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Settling Into Full-Time Travel with Kids

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We are now more than two weeks into our adventure.  I was so stressed from the move and planning that it honestly took me a few days to unwind.  I felt like a gearbox that was winding tighter and tighter and about to snap.

After our fun weekend in Glenwood Springs, we drove to my parent’s house in South Denver.  It was both comforting and a bit strange to come somewhere so familiar.  I could tell the first few days the kids felt really out of place.  So many things were so familiar and yet they didn’t have any of their own space or much of their stuff.  The first few days were a bit rough emotionally for all of us.

However, I feel like we are settling in.  We started homeschooling. I’m doing Eureka math (mostly on Zearn.com and with their workbooks), tons of reading (thank goodness our old library card still worked!), and writing at least three times per week.

Last week, we went to a couple of museums, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Denver Children’s Museum.  My kids and I loved both! We saw actual mummies at the Science museum, which was super cool!  And we also loved the Imax on Pandas.

Soon we will add more online learning apps through Kids Online Academy.  I’m excited for my kids to try some of these to supplement what we are already doing.  They will be doing Science, Reading, typing, etc.

This weekend, we nailed down two of our locations in Japan– we decided to go to a hot springs hotel about an hour outside of Sapporo (we just couldn’t find an Airbnb house that we could get comfortable in the city center) and then to Okinawa for almost two weeks.  We read that Okinawa will be cold and cloudy at that time of year.  This is unfortunate since the beach looks absolutely amazing.  We should be going at just the right time to see the cherry blossoms, which is exciting!

Here are the things that I enjoy so far about our adventure as a family:

• Having so much less stuff to manage!  We are helping to clean the house on the weekends, but we only have a handful of stuff each and it is NICE.

• The flexibility.  This comes with summer anyway, but knowing that I don’t have an impending deadline of school starting again is a relief!  It does require me to find ways to de-stress from the kids.  Thankfully, we’ve been able to use some old babysitters that we already know.

Things that are hard for us so far:

• I miss some of my stuff. Specifically, some of my clothes and shoes.  I miss having more than one workout shoe, since I’m working out multiple hours each day.  I’m trying hard to lose weight here in Denver, which is tricky considering all our favorite restaurants here!

• People.  Of course. People make every place a home.  Thankfully I am with all my most favorites which is my family.

I believe things will get better and we’ll get used to it, eventually.

Additional Readings

Full-time travels Q’s and A’s

Last Minute Preparation for Full-Time Travel with Kids

The Decision is Final! We are Going to Travel the World with kids