Sunday, April 4, 2021
Welcome Home, Dinglehopper
It’s been a minute. I feel like I always take such long breaks but then blogging calls me right back and I’m invested again. It’s a struggle to find time in all of the day-to-day mayhem with three toddlers. It becomes even harder mixing in being an entrepreneur, wife, stay at home mom, working out, being Team Parent of my oldest sons baseball team, Pageant mom to my daughter, and cheerleader for my middle son. All that and life starts to get busy. I like to slow down and vacation. I like to spend weekends making memories. I enjoy getting out of the house because I spend a LOT of time in it. Between working and parenting simultaneously, lady that loads, dishes, and all the other tedious tasks assigned to mothers, I find that getting out is my little escape. In 2019, after our first trip to Disney World I told my husband we should invest in a camper. It’s a great way for us to get out without forking over $100’s of dollars just for a quick weekend. He didn’t like the idea but I kept pressing because in my mind spending $500+ on a hotel for 2 nights plus food plus gas plus whatever else you do on vacation, it adds up quickly and therefore we only take one big trip a year and that’s it. In 2020, while on our two-week Disney Vacation, we spent a few days at several different resorts and stumbled into Fort Wilderness. The sounds, the views, the atmosphere - it was inviting because it was everything we love about vacation. One big thing was that the cabins featured kitchens and separate living room and bedroom which meant the kids could sleep while we hung out. The part that sold me, I could cook!!! I am that person who loves to vacation and cook. There is something about a cabin-cooked meal that makes my heart happy. As we walked 2 miles around Fort Wilderness, we passed by the RV campsites which drew me in instantly. Each campsite has their own little yard. The guests brought Christmas lights and blow -ups to decorate (read more about that here). In addition, some guests brought tables, chairs, games, fire pits. These people were vacationing right. No hotel rooms, stuffy halls, none of that small enclosure with little-to-no space for a family of 5. I immediately started dreaming about us having our own RV and vacationing at Fort Wilderness, but Erik just didn’t feel it was necessary. In Spring of 2020, we had gone over to Camping World as Erik had only been in an RV once, so he wasn’t familiar with styles, sizes, etc. The first one we toured was one I had been eyeing for months. It was a Coleman 274BH. It has a queen bed “room”, a sleep sofa, a sleeper dinette, and two double bunk beds at the back near the bathroom and kitchen. It was small and cost but slept eight which worked for us perfectly. It was right under $20k and it was right in my budget, but we walked out before making any deals because it just wasn’t the right time. Fast forward to March 2021. We are talking about vacations and pons for upcoming weekend trips. I start pricing out the less short getaways and each one with a price tag of $700+ for a Friday night through Sunday. It was outrageous! I just couldn’t imagine spending that kind of money, so we opted to skip weekend trips again. But I knew that it would mean our kids would also be missing out. I decided to head over to Camping World I was curious to see if the first trailer we saw was available. The first Salesman who came to assist us told us they didn’t have any of the campers we wanted available, in the price range we wanted, so we decided to leave. As we were walking out I advised the salesman to call if any of our model came in, and walked towards the exit when a manager walked up and started chatting about my kids and how cute they were. She asked if we found what we were looking for and I told her what took place. She immediately swung us around and showed me the Coleman 274BH that was on the lot - it was perfect and she was able to get the price right where I wanted. A week went by and there was a lot of back-and-forth with the bank. Getting a pin for an RV is like signing for a house. It’s stressful but we were hopeful and stayed the course. Five days later, we got the approval call. We had Camping World install our hitch package, brake controller, and a few other things before we took her for a test drive. Once we got her home, the kids were elated! They didn’t want to leave and tried to bargain with us to sleep inside right out front our house but it wasn’t even prepped for bedding so we had to say “no.” The next day,, we headed out on our first camping trip, an hour away, and we learned so much. I’ll talk more about this later. But I’m so happy we decided to make this purchase. It was a long time coming and I cannot wait to have so many more adventures in the next few months.
Friday, February 21, 2020
DISNEY PLANNING SERIES PART 5
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