Wow!! What a whirlwind our life has been lately! I’m struggling to even know where or how to begin this post, which is why it’s coming out almost a month after our full-time RV lifestyle began.

There are a host of reasons we are choosing to live in an RV but the top reason is due to a job change that moved us back to Houston, Texas from San Antonio and will likely require some domestic travel. As we prepped the house in San Antonio to sell and began looking for another house in Houston, we came to a fork-in-the-road decision.

Going one way, we could buy a house and travel like normal people in cars and airplanes and have to get someone to keep an eye on things, or we could go the other way and not buy a house, get rid of everything and live and travel in an RV. Given the title of this post and using your context clues, I’m guessing you concluded we chose the latter. We’re not normal. We’ve never been normal. We’ve been told we were crazy for our life decisions more than once in our 30+ years together. We’re getting used to it.

My husband needed to report to his new job in Houston, so we moved into our little 19’ Keystone Bullet, whom I named Joy. Thankful to have Joy as she made for an easier transition but from the beginning, we planned to upgrade to Joy Too as soon as the house sold.

Did I mention “little” 19’ Keystone Bullet? We have been living in Joy for just under a month now and it’s cute but not fun. I thoroughly enjoyed getting her all organized and finding places for the necessities (and ONLY the necessities) but it has become crystal clear that life nor sanity can be sustained in her long term. I have a friend who called her kitchen a “one-butt” kitchen. This camper is truly a “one-butt” camper and we’ve got two not tiny adults and a 60 lb. Aussiedoodle, Zeala (pictured below). Do the math… that’s three butts in a one-butt camper. That’s two butts too many.

But another reason we’ve chosen the RV life is that we want (and need) to be together. My husband’s overseas job has kept us from basically living together for over 3 years now. It took its toll on our marriage and we need some time to heal and get to know each other again. We’re grateful to be together and grateful for this opportunity to begin again.

I have to say, though, that going from a 3800 square foot house on an acre of land to a 19’ camper on a small concrete slab might be a little too much togetherness. Our 4-year-old grandson came to stay with us and he said, “Gimi, the sink is right by my bed!!” To which I promptly replied, “Yes, buddy. EVERYTHING is right by your bed!!”

I also have to say that we have given away almost all of our belongings and that feels SO good. As we start out our new life together, letting go of the past and traveling light is a kind of freedom I never could have imagined. I’m a collector of stories so watching our history drive away came with sadness. But given time and with a mindset of moving forward, I know we won’t miss the stuff.

The house hasn’t sold yet but God took us down the path to finding bigger joy and we have purchased Joy Too. She’s a Grand Design Reflection 315 RLTS. We’ll make the move next week and I know we’ll feel like we’re in a mansion. Y’all, it has a fireplace!

While we have no plans to travel just yet, we will be hitting the road as soon as we can. We need to find our footing for a bit after all of these crazy transitions.

I’ll post updates here on occasion but for anyone who wants to follow our journey in real-time, we have an Instagram account, @Go.In.Joy to journal the daily this and that’s, happenings and cool discoveries. We’re all about living life, loving life, sharing life and we’d love for you to tag along! (Image design credit: My amazing daughter-in-love!)

For those reading who don’t know us, I am Andrea and my husband is Tommy. We met the summer after we graduated high school and, young, in love, and clueless, we married. By the grace of God and a few miracles thrown in, we’ve been married for 30 years. We have three amazing and fully-functioning adult children. Two are married to amazing and fully-functioning adults. We have three brilliant grandchildren and one more on the way. We are home-grown Texans who have sprinkled our hearts all over the globe and lived a lot of life because we don’t believe in wasting time. We have messed up and cleaned up and endured trials and hardships and come up for air each time with a fighting spirit. This RV life is the hope of starting out this new chapter in our marriage experiencing joy in Joy (the RV). You’ll hear mostly from me (Andrea) in writing and sharing on social media because Tommy is more of a behind-the-scenes kinda guy and takes care of us well by you know, having a job and stuff. We’re in this together and we’re exceedingly humbled and grateful for the gift of do-overs and exciting adventures ahead.

Travel light and go in joy!
Andrea

Travel light: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV

Go in joy: And those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. Isaiah 35:10 NIV