The Misadventures of Maddox, Maize and Fox

I know without a doubt that each of my five siblings can name several times that our dad, Ken, has helped us either divert disaster or rescue us from some sort of mishap. Anyone who knows him (or us) knows that we rely on our dad for his seemingly endless knowledge of anything mechanical. He is our own personal auto mechanic, computer technician, plumber, electrician, and grill master. Basically, he's MacGyver. So it will come as no shock to the well initiated that Ken discovered our first mishap and saved us from a blown out tire (which AAA assured us would have happened in the next 100 miles). It seems that the rear passenger tire on the trailer had a blister on it, a rather rare occurrence, that thankfully did not go unnoticed by the expert we have on hand. This is #whyweneedken. Do I need to mention that part of the reason we felt so comfortable buying a travel trailer and traveling around for nine months was knowing that Ken would be with us for the first two weeks? I al...

It seems like every time we plan on camping trip, it rains for the majority of the time. So it was no surprise that earlier this week, when we checked the weather, it said it was going to rain all weekend. Yesterday, the rain held off until midnight or so and was done before morning. However, every weather forecast we checked said it was supposed to rain all day today. 90% chance of rain. The radar didn't look promising either. But by some miracle, it did not rain. I feel like this is a promising sign. While we waited for the rain to hit, we spent a lovely afternoon at Armstrong Apples Orchard & Winery. This has become an annual tradition with my dad and this year, we invited our fellow campers to join us. A pretty big group of us took over the winery for over an hour, drinking wine and chatting, while the kids ate a giant Bavarian pretzel.   We each got to taste 7 wines and keep the glass. Gotta entertain the kids while we sample wine. Crab apple sling ...

After a frantic morning, we finally left around noon and headed to our first stop- Long Lake Recreation Area for our annual church camp out. It's only about an hour away so this is a good test run for us. We had a few hiccups. It started when we hooked up the water for the first time- water started pouring out of the side panel for the water heater. We quickly found the cap was off of a release valve in the panel. After putting that on and turning the water back on, water started pouring out of the outdoor shower head. The connection on the shower head hose was loose and the valve to turn the shower on was open. Fixed those. We tried a third time. No water leaking! After a little while, we decided to test out putting water in the holding tank. After hooking the hose up to the water tank, water started dripping out of the bottom of the trailer. Turns out, both of the low point drains under the trailer were open. I think we finally have the water situation under control. We also ov...

We leave in 2 days. Two days to finish moving out of our house, move in to the trailer and eat all the leftovers in the fridge. I'm not sure which of those is the most daunting. Needless to say, there's a lot of work to be done and we're trying not to freak out. We thought we purged all of the things, leaving only a minimal amount of stuff to move. But then we just keep finding more stuff. As soon as you think you packed all the toys, you find a plastic deer, a jewel, an egg shaker, three balls, and countless other things that now need their own box. Ugh. Trying to be a minimalist with three kids is hard. You might be wondering why we decided to sell our house with an amazing yard (over an acre!), leave the city we love (Milwaukee!) and confine ourselves to a 32 ft travel trailer with our three kids. I promise you, we have thought this through. There are many reasons why we are embarking on this 9-month roadschooling adventure. They include (but aren't limited to) the...