Category: Daily Life

Small Wardrobe Made Easy With Aventura Clothing

Post author By Jess
Post date November 3, 2016
12 Comments on Small Wardrobe Made Easy With Aventura Clothing

Having a small space for clothes has both its positive and negative sides. On the one hand, our closet for 5 has less space than most people have just for their dress shirts. On the other, I actually wear my clothes more often and even wear them out before I grow tired of them. We typically have at least a week’s worth of clothing for each of us, plus jackets, puffy vests, and rain shells.

Prior to becomming Aventura ambassador (free clothes!) my wardrobe consisted solely of outdoorsy clothes from places like REI. They are super comfortable, but occasionally I do like to feel more like a “real” person and less like I just came out of the back country. There is still a certain appeal to dress up on occasion.

Aventura does a great job of styling their clothes to blend well with each other. They use the same color schemes throughout their entire line (you’ll see a lot of “smoked pearl” and “blue indigo” in my clothing picks!) which makes it crazy easy to mix and match a few pieces to create a pretty extensive wardrobe. In addition to color, the fabric is generally soft and forgiving while still being flattering.

I did struggle with sizing on their fall collection, however. I felt like I was a solid medium (normally a large in other clothing lines) in their spring line, but a lot of the long sleeved shirts felt tight across the chest and short on the waistline. I found that if I went up a size the fit was better. I also ordered a size up on the Daria Vest to fit across my chest.

I’d like to think that its them not me, but there is also a good chance I’ve gained an inch or two in the last 6 months. Totally lame, but that’s real life.

I also have a puffy vest obsession, so that led to the absolute NEED to have something to wear underneath them. I may or may not have purchased a few extra long sleeve shirts. Don’t worry. We’ll just stash the kids’ clothes under the beds instead of in the closet.

Favorite clothing picks from Aventura’s Fall Line:

Outfit #1: Sunday Style

Athena Top, Bryce Skirt, Daria Vest, & Bienne Leggings

This combo has been great for wearing to church on Sundays. I’m generally not a weekday skirt kind of girl, but this outfit makes Sundays kind of fun. The Bryce Skirt doe not have a thick waistband (despite looking like it does) but its just a smaller 1″ elastic in the top. Still looks cute, and we’ll see if it holds up over time.

The Athena top has some great crochet in stripes (I bought one in blue you can see better below) but it does wash a little funny. Wash cold and then stretch it out before hang drying or tumble dry low. That way it won’t pucker between the stripes.

The Bienne Leggings are crazy comfortable! I couldn’t find them on Aventura’s website anymore (hopefully they’ll come back) but I did find them at Zappos.com instead.

Outfit #2: Warm & Cozy

Tara Pant, Erin Top, Aldean Scarf, Adeline Hat, Granada Vest OR Jayla Jacket

I think I literally tried every pair of pants that Aventura offers, and the Tara was the only one I liked. I’ve heard other ambassadors having good luck with other styles, but they just didn’t fit me right. That said, they are still SHORT. I am a tall 5’11” and these are not the length I usually enjoy. I like my pants to hit the floor and I tend to wear them out with my heels.

However, I have learned its all about what shoes you wear them with (hello! Not very fashion savvy around here). Once paired with my KEEN Mary Jane style shoes and rolled up they look great. Sam compliments me every time I wear them, so naturally I wear them all the time.

All the pants have stylized stitching that really does look better in person than on their website. Trust me.

I adore the Adeline hat, and the Erin Top is exactly like the short sleeved version from their spring line. Super comfortable and looks great. The Jayla Jacket I kept in a medium as a large was rather baggy, and its my new favorite outerwear piece of clothing. I don’t have a “coat” as we just layer up so having a longer, warmer, jacket this winter will be nice. Assuming we go someplace cold enough to wear it!

jackson — Hanging out in Jackson, WY. Photo credit: http://talesofamountainmama.com/

Outfit #3: Chic & Comfy

Tara Pant, Leonie Tunic, Kennedy Sweater

I got another pair of Tara pants in Walnut, but the Leonie Tunic is a bit of a stretch in style for me. I really wanted something with longer sleeves and length so I went for it. The fabric is crazy soft, and I love that you can ruche the sides up with little string toggle things. It adds some fun styling to the piece. I do wear it with my Tara Pants rather than leggings, but maybe I’ll break my leggings out at some point. I have a lot of friends that like tunics to wear over the gym clothes after a workout, but since my gym is outside my house… well, I don’t have that issue.

Extras

Samara Top, Mia Top

I did say I ordered some extra long sleeved shirt, right? I wanted clothes that would go under the Kennedy Sweater, the Daria Vest, and the Grenada Vest. I feel like all these pieces work well for that. The Samara Top has beautiful detail on the back, so I’ll probably just wear that on its own, but the other three look great layered.

I did go a size up on both the Mia and Samara Tops, and probably could have on the other two as well, but I’m going to hold out though and lose that pesky 5 lbs again. Its a close fit.

Apparently I also really like blue. I figured when you have a color scheme (raspberry, blue, gray) mixing and matching your clothes is a lot more simple.

There you have it! Small wardrobes can be fun if you find the right clothes to go in them. If you’d like to give Aventura a try leave a comment and I’ll email over a 60% off coupon! Its good for a single order up to $250 so you can easily ramp up your wardrobe for cooler temperatures!

Also check out these posts from other Aventura ambassadors to see what their favorite fall pieces are:

Colorado Mountain Mom
365 Atlanta Family – a Capsule Wardrobe
Kid Project
Real Girl’s Realm
The Simple Moms

Holidays & Bdays

Spending our Nomadic Halloween with Friends in California

Post author By Jess
Post date November 1, 2016

Every year we’ve managed to spend Halloween with friends or family. We don’t always choose to spend holidays with other people. In fact, for many we’d rather be off in the desert (or at the beach) by ourselves. Apparently Halloween is the exception.

Travel Dates: October 24 – Nov 1

Last year we spent Halloween with my family in Utah, coinciding with both Andrew’s baptism and my cousin’s wedding. The year before that we were in Lincoln City with some Instagram traveling friends sporting some frosty costumes.

This year Sam had a geek conference in Mountain View, California so we stayed a few extra days in town to spend Halloween with the Siminoff family. We met them last winter in the Florida Keys and they fast became some of our favorite people. They spent a year in their truck camper touring the US (with a side trip to New Zealand and Australia!) and are now back in their sticks and bricks.

Happily for us they have a very long driveway, full hookups, neighbors with chickens, and take payments for their “campsite” in chocolate chip cookies, staying up until 2am talking, and fresh pineapple.

It’s been a fabulous week.

The Costumes

In the last 6 months Rachel and Andrew both earned their Hogwart’s robes through our Family Store. I was impressed they thought that far ahead and made sure they would get their costumes with plenty of time to spare.

Sure, dressing up as Hogwarts students isn’t particularly original, but how many kids have you seen that actually wanted to be in Slytherin?

Andrew chose Gryffindor (since they obviously couldn’t be in the same house), which means Cara was left with Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.

Cara didn’t earn her robe, however, so we swiped a knight costume destined for Goodwill, added a cheap sword and cardboard shield and she galloped off into the sunset to save the day!

Pretty cute kids. We don’t have tons of room for costumes to hang out in the trailer with us, but the kids actually dress up in their robes quite frequently and play so we’ll find room for them somewhere.

The Events

We kept things pretty low key. We made some really easy Pumpkin Rice Krispie Treats, attended the local LDS Trunk – or – Treat, and carved pumpkins. Rachel and Sam had been cooking up a microcontroller lit pumpkin for the last month or so and are happy that it worked out!

Pumpkin in action: it flickers like a candle until motion is detected via the passive infrared sensor. Then it goes all Angry Eyes till motion stops, followed by an automatic reset to flicker mode.

A video posted by Sam Curren (@telegramsam) on Oct 30, 2016 at 7:43pm PDT

Halloween Night was spent out combing the streets for MORE candy (not that they needed it!) with the neighborhood gang and then staying up way past bedtime.

We are all sugared out! I love being able to spend holidays celebrating with friends all over the country. It really does make each year unique and memorable – we get to not only remember WHAT we did, but WHERE we did it.

How about you? What was your favorite part of Halloween this year?

Tags carving pumpkins, Halloween, harry potter costume, knight costume, slytherin costume, trick or treat

Daily Life Musings of Sam

Sam vs. Jury Duty – Tips for Full Time Travelers

Post author By Sam
Post date October 17, 2016
1 Comment on Sam vs. Jury Duty – Tips for Full Time Travelers

I spent a few days this last week as a member of a jury in a criminal trial. This is my second time serving in a jury in spite of only being summoned to service twice. I guess I have one of those faces.

Jury duty is one of the more painful civic duties for a full-time traveler. It requires being in a specific place at a specific time, just for the chance you are selected. If you are self-employed (as I am) then you also lose out on work during your service.

Being in a jury is an inconvenience, but it is educational. It also gave me more confidence in our legal system as I observed some of the inner workings of our judicial system.

In my case, the jury ruled not guilty of the serious charges against the defendant. Everyone on the jury thought something happened but there was not enough evidence to remove reasonable doubt. While the accused may have been guilty (of something) and gone free, we avoided the horror of convicting an innocent person.

I’m glad that it’s hard to convict somebody of a crime, and that we are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Tips for Jury Selection for Full-Time travelers or otherwise busy folk:

Being excused from jury service is rare. Most excuses result in a delay in your service, not being excused all together.

You can shift your assigned jury time. The court knows that people have obligations and are willing to work around them. If you have a family reunion or a work conference, they will be happy to schedule your service after you return. Your jury paperwork will include instructions on how to notify the court of any such issues you have. Expect to receive another notice soon after your conflicting event.

You might be able to ask for a specific dates. Full-time travelers rarely return ‘home’, but you might be planning a trip through your home state sometime soon anyway. I delayed once because of a family reunion. When I received another notice shortly after that, and I called the jury clerk at the number listed on my summons to explain our situation. The jury clerk was both cheerful and happy to work with me, and assigned me to the week we already planned to be in town visiting family.

Even if you receive jury summons, you might not be selected for the jury. The jury selection process takes about a half-day. If you are not selected, you are usually done with your jury service for a few years. Jurors are selected in a random order. The computer system assigns you a juror number and you are selected in order unless excluded. Valid reasons for exclusion include knowing anybody involved or having a family member convicted of a similar crime. High numbers are less likely to be selected.

You will be told the expected length of the trial during the jury selection process. If you have scheduled travel, know the dates in advance. The court will ask about conflicts for the trial period, and you might be excused.

Be ready if you decide to delay. When I was first summoned, my juror number (called a reporting number on the paperwork) was in the 20s. When I delayed, my juror number was quite low. After my request for the specific dates, I was juror number 1. Juror number 2 had also asked for a delay of one week. With low numbers, we were more likely to be selected for the jury unless we were excused for some reason. Your local court system might well run things differently, but that’s how it rolls here in Utah.

Go, and enjoy your jury service. In spite of the inconvenience I really enjoyed my time. The ‘commute’ on the local mass transit system down to the court was a nice change of pace. I learned more about the criminal court system and enjoyed the time with the other jurors. Being a good citizen is important, and I was pleased to be support our legal system in such an important role.

Daily Life Mommy Diaries The Airstream

We’ve Been Traveling for 1000 Days, and Why That Doesn’t Matter

Post author By Jess
Post date October 3, 2016
2 Comments on We’ve Been Traveling for 1000 Days, and Why That Doesn’t Matter

When we originally left our sticks and bricks house in July of 2013 we had no idea what was in store for us. I woke up that morning and knew we were on the brink of something amazing, but the reality has been far more grand than either of us imagined.

Today we have officially been on the road “full time” for 1000 days. That’s kind of a big deal. Sometimes its hard to remember what life was like before Airstream travel. For our youngest, Cara, its been almost half her life. We’ve camped at 308 places, earned 105 Jr. Ranger Badges, and towed the Airstream over 600 hours and 33,344 miles.

What I realized this weekend, however, is that the numbers don’t matter. We could be on the road for 6 months or 6 years and the most important question would be not, “How long have you been on the road?” but “How has being on the road changed you?” Our goal has never been to see every state (we don’t even have a sticker map) but to spend time together as a family in meaningful ways.

We’ve taught our kids to backpack, mountain bike, paddle, adjust to uncertainty, overcome fear, and most importantly to let go of material things while embracing experiences and relationships. We are more patient. We love the peace and quiet of being out in nature. Saying “no” is okay and defending family time is perfectly acceptable. Things are just things, and simple is better. I really like to mountain bike. Sam loves to work on programming projects with the kids. We all love to hike. I love to hear my kids breathing while they sleep at night. Establishing a solid, positive relationship with our kids while they are young could be the most important thing we ever do.

There have been sacrifices and our life is not all rainbows and unicorns. We’ve cried. We’ve been angry and frustrated. We’ve had important things break. That one time, we literally set our brakes on fire. We’ve had deep doubts, unbelievable success, unexpected detours, and tears of both joy and frustration.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

This adventure of ours isn’t about the road, it is about our family and how we’ve grown.

Airstream Accessories Daily Life

Chore Chart, Tickets, and the Family Store

Post author By Jess
Post date September 6, 2016
1 Comment on Chore Chart, Tickets, and the Family Store

Chore Chart, Tickets, and the Family Store When we first started out in the Airstream it became very clear to us that our kids still needed to do chores. In our sticks and bricks they would vacuum, clean bathroom counters and mirrors, load and unload the dishwasher and help sweep. Putting the silverware away can be done by a 3 year old and we were all about having our kids do more to help around the house. We never paid them allowance as we are of the “you are part of this household and you just have to help out” mentality.

Even though our space in the Airstream is smaller, there is still plenty of work to be done! Have you seen how dusty things get? We devised a chore chart for our fridge and with the help of some vinyl strips from a craft store and a friend with a Cricut vinyl cutter we put it together. We recently upgraded our magnets as well and love that they are a little more hefty than the originals. We bought these Smiley Stars and these 0.5 inch round magnets from Amazon (affiliate links). Once assembled, we used a bit of Mod Podge over the top to seal them.

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There are quite a few sections on our chart, and while it looks fairly complicated it break down rather nicely.

Chores

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We adjust these over time and have occasionally tweaked which chores go together as not all of them get done on the same day. As of now they are:

Garbage/Walls & Table
Dry Dishes & Toilet/Bathroom Floor
Sweep/Mop & Bathroom Sink, Counter, & Mirror

They have to scrub/mop their assigned areas on Monday (i.e. the garbage can and walls surrounding it or bathroom counter, sink, and mirror) and generally keep them tidy the rest of the week. The garbage person is responsible for tying up the bag and putting a new one in. If the dumpster is close they take it all the way out, if not Sam or I throw it in the truck and take care of it later. Drying dishes is both after the breakfast/lunch round and after dinner. I’m still lobbying for a daily sweep but alas, we only seem to get it done 2-3 per week with mopping on Monday.

Last spring I was frustrated with how much I felt I was doing and how little everyone else was (a slanted perspective to be sure) but when we were parked for two weeks with full hookups we tried having Rachel & Andrew trade off washing and rinsing the dishes and they did so well we haven’t looked back! They do the breakfast/lunch dishes and those two magnets just swap between the two of them and Sam and I take care of the dinner dishes. It’s much less frustrating for us as parents because Sam had to interrupt work to do the afternoon dishes or I couldn’t make dinner because the counter was a mess! Now things run more smoothly and the kids are generally better at conserving water than we are. They just hate it when “dry dishes” lands on the same day as “wash” or “rinse” but Cara is slow enough drying that we have no desire to make that her permanent chore.

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The kids are also in charge of stabilizers (that would be the S magnet at the top). They have to either put them up or down and then can move the magnet to the next person. If they forget – too bad they have to do it again. I think Cara managed a 3x streak one week and was so upset we started moving the magnet before actually doing the stabilizers so they wouldn’t forget. And yes, its manual. Many people get a drill or other attachment to do it automatically, but we didn’t have enough chores as it was so we stick with the old fashioned way.

Scriptures

We have learned that we are more consistent with family scripture reading over breakfast rather than at bedtime. We are currently reading the Book of Mormon out loud with everyone reading three verses. If there’s a principle or something to talk about, we will elaborate but generally we just read and understand the stories. I fully attribute Cara’s progress in reading to scriptures. It’s amazing the hard words she’s learned to sound out like “Zarahemla” or “destruction”. We get a magnet per day that we read as we reward the kids with a ticket per magnet on Family Store days.

Levels 1 & 2

Pre-travel we met up with a friend who had an amazing responsibility/reward system for their kids. We talked about it a lot and then Sam and I adapted it for our specific goals and situation. The basic idea is that kids have to be done with all “Level 1” activities in order to move on to “Level 2” where they can earn tickets for the family store (I’ll explain that in a second) or have screen time. We chose Chores Done (is the garbage full? Are the dishes done? How’s the floor look?), Room picked up (basically their bed made and everything neat and tidy – nothing on the floor), Teeth Brushed, School Done, and Read for at least 20 minutes (this one is never a problem).

Once they are on Level 2 they can have screen time (if they have any left) and also earn tickets for writing in their journal or doing service for someone else. We also will give out extra tickets for awesome behavior in certain situations or if the kids have particularly agreeable attitudes. This section we’ve used less, but I just added journal writing to their school curriculum so I imagine there will be more magnets up there in the future.

Family Night

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we are encouraged to set aside Monday nights as “Family Night” and spend it together. With suburban families, hectic schedules, school, and work this allows parents to have at least one night with their kids in a fun, spiritually uplifting environment where everyone is together. Although we spend more time together than the average family, our kids still LOVE Family Night or Family Home Evening (FHE) as its more commonly known.

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We rotate assignments, but the general outline is Song, Prayer, Lesson, Activity, and Treat with the kids’ favorite parts being the Activity & Treat (naturally). FHE can be short or long, and we’ve adapted it to many situations with excursions for ice cream, camping on an island, or just a simple game of cards and strawberry sorbet. The kids have resources to put together a lesson and some go better than others, but overall it’s generally a positive experience. Often they are spiritual, but sometimes we aim for something more practical.

Screen Time

We limit our kids’ screen time pretty severely. For a while they could just play as long as they wanted and we found our kids to be grumpy and irritable. Once we set a hard limit, suddenly there was less grumbling when it was time to be done. They get (4) half hour sessions per week, for a totally of 2 hours. The most we usually let them play in a row is 2 of those, so an hour total. They can buy an extra 3o minutes of screen time in the family store for 7 tickets, but I’ve been surprised at how little they utilize this option. Some weeks they use up all their tablet time in two days, but most of the time they are good about spreading it out.

Family movie nights or long drives don’t count against their tablet time, or if Sam and I just have a lot going on and we need the kids to be distracted we are more lenient. The kids also know that if we get together with friends and the parents just want to chat around the campfire they can usually play an hour or two of Minecraft if they just stay quiet and out of our way! These remain the exception however, but can provide some extra reward for the kids and a little bit of peace for us as parents.

For every tablet time they do not use during the week, we will pay them 7 tickets. If we are super busy with friends one week, or they set their mind to it, the kids have earned all 28 tickets before by not playing the tablet all week!

The Family Store

To motivate all of these changes we adopted the idea of the “Family Store” or a place where the kids could earn things. The store opens once a week, usually on Sunday afternoons unless we forget and then the kids remind us on Monday. We bought a semi-small plastic container with a lid to store the items in, and it fits under Andrew’s bed.

DSCF6979 The kids pay us with actual carnival tickets we bought at Walmart. Each item is based on a ticket cost, so if we paid $1.00 for it, the kids have to pay 10 tickets. So essentially a ticket is worth $.10. We will buy items in advance if is something the kids see at a store or a visitor center (stuffed animals were a big one for awhile) but if it’s a high priced item they have to earn half before we will buy it. There’s been a few times where interest has waned and I’m glad I didn’t buy the item up front.

We generally have 1-5 ticket pieces of candy in the store, such as smarties, tootsie rolls, mints, or the movie boxes of candy we can get at Walmart. They can also earn extra tablet time, and occasionally they’ve earned bigger items all together such as an ice cream date, or a trip to the movie theater. That generally doesn’t go over so well, and we haven’t done that in awhile.

They usually have something bigger they are individually saving up for. Rachel has earned a Kindle & cover (1,100 tickets!), they both have earned Harry Potter robes (200 tickets), Cara has earned Kingdom of Wrenly books (about 50 tickets each) and is currently working on earning her Paw Patrol DVD (120 tickets).

When they started saving for bigger items, Sam also introduced the idea of The Bank. For every 10 tickets they put in their bank (aka plastic sandwich bag), they can earn 1 ticket the following week. It’s a ridiculously high interest rate (which we remind them of often) but it makes the math super easy. The biggest lesson taught is about immediate gratification vs. saving for something bigger and better.

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Our largest struggle is having the kids earn “stuff”. As a general rule we’ve tried to eliminate a lot of fluff and meaningless stuff in our lives and coming up with consumable incentives or finding a place for the items they want to earn can be challenging.

Earning Tickets Through Outdoor Recreation

In addition to having good attitudes, writing in their journals, not playing the tablet and reading scriptures they can also earn tickets through hiking, backpacking, junior ranger badges, biking, paddling, and any other outdoor activity we do.

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The catch is they only get tickets for HAPPY miles. This has severely cut down on the whining, and they know we will dock tickets if there’s a bad attitude on the trip.

Generally 1 ticket per happy hiking or biking (off road or on) mile. If we mountain bike for 4 miles they earn 4 tickets.
For hiking we double that if we go over 5 miles. We’ve done plenty of 5-8 mile hikes and the kids LOVE It when we just barely hit 5 and they can double their tickets to 10. There’s been known to be conversations about doing laps in the parking lot to get Endomondo up to the magic number.
Biking we double if its over 10 miles.
Paddling (canoeing or kayaking generally) we do 2 tickets per mile.
Backpacking they get 2 tickets for every mile they hike with a pack. This is whether or not we are over 5 miles. Our Cumberland Island hike was a mix of hiking with and without packs so the calculation was a bit complicated.
For every Jr. Ranger book they complete, we pay 5 tickets, + 1 ticket for every extra page they do.

While not a perfect system, it really works for us at this stage of our kid’s lives. We do adjust and make decisions based on changing circumstances and skill levels but overall having a system has helped our family run smoother and better!

If you have any suggestions or comments we’d love to hear them! Do you have incentives for your kids? What can they earn? What types of chores do your kids do?