I’m so excited…I’m so excited!

I’ve been MIA…I know…

There’s a lot going on here in the last month.  This week I will get to post our spring break trip highlights.  We visited three campsites…DC, VA, and PA.  We had a BLAST.  Then when we came back I had some work deadlines to complete, so I’ve been a busy bee.

BUT…

Words cannot even express my excitement this week.

It’s time for a Bougie upgrade!

Let me back up for a second…

When we went on our spring break trip, we quickly realized one thing…we’ve outgrown our camper.

When we bought the camper in 2015, Bougie Boy was 4 and Bougie Girl was 7.  They were tiny and didn’t take up much room.  Now, they are bigger and have lots of stuff.

When we go camping in the summer, we usually spend most of our time outside.  When it rains, we spend time in other people’s bigger campers.  This time, we were flying solo…and it was COLD.  Unless we had an activity planned, the kids wanted to be inside the camper.

…and it was CRAMPED.

Also, with all those heavy clothes we ran out of space.  There was stuff everywhere.  Plus we had the dogs, we had to keep the heat on, we went through a ton of propane and there was nowhere to move.

Thus, the conversation was started.

Time to upgrade.

However, with a new camper, we need a new truck.  We can’t pull anything heavier with our current SUV.

As we traveled from campground to campground, we started really looking at other campers.  And Googling.  A lot of Googling.  We wanted to involve the kids too.  It is really important to us that they felt part of the process.  We asked them what they wanted in a new camper and what they liked about the one we had.  They basically had two requests…keep bunk beds and space to play.  That was easy!

Our friends met us at our last stop in PA.  As we sat freezing around a daytime campfire, we saw several campers that we liked pulling in.  Our friends encouraged us to go look at an RV dealership that weekend.

So we did.

All 8 of us piled into the SUV and took the ride.

How overwhelming!

What did we want? What were we looking for? How much weight did we want to have to tow? We must’ve looked at 50 campers that day.  New.  Used. Travel trailers. 5th wheels.  You name it.

So we left the dealership with some ideas.  We talked about what we wanted and what truck we had to buy the rest of the weekend and the whole ride home from PA to NJ.  Now it was time for YouTube.  For the next month, we watched videos of bunkhouses on YouTube at night when the kids went to bed.  One started looking like the next and I couldn’t keep them straight.

So with more information and questions that I knew what to do with, we went to an RV show in NJ.  The kids ran around like it was Christmas morning from one camper to the next.  “We like this one!” they would shout as they walked into each camper.  We made our way through all the travel trailers, and then took a look at the 5th wheels…just for some giggles.  We weren’t interested in 5th wheels…too big, too heavy, blah blah blah.

Well, I walked into one and walked out.  I didn’t even want to look at what it had to offer.  It was gorgeous.  There was no way it was in our budget and I didn’t want to leave there dreaming of 5th wheels.

The next one over had a big sign, “Best in Show!” My son sees that and immediately believes that we HAVE to go in it because of the sign.  Mandatory visit.  So we do, knowing that it was some pipe dream stuff.

It, of course, was.

But my kids fell in LOVE with it.  They had these visions of camping trips and friends and spaces for when they become teenagers and want to hang out in a different space than us. (God help me)

So that’s all Bougie Daddy had to hear, and he goes to find the rep for the company.

Together they lure me into the 5th wheel that I quickly walked out of before, “just to see.”

It was a trap.  I fell in love and so did the kids.  It’s much more camper than we need or want, but it is beautiful.  There’s so much storage! It’s set up so great! This can be our forever camper! (This is me rationalizing everything.)

Our original plan was to buy a used camper and a new truck.  Reverse.  Our new plan is to buy the new camper and a used truck.

So fast forward to searching for a truck that can tow this thing, trading in the SUV for the truck, and Bougie Daddy going to multiple dealerships for weeks searching high and low.

And now here we are.

We found a used truck in great shape.  (well, not we…he.)  This week we are getting the fifth wheel hitch installed and next weekend we get to pick up our new camper!

I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!

In the grand scheme of things, we use the camper so much.  It was inevitable that we were going to upgrade sooner or later. Now we have so much to look forward to!  We have most of our summer trips planned and I’m envisioning weekends filled with fun activities and lots of organized storage.  Gone are the days of excessive command hooks and clothes in tubs.  We will have drawers!!  Bougie Girl won’t have to clean off her bed of all her girly things she keeps on there so that we can flip up her bed for bike storage.

Oh, and what am I most excited for?

The bottom is enclosed.

NO MORE MICE!

(hopefully…those suckers are sneaky.)

xoxo

Michelle