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Short and Simple Chaos

dominomcinnis

I realized i havent updated this blog in forever . But i think our lives have settled enough for me to share what we have been up to .I have taken a bit of time to adjust to living small even though our family has grown alot. In the last two years we have added a dog making our total three. And we have added a child a sweet baby girl also making our total three for kids aswell. We have ended up in North Dakota living stationary in our Rv. Which is crazy to me we still travel but just not with the Rv. I cant wait to share where we have gone and update on what has changed and continues to change in our adventure.  We are starting our homestead learning journey and learning how to garden and can to the best of our tiny abilities in our space. I have no idea if North Dakota is going to be home for us for the long haul. But i do know that we have already created some awesome memories here and i look forward to making more.

Our first trip to our “home” National Park Theodore Roosevelt North unit

Something i didnt expect during this relocation adventure is finding a love and i mean a true love for hiking.  We now visit the closest national park almost every weekend during the summer. I just wanted to share a small update on whats been going on.  And where we are currently looking forward to sharing the last two and a half years of adventures soon.

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Chaos in Kansas and Memories

dominomcinnis

What a move, from 1700 sq ft to about 500 seemingly over night. I wish I could say that we have mastered tiny living but y’all we were crowded in the tiny house 2 toddlers and 2 dogs and Aaron and I aren’t little either. I way over packed but honestly it made the transition a little easier. There wasn’t as much shock of loss of stuff. You don’t really realize how much you value your stuff until you have to make only essentials fit in such a small space. But we did it and for a few months it was home which was so nice.

1700 sq ft to 500 sq ft.

This small Amish town was our home for about 2 and a half months and to say we didn’t love every minute of it a full blown lie. Yoder Kansas and Hutchinson Kansas are two small towns that are usually combined in conversation. Never did I think that I would love a town in Kansas of all places. Anyone who knows me knows I am a mountain lovin girl. But I left a small piece of my heart in Yoder. It’s simplistic and cozy. Literally takes about 2 minutes to drive through but it has a Amish grocery store , post office , hardware store, Amish handmade furniture store and a few restaurants. One of which is called The Carriage Crossing and it’s delicious. If you are ever driving through stop for some Amish food and their huge as your face cinnamon rolls with their honey cinnamon butter. Oh my gosh I am pretty sure I have dreamed of these since we have left.

The Carriage Crossing Cinnamon Rolls. Y’all I wasn’t joking. These things are massive.

I am not sure I could have picked a better place to start our journey though. Simple and a great refresh from the chaos of the city that we were so used too. It made the crazy drive so much more worth it. Traveling with toddlers and dogs in a small suv that is pulling a over weight uhaul causing the whole car to shake when you drive over 55 mph is exhausting. This car situation made what should have been a 10 hour trip almost 14 hours. It was long and tiring but the kids and the dogs did awesome. They held it together better than I did some times. My poor mom got to listen to me ramble for 14 hours she is a saint. Oh I should also add that we had to stop like 5 times because my 3 year old decided he would potty train himself this day. Some times I wish we had a camera crew following us around for this move. But it felt good to have my family together again so it was way worth it.

We settled into our new routine be quickly for such a small town there is actually a lot to do. In Hutchinson there is a zoo that is free yes I said free. They do ask for donations which I happily donated whatever I could every time we went and trust me they knew us by name before we moved. The zoo is small but they have lots of plans to expand. We did find something new to look at every time we went and watching the kids learn about animals and environments made my heart happy. Honestly my kids still ask to go to the zoo in Kansas so it obviously made an impact.

Small town shopping

Now as a mom I don’t get much time to shop for myself or time a lone for that matter. But the shopping in Yoder and Hutchinson is actually decent. Yoder has the cutest boutique called “ Grace and Garment” ran by the sweetest woman named Miriam. She didn’t mind my under dressed self coming in wearing by sub zero boots ( I don’t like cold feet ) and my husbands jacket with my hair looking wind blown ( pretty sure everyone’s hair looks like that here the wind in Kansas is NUTS). She is super sweet so if you get the shopping itch while staying near Yoder stop in and look around. They have lots of cute stuff.

Something I liked getting to do was exploring the shops in downtown Yoder. There is a Amish grocery store smack dab in the middle of town it’s small. But the produce is fresh and mostly local. Which is something we eat a lot of so if I can buy it local and help a small community I am all for it. This store is run by Amish men and women dressed in their traditional clothing which is so cool to see. Like a different modern world and everyone is so welcoming.

Hanging around Yoder it’s easy to feel like you traveled into a book. Simplistic lifestyle nesstled right next to a more modern town. Y’all there is even horse drawn carriages. Which I wish I would have gotten my reaction on camera because I am sure it was ridiculous. I squealed and covered my mouth ( I didn’t want to look to ridiculous and I didn’t want to be disrespectful). I could literally gush on about this town but for now I’ll end with as crazy as it sounds coming from a mountain loving woman like me. If we got a call to go work back in Yoder or Hutchinson Kansas I would be packed up in an hour and ready to go. We loved our time there and with our hesitation would go back.

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Where is our Chaos now?

dominomcinnis

Wow 2020 has been a year ! I mean really it’s felt more like 2 or 3 years combined. At the beginning of this year we took the leap to travel full time. January 17th to be exact we packed and prepped for months before. And finally we loaded the car and Uhual ( which was stuffed full of stuff ) and hit the road bright and early to make the trip from Texas to Kansas. Since January we have been to 10 states and stayed in hotels, cabins and Airbnb’s. We most recently came back to Texas and have stayed with family and friends. So for almost a whole year we have been nomads jumping from place to place. We have gotten really good at packing and hitting the road at this point.

I can’t wait to share with y’all the laughs and tears that have come along with this new adventure. I plan to break down state by state what we got to explore. Possibly some recommendations of things to do or places to visit along the way.

I tend to ramble and over share so I will try to contain myself. But we have learned so much through this I feel it needs to be shared we still have entirely too much stuff but I am working on that. At the beginning of this year I pictured it being so different I am sure we all did honestly. But now that we are in November and I can look back on all we have done and seen. I know we are exactly where God intends us to be. Do I wish this year came with instructions? Yes, but part of this has been us completely trusting God to help us through and y’all he has every single step of the way.

Thank y’all for hanging with us for this update I am looking forward to sharing more and laughing at myself when I write. I am a hot mess and I am sure y’all will get a chuckle or two out of these.

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A Little About Me And My Chaos

dominomcinnis

I never ever thought that i would one day be writting a blog but here i am. So i wanted to give a little context about what you will find on this blog. A little about me and my chaos, i am a 29 year old mom of two crazy babies, my son is currently 2 and my daughter is 1 they for sure keep me on my toes. When my husband and i got married we did not think that we would be able to have kids at least with out any medical help. I had pretty severe PCOS making it “impossible” for kids at the time. Well God had other plans two years and two kids later, here we are. We are a Christ following family . We love looking at new and exciting places to take the kids more so my husband to be honest. But our dream has always been to travel as a family.

Why Blog ?

Almost a year ago my husband got a new job working on the pipeline out of state, he is gone 100% of the time. This was not what we would have chosen for our lives we had two little babies but were living in low income housing, living paycheck to paycheck. So off he went to work in south Texas, then Colorado and now Montana. I find myself lonely often I tossed around the idea of starting a blog for a while and finally figured why the heck not?!

I hope to connect with other Christ following pipe line wives, home school moms, traveling pipeline wives or just moms in general because momin is hard y’all . I am sure we all have some funny stories to chat about.


This brings me to the “Traveling” part of the name, about two months ago my husband and i started tossing around the idea of the family reconnecting. I think everyone wants their family together right? That’s just in our nature. God designed the family unit to be together, we both have felt the pull to quit being stubborn and figure it out. So the plan as of now is to buy a truck and RV and traveling around with him. Yall i fought this… HARD i for some reason had this horrible idea of what it meant to live in a small space with kids, and animals. But after doing some research it is totally possible. Not only is it possible its practical ( i will be the judge of that later ).

Most likely some crazy stories of life with 2 kids, 2 dogs and 2 adults living in an RV, i want this to be a real and raw space of what that is like. Along with the ups and downs of prepping for and making that a reality.

In This Blog You Will Find..

Part of making this decision was to turn our lives into a small mission for a HUGE GOD. After listening to the stories my husband has told me of the people he works with, my heart hurt a little for them. He hasn’t told me a lot of God working in these peoples lives. I am positive he is there ( i mean obviously He is everywhere but so is the enemy). I want to spread the Word in the only way i know how and that is by living what He says. My hope is that people will ask questions and will be open to discussion and maybe some prayer.

I know that was a lot but i am not done just yet , I want this space to help families, wives, husbands in making the decision to either jump in or not. I did a lot of looking and didnt find too many sources that were showing the Real life of traveling with your family. I want to be able to answer questions people may have about this life style, or be able to help guide them in making the decision