like and started letting her lead us more.
If she notices something, we stop. If she asks a question, we investigate. If she becomes fascinated with something, we will wander down that rabbit hole with her instead of worrying about what lesson we were supposed to complete next.
And with that freedom to explore and be a kid, she started to absolutely blossom.
She started choosing what she wanted to learn about. Her questions came back. Her excitement came back. Suddenly, learning wasn't something I had to convince her to do. The fight was gone. She was finding things she wanted to learn about everywhere.
That changed something for me.
Because once you watch your kid light up over something she discovered or learned herself, it becomes really difficult to believe that learning should happen almost entirely in a book at a desk - like a corporate nine-to-five.
And I want more of that for her.
For both our girls.
Why wait until retirement to see the world?
That became the question we couldn't really shake.
We hear it all the time.
Someday we will travel. Someday we will see the country. Someday we will finally have the time. And somehow someday actually means after decades of working, after the kids grow up, after retirement, after life has already passed you by.
But why?
Why are we treating seeing the world like a reward we don't get until it feels too late?
What if we can build our lives differently now? Obviously, we still need money. There are still going to be bills and work... and laundry, and dishes, and responsibilities, and tiny mouths still begging for their seventeenth snack of the day.
We aren't trying to escape real life. We just started wondering whether our real life could look different. Could we live smaller? Own less? Need less? Work differently? And use some of that freedom to experience more while our kids are still at home with us. Or while we are still with them...
Because time keeps moving whether we are ready or not. And I don't want to spend it all wondering when "someday" will come.
I want the world to be part of their education
We already homeschool, and there is something awesome about the idea that the world itself can become part of what we are learning.
You can read about the ocean. But you can also stand at the edge of it. Feel the water, the waves. Find shells and sea glass. Look into the tide pool and get a glimpse of the tiny creatures living there, sparking questions and curiosity about a whole new world... without opening a single book
You can read about history on a page. But you can, sometimes, stand where it actually happened.
We can walk through ecosystems while we learn about them. Geography while traveling through it. Communities by visiting them. Cultural foods by eating them. Wildlife while actually looking for and seeing it. There are museums, forests, coastlines, mountains, deserts, national parks, historical sites, quirky roadside attractions, and tons of places we don't even know exist yet!
And then there are lessons we learn while living real life. Navigating to somewhere unfamiliar, budgeting, planning, cooking, talking to new people, problem solving, taking care of your home, and cherishing what you do have. Learning what you actually need when you can't just shove another thing into another corner, another box, another vessel to be forgotten about. Learning to be flexible when something inevitably goes completely wrong and against your plan, and figuring out how to pivot.
That's education too.
And something we can all learn from.
I don't expect it to be perfect
I'm under absolutely no illusion that RV life with two young children is going to be picture perfect sunsets, peaceful hikes, and relaxing campfires.
Someone is going to have to pee as soon as we leave. Things are going to break. The baby will scream. We will take wrong turns. There will be cooped up rainy days where we are sick of being two feet away from each other. There will almost certainly be a meltdown in front of one of the most spectacular views we drove across the country for.
We are giving up the only home we've ever known as a family. We are choosing a lifestyle we have never even actually lived before. It's entirely possible this turns out to be a terrible idea. At the very least, there will definitely be some terrible ideas along the way. And I'll share that part too.
But I don't want to wait until we are parked by a mountain to take a beautiful picture and pretend that every step getting there went perfectly smooth. Or try and sell a fake: "You should definitely live in an RV!"... "Look at our perfect life!" Because, honestly, our life is kind of a mess right now. And maybe that's worth documenting too.
Real life.
So where are we now?
At my mom's house. Haha!
We packed our house and moved in with her while we prepare for everything that comes next.
This is where we will make the big financial decisions and figure out what RV we'll purchase, what work will look like on the road, planning, saving, all the fun stuff. And asking the endless questions of how we get from "Jenny P, sell my house" and actually driving away in our new home on wheels.
We don't have a big map covered in pins marking the places we've been. Or a long list of all the places that we have traveled - or even a list of everywhere we eventually want to go.
We're at the very beginning.
But this is exactly where I want to start sharing our story with you.
And that's where Eeples & Baneenees comes in
Eeples & Baneenees is going to follow our family as we figure out this very different way of living.
But I don't want this to just be a place where you come watch another family travel around in an RV.
I want it to be useful.
I'm building the resources I want to use with my own kids. Adventure and nature journals. Roadschool and homeschool resources. Hands-on activities. Things that encourage kids to slow down, look closer, ask questions, explore new things, and actually remember the things they experience.
Resources built around the idea that kids should be able to:
Wonder. Explore. Discover. Remember.
There will also be family travel, RV life, places we think are worth seeing, things we learn along the way, recipes that don't require a million dishes, crafts, nature, baking, family life, and... us just figuring out life as we go.
Ultimately, Eeples & Baneenees isn't really about living in an RV either.
It's about learning through life, wherever it takes us. And you absolutely do not have to do what we are doing to be part of that.
Maybe your adventure is at a local hiking trail or your own backyard. Where your six-year-old discovers a worm and asks "Mama, why do worms come out when it rains?" You don't have to travel thousands of miles to give your kids more curiosity, nature, experiences, and more learning through actually living.
We just happen to be taking the concept on the road with us.
This is the beginning
I have no idea what our life will look like a year from now. And... I kind of love that. That's part of the thrill of it all.
Right now, though, we are just an ordinary family with big dreams, a lack of planning, and a really big world full of things that we'd like to see.
This is our someday.
Well, as soon as we make plans... figure the money out... actually find our home on wheels.. And occasionally wonder whether we've completely lost our minds.
Welcome to Eeples & Baneenees.
We're just getting started.