If you’ve been “traveling” with us, you already know it’s been almost a full year since we packed up our family into a 45’ motorcoach and left Small Town, Middle America for a 15 week adventure out west. Followed by another 14 week adventure down south after a small break for holidays at home. 

You’ve followed my daughter, Olivia, blogging through her senior year of high school. What a Senior Trip this has been! As I’ve had the joy of being her editor for every blog she wrote during and after our trip, I wanted to add a post of my own as an endcap to her travel writing for the year. 

So many people ask us what this “travel thing” is all about, and really, it started as a fun little idea we dreamed up while standing in our outdated kitchen one evening years ago. Olivia and I were just starting into homeschool amongst the green cabinets and peeling wallpaper, and Audery was gearing up to follow suit. Kate wasn’t even on the radar yet. Rohn and I thought it would be so cool to take school on the road for one year and SHOW our kids all the things instead of just learning via books and documentaries. We called it our 10 year plan. Fast forward 13 years later to when Olivia was a Junior in high school. The kitchen is now renovated with linen-colored cabinets and not a speck of wallpaper in view. Rohn owns a few businesses and works from home. And we still homeschool…with Kate added into the mix now. We had put the dream on the shelf and told ourselves it wasn’t feasible or financially responsible. Until one day, Rohn took it down, dusted it off, and started looking at RVTrader.com. And then the snowball started rolling.

We left on August 4, 2024 and the girls seemed relatively excited, but also were pretty sad about leaving their friends and happenings behind. Rohn and I were mildly terrified we had made the wrong decision and shouldn’t we just turn this coach around and sell it now? But we also had this sense that if we didn’t at least try, we would always regret it. And we didn’t want to live with regret…so it pushed us out of our comfort zone and into 300 square feet of living space for 5 people and 3 cats, and when people implied we might be crazy, we did not argue.

The first six weeks were a struggle…to put it lightly. Finding a routine for how to do school while visiting amazing places. Figuring out how to constantly problem solve an issue with the coach. Countering attitudes of kids who missed their friends and frequently asked to go home. And the cherry on top was that we booked 15 weeks of a hard-hitting adventure vacation that made little or no room for school, rest, or work. We took every part of what makes life difficult and smooshed it into 108 nights, 38 stops, and wild west mountainous driving. Everyone kept telling us how lucky we were to be on vacation. We laughed. And sometimes I cried in our tiny RV kitchen.

After some recalibration on what could actually be done at each stop while moving at the speed of light, things calmed down a bit and we found some routine. The girls began to settle into travel and anticipated visiting new places and finding campsites to hang their hammocks. We schooled and adventured together and slowly I could feel us hitting stride on a new thing. We met new friends, met up with family dotted along the west side of the U.S., and before we knew it, we were driving east out of Moab towards our fly-over state that was home. 

The girls we brought home were not the same ones who left. Neither were we. Our goal was to expose them to places and people, cultures and communities different from what they knew in our hometown of 2600 people. We wanted to open up the world to them and make it less scary to think about in terms of leaving home. We wanted to introduce them to the many parts and people of America that were so unlike the midwest. What we didn’t realize was that they were latching on to travel life. We have kids who love to hike and will rock climb in the dark to find the best place for astrophotography. It was like we woke up a part of them that we didn’t even realize was sleeping. We loved adventuring together as a family.

I tell you all of this because Olivia had a hard start with blogging…but you might not hear that in her posts. There were lots of tears about writing, deadlines, college classes, small spaces, and being so tired at the end of a day. But she figured it out and I could feel the tone of her posts changing. I’m so glad we didn’t let her out of her commitment, but continued to hold her toes to the fire and her hand in encouragement. I think that’s what parenting is in a lot of instances. We hate to see our kids struggle, but it’s in the struggle that they learn and grow and change…why would we deprive them of becoming that person? They must learn to do life without us because one day, we won’t be here and they are the only true investment we leave in this world. 

As we explored different parts of this country, we engaged with theology of many faiths, examined evolutionary timelines of every rock/tree/canyon/etc, and encountered people sold out to a set of beliefs so different from our own. The dinner table conversations around the editing process of how to state what you saw, yet do not buy into as true, were invaluable as I look back on them now. Perhaps the most impactful year of our schooling together had nothing to do with academics, but more to do with interacting with a world Christ loves and sent us to tell of His ways. After 14 years of being Olivia’s teacher, I couldn’t have planned a more fitting end to our journey together.

We came to homeschool timidly, reluctantly, and honestly, a little afraid. Each year I was ready to completely quit by March, but by July I was ordering the next level of curriculum. We found ourselves in the middle of Olivia’s Sophomore year when she announced she wanted to finish high school through homeschool. I was stunned. That was never the goal. Or not the perceived goal. We began because I just wasn’t ready to send her off at age 5. We continued because we saw the value of being with our kids all day, of discipling them in the moments that presented themselves as we worked through math and grammar. We almost stopped when I lost one parent, and then the other…but even in grief the girls learned the gift of stepping into the discomfort of someone else’s emotional state with compassion. It has been a hard-fought crusade to homeschool well.  Not easy, but so worth it.  And we did it together, mother and child, teacher and student. Sometimes I was the student as she let me learn how to best teach her; she was the exact daughter I needed for my first time at everything. By God’s grace, we graduated our Olivia Grace this past May. His goodness and mercy have shepherded us through hill and valley, and I will always look at our years together as some of my most refining. 

As we prepare to send our girl to college, we are like all parents before us…so surprised that 18 years have already passed, and so aware that she is ready for the next step. She has grown from child to little girl to young woman, and we are so proud of how she has come into her own. She has plenty of maturing and growing ahead of her, but God will grow her in His time, in His ways. We can rest in that. She and I started a journey we didn’t know the end of, and now we end this part of our education together. I will miss the “little-ness” of her around our house…wasn’t she just 5 “reading” me a book while I tended to Audrey? I will miss her project managing ways of holding me to the 7th grade science schedule “Mom, it’s 2:00, are we finishing science today?” I will miss her attentiveness to seeing a job around the house that needs done and just doing it. But I relish being her mom who can now also be her friend and mentor. 

I look forward with anticipation to see how God shapes her and makes her path plain for her to further participate in His Kingdom work. We were afraid to bring her home from the hospital, but we are not afraid to send her out. She is ours still, but she was not designed to stay with us. So we take the first step in launching her out from our quiver that has for so long been her place of safety and growth. I echo III John 4, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth. I pray Olivia continues to love Jesus and seek after His ways. Out of all things I’ve imparted, may that be her guidepost and anchor.