Hallelujah I Figured it Out!! by Tricia Baehr

Many, many moons ago I wrote about what a horrible blogger I had become. Now I have become a better blogger but on another blog! I could not for the life of me figure out what email/password combination I had used on this one although our twitter updates to this blog and gives a pretty accurate view of all of the mischief we get into on the road. My new blog is more of a personal one geared towards my thoughts about being on the road, about food, food for thought and spiritual food. It is called Gypsy Mama Manna follow along if you like. I will now start to update this one more frequently and allow the kids to do the post their travel pictures and observations about roadschooling as well. Currently we are visiting family and friends near the Atlanta area. Traveling tomorrow to our former home town to Native Nurturing Weekend at the Center for Peace that I blogged about last year. We'll be spending Thanksgiving in the prairies of Kansas and we have no idea what's up after that! I think I found my niche for writing again and I am grateful and appreciative for that. We have been so many wonderful places and done so many incredible things in the last 15 months (wow! we've been a family on the road for 15 months now!!) on the road. Life is a journey and we are enjoying the ride!!

I'll Admit it...I'm a horrible blogger by Tricia Baehr

Seems like I had good intentions with this blogging thing but living in the moment can really distract me from going backwards to recollect what we saw, did or learned about on this confounded blog! I love to write, so much so that I find myself doing it at random times. Long hand flows out of me into notebooks and journals. Finding the inspiration to re-type my musings into the blog not so much. We have seen and done some amazing things since the last blog post. Traveled around quite a bit and generally just enjoying the freedom, love and joy of being able to do so. John is working and enjoying what he does. We all seem to be finding our groove in this quirky little lifestyle we have created. The children are expanding in ways that is hard to describe. Some things are coming full circle and some are coming to a close.
I am grateful for that closure.

Another excuse I have is my new digital camera. Seems I turned it on when charging the battery which resulted in the rechargable battery going dead. I've looked several places, several times and they are always sold out of the type of battery my camera needs. A picture is definately some mighty fine inspiration for me to write upon, when it comes to blogging. Any hoo...I will try to blog more but I'm not making any promises. Follow my twitter--maybe you'll catch a glimpse of our wonderful life on the road.

Until next time...embody the love and the light within you, this moment is all we have.

Tracks by Birke baher

Today at Blythe Island Regional Park B.I.R.P. for short. : ) Anyways I went on a walk with my brother Brandt on a sand trail.While we were walking we stubled upon DEER TRACKS!!!!!!So I pulled out my Kodak camera and took pictures of the tracks.(as you see below)Sooooooo.... we walked on and on and on and on......................Finally we came cross garbage so to be good to mother earth I picked it up and put it in recycle bin!!!(Please recycle,be good to mother earth)Anyways we came upon racoon tracks so I took a picture of those.(as seen below)Soooooo....... That's my blog called TRACKS by me(birke)

Educational Information

The Sponge Docks by Birke Baehr ( a written report)

The sponge docks in Tarpon Springs, Florida is one of a few areas where natural sea sponges grow in the Gulf of Mexico. Two kinds of sponges that grow in the Gulf are the yellow sponge and the wool sponge. Another type that grows in the Mediterranian is called the silk sponge. A sponge is a living breathing animal, the sponge has a membrane on the outside which is called the gurry. The yellow part is the skeleton for the membrane. I bought a yellow sponge at the Sponge Factory (watch the video there it's free) Come Check out Tarpon Springs, FL and make sure you visit the sponge docks.

The Sponge Docks by Bailey Baehr ( a written report)

There are different kinds of sponges here are some, silk sponge, yellow sponge, finger sponge, wool sponge there are also the loofah which is not a sponge at all. The part that they take is the skeleton. They sort them by placing them through circles cut out of wood for the different sizes.

And how they get them is by a SCUBA diver. It was amazing. The end.

Road Poetry by Tricia Baehr

Silently they all slept.
Their breath was all that was heard.
The beauty of the in and the out.
Inside my own chest I could feel the beating of my heart.
I could feel the blood pumping through my veins.
For the first time in years the feeling in the pit of my stomach was gone.
I knew that I was on the right path.
Peacefulness swept over me as I flipped on the blinker and changed lanes.
In the side view mirror I saw the hills of my upbringing slip away.
Eyes forward.
The adventure, the possibilities lie ahead.
Change.
Chances.
Renewal.
The corners of my lips upturn and spread into a most glorious smile.
Yes, yes.
This is it.
It's on it's way.
And the movie orchestra music in my head strikes up a score and I can hear the angels playing our song.

Tarpon Springs & Dunedin Florida by Tricia Baehr

We've just left a great area that we want to share with everyone. Tarpon Springs, FL is located on Florida's Gulf Coast just north of the St. Petersburg area. The area known as the Sponge Docks provided us with a wonderful cultural and educational experience. The Baehr kids learned all about sponges and the sponge industry there as well as a great deal about the Greek culture and best of all Greek food. We would recommend the following restaurants, Mama Marias, Costas and Hellas. The kids already loved calamari but have now added, saganaki (Opa! cheese), keftedes, greek salads, greek chicken/lemon soup, gyros, souvlaki and baklava to their ethnic foods they love.

We also found a great little shop there, The Spice & Tea Exchange http://www.spiceandtea.com/ where we bought some great teas & spices. The proprietors, Jen & Dennis Macke were so friendly and informative. Birke is in love with the Phoenix Oolong tea and we are anticipating their "Florida Sunshine" salt blend on all the seafood we hope to be eating while in this part of the country. We also liked that they had bulk spices, spice mixes and teas in large jars so you could purchase a little or a lot. Which means less packaging and a smaller impact on the environment.

We stayed at the Dunedin RV Resort on Alt. 19 which was clean, neat and lots of friendly folk there. The kids LOVED all of the many dogs that live there with their people (just a note, I believe they have a pet free section) http://www.campingfriend.com/dunedinrvresort/

We also enjoyed the beach at Honeymoon Island http://www.floridastateparks.org/honeymoonisland/default.cfm on December 30th the kids played on the beach and Brandt and Bailey even swam quite a bit in the Gulf. The sand was white like granulated sugar with lots of stones and shells to play with.

We watched all the fireworks on New Years from the Dunedin Causeway, we could see from Port St. Richey all the way down to the St. Petersburg area. We found the Dunedin recycling center which was great except we felt that they needed to take plastics 1-7 instead of just plastic bottles. The downtown Dunedin area http://www.dunedin-fl.com/is great for walking around, shopping and restaurants-we had breakfast at a little coffee house there.

There was so much to see and do in this area, we barely scratched the surface...luckily for us the job John was working on there will require us to go back there and for his company to do another 10k sq. ft. in the future so we're excited about that!

Our First Christmas "on the road" by Tricia Baehr

This is our first Christmas as a “family on the road” and we put quite a bit of thought into what we would do. We didn’t want to celebrate in the RV so we had several ideas. One of them was to drive half way to Illinois and stop in downtown Louisville, KY or Indianapolis, IN. I researched different hotels, Bed & Breakfasts, Inns, etc. I actually even e-mailed a group of Inns in Indianapolis to see what kind of accommodations they would have for the 23rd of December through the 25th. They didn’t reply, so I took that as a sign.
Also, because of our busyness I contacted an on-line concierge service to plan something in one of those cities for us. Apparently, that was a sign too because they didn’t reply either. Amazing to me in the economic climate that exist right now that we were ready and willing to give our hard earned money to someone in business and they didn’t respond.
So that bring us to our first Christmas “on the road”. We are at a cabin in the mountains http://www.smokycabins.com/rayoavista.htm. It is Christmas eve morning as I write, there is a lovely wood fire burning in the fireplace. When we made the booking the property manager went on and on about how nice the cabin is decorated for Christmas. The large tree fully decorated. I told John that not having to put up a tree or take one down was worth at least a Ben Franklin right there. We oohed and ahhed at the pictures on the internet, there was even a picture of the tree!
We arrived the night of the 23rd of December, it was dark and we had a little trouble finding it at first. But soon we turned off the GPS and read the directions from the cabin rental company. We pulled up and found the key in the lock box, opened the door turned on the lights and much to our dismay there was no tree! The kids ran up the stairs to see if perhaps it was upstairs…no tree. There were some lovely decorations on the mantel, the table was set with pretty red dishes and gold chargers but no tree. We are really not the type to complain too much but with three little kids experiencing their first Christmas without a “stick” house it was kind of a deal breaker. I called the property manager and asked about the tree. She called me back and said she really didn’t have a good answer for me but the next day she would bring us a small tree. She also said we could move to another cabin that she knew for sure was fully decorated. We had already unloaded our groceries, gifts and stuff into the cabin. So I told her we would discuss it as a family and decide what we would do and I would call her back. Everyone was unanimous in deciding to stay, so when I called her back I inquired about the beautiful tree in the pictures. Was it here somewhere locked away, could we put it up ourselves? She let me in on where it was and how to get to it. What at first seemed like a disappointment turned into a beautiful, fun and memorable experience. It’s a beauty, a 7 footer with gold decorations, white lights, signs that say, “Peace” and white doves. We all enjoyed trimming the tree last night together. And even better, we won’t have to take it down!
It reminds me of so many things in life. It is how you look at them. We could have been angry, demanded our money back, schlepped all of our stuff over to the other “decorated” cabin probably all being short with one another over the extra work. But instead, we chose to make it work. We made the choice and then the goodness and energy flowed bringing us a beautiful memory that we enjoyed making “in the moment” and will have forever more. I pray that that kind of acceptance and ingenuity will continue with our life “on the road”.
We have the rest of today, Christmas eve and all day tomorrow here together. The day after Christmas we will be back “on the road” visiting family up North and hopefully the kids will get to see and play in some snow. I will attempt to blog some more about this holiday. If not you will all know that we were all busy being in the moment and enjoying this gift I like to call life.