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Dairy Free Keto for Brain Health – Week 1

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Many people are jumping on the Keto diet for weight loss, but most have no idea that this diet is actually designed as a therapy diet for brain conditions. When my husband was diagnosed with seizures from a prior Traumatic Brain Injury, I knew this would be a helpful step in rehabilitation. I’ve opted into doing a dairy free keto since we have one child with dairy intolerance (no longer an anaphylactic allergy, but it instantly flares up his skin and ezcema to unbearable leavels) + we have seen how inflammatory dairy has been in the rest of us especially when it comes to congestion, allergies and pain.IMG_2110

We are already gluten free because of a wheat allergy, but we are making quite a few modifications to take out the dairy AND nuts, which can be two big elements of the keto diet. On top of that, we have one child that also has to avoid soy, avocado, banana and seeded berries (strawberry, blackberry, raspberry).

These are the recipes I compiled for week one of our Dairy Free Keto Plan. Many of the recipes leftovers make great breakfast by simply adding an egg on top, paired with one of the Keto ‘dessert’ type foods. We do a big breakfast meal here on the farm, generally a light snack for lunch and then an earlier dinner (since I have also been doing intermittent fasting for several months).

{DAY 1}
Breakfast: Nasi Goreng is hands down my new favorite breakfast recipe. I like to make a large batch since it heats up really well as leftovers (saving the eggs on top to cook fresh). I can make one mess to shred it all up and then be done for the week!

Dinner: Sheet Pan Chicken with Sausage and Asparagus I used pork sausage instead of chorizo since we have a good local source for that, but this was a good standard easy dinner to start off a Monday.  3D943CE4-DE4B-4479-B153-58D5035FBE2D 2

{Day 2}
Breakfast: Leftover Nasi Goreng with an egg on top and/or Dairy Free Chocolate Milkshakes (we have some very hungry growing boys around here that quite often eat 2 different breakfast meals by the time it is all said and done. I have had to sub the bananas in our original recipe lately for 1-2 cans of coconut cream since the little can’t do bananas, but this is a great dairy free keto treat.

Dinner: Drunken Chicken Zoodle Casserole. OMG this was SO GOOD! It was a bit more prep than some of the other meals, but totally worth it. I used chicken breast pieces, cut the chili garlic paste in 1/2 (since the kids don’t love super spicy), and used coconut aminos instead of the soy sauce, and it was just right. My husband and I love Thai food and the sauce in this recipe had such good flavor. Everyone raved about this dinner the whole way through. BONUS: This was even more amazing as leftovers!IMG_2108IMG_2111

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{Day 3}
Breakfast: Egg Salad I have no idea why I have not yet posted my Deviled Egg Salad recipe, but it’s super simple so I’ll just post it here. This is not keto in it’s original form, but the kids LOVE it, so I made a batch for them and then made some for us without the secret ingredient {brown sugar}. lol

To make this, I soft boil about a dozen eggs in the instant pot (put on the grate, add some water to the bottom and run for 4 minutes). Peel the eggs and mash them up into a bowl with some mayo, spicy brown mustard and just a pinch of brown sugar to taste. I am going to have to make this with measurements soon because I am the world’s worst at measuring. We love to use homemade mayo and I’d say I do several TBSP of that, 1-2 Tbsp spicy brown mustard and maybe 1-2 tsp brown sugar. Mix it all up and it does not last long here. For the kids who are still eating some carbs, they put this on some toast and devour it. We do the non-sugar version and mix in some chopped celery, onion and chopped pieces of leftover bacon into a bowl and….YUM.

Dinner: Keto Beef and Broccoli Bowls  These were yummy and the kids agreed they would like to have them again, but I think I’d tweak the sauce a bit next time to be a little thicker with a little more flavor. I found the broth watered it down a bit too much by the time it soaked in. We served these over cauliflower rice and overall it was VERY yummy and easy.IMG_2107

{Day 4}
Breakfast: Leftover Beef and Broccoli – this made great breakfast leftovers by heating it up and adding an egg on top! For the kids, I made a batch of Pumpkin Pie Pudding on the side and it was delicious!

Dinner: Superfood Baked Salmon Sheet Pan This was a beautiful dish to prepare and serve. I was honestly a bit underwhelmed at the flavors though when it all came out in the end. The wild blueberry balsamic basil topping did not have the punch I was hoping for, so I think I would add in quite a bit more garlic and lemon next time, as well as add some raw chopped bacon around the sprouts (nothing better than sprouts that can soak up the bacon flavor to crisp up while cooking).IMG_2106

{Day 5}
Breakfast: I used the extra sprouts from the night before as the base of this SUPER Sheet Pan Breakfast Hash. This will absolutely be on my morning rotation from here out. While I have used the brussel sprouts with breakfast several times before, adding in the raw bacon and then baking the eggs onto the sheet pan was just perfection!IMG_2114

IMG_2155Dinner: Egg Roll in a Bowl This was interestingly similar to the Nasi Goreng in the preparation – only instead of the broccoli this had a LOT of cabbage and also included ACV which gave it a notably different taste. While I ADORE the flavor the coconut aminos give to many of these meals, I have to change it up so we don’t feel like we are eating the same thing over and over (though essentially we are). HA. Overall though, another huge win – the kids devoured these bowls and it will definitely be staying in the Keto rotation!

UPLEVELING the Meal Planning

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Life has a good way of reminding us that we are never in control. This year has brought on new challenges that we never thought we’d be dealing with. When faced with an unexpected health challenger or diagnosis there are 2 choices: fight and do what you can to help your body heal, or give up and resign to let it eventually beat you down. I wholeheartedly believe that food is medicine, so when we found out this year that my husband’s twenty year career as a Marine left him with some long term traumatic brain injuries that are just now starting to present, a “no brainer” move has been to tweak our diets to give him the best possible nutrition to boost brain health and regeneration.

Part of his developing condition was the onset of focal seizures, which are not the typical seizure that people think of, but incredibly debilitating and damaging nonetheless. The Ketogenic diet was originally created as a therapy diet to deal with brain conditions like seizures. We are DEFINITELY not newbies to food restrictions and special diets with all the food allergies and chronic issues that we have been through with our kids, so going Dairy Free Keto was a fairly simple tweak to the diet we already had. It mostly meant taking back out some of the carbs and sugars that we had slacked and let come back in even though we eat a very real food diet already.

For me, the biggest step in making a diet change for our family is the MEAL PLANNING! This is such a foundational part of our week anyway since without the meal plan my days and meals turn into chaos.

1) IMG_2098I have been using the app Plan To Eat for several months now, and highly recommend this for anyone wanting to organize or start their meal planning. I absolutely LOVE this app for scheduling, tweaking recipe changes, saving new found recipes and putting together a shopping list of the week’s meal plan ingredients. This makes a weekly shopping trip a breeze and ensures I have all the items stocked and ready to go for what we plan to eat each week.

2) Once I’ve dropped in both a breakfast and dinner meal plan each day of the week, I transfer them to our Meal Planning Menu board  that is front and center in our dining/kitchen area so the whole family knows what to expect each day.

3) Adding breakfast to our weekly meal planning has made a WORLD of difference in our homeschooling routine. I refuse to let the kids eat sugary cereal each morning and call it breakfast, so putting in some variety lets them know what they can expect and what they are only allowed to eat that in the morning, even if they wake up before anyone else. Let me tell you – this has been a GAME CHANGER!

Do you have a meal planning system that you love? Share it with us below! Stay tuned for some of our weekly KETO meal plans and compilation of recipes.

Gluten Free Stirfry

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I often make meals that are healthy and meals that taste good, but they do not always align at the same time 😂 I try.

Tonight my 7 year old said as he was eating, ‘this tastes better than cake,’ so I figured this is worth writing down. This recipe is gluten free, dairy free, nut free and soy free and is both Whole 30 and Keto friendly.

I have been transitioning to cauliflower rice for obvious nutritional and health benefits, and am loving these super easy stir fry bowls. I’ve done chicken & broccoli but tonight’s rendition was Ahi Tuna steaks over the stirfry and it was GONE in a flash with rave reviews from all 3 boys. Super super simple.

PREP AHEAD:

Marinade Wild Ahi Tuna steaks a few hours ahead of time with a drizzle of olive oil (I use my fav Rosemary Thyme Infused oil) Coconut Aminos, and crushed garlic. Put in fridge.

Prepare homemade mayo if you do not have any (this is a soy free 4 ingredient super clean condiment that tastes WAY better than anything you get in a store)

  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp lemon juice
  • 3/4 cup LIGHT TASTING olive oil (do NOT use regular or it will be disgusting)
  • 1 Tbsp spicy brown mustard

Season with a dash of salt and blend all in a cup with immersion blender until nice and thick and creamy

Set in fridge and save for later

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When ready to eat:

Use any riced cauliflower of your choice (I have used several brands all with great results, but love the Green Giant with no additives or even seasoning). Pour out desired amount in an oven safe dish and add in a bag of frozen organic mixed vegetables or chop and pre-cook fresh veggies until soft and then add to cauliflower mix.

This is so easy it’s not really a recipe, but the simple seasonings make it go from blah to amazing. Stick the frozen cauliflower rice and veggies in oven or on stove until cooked through and hot.

When almost done, heat skillet over med/high heat and sear/cook the marinated tuna steaks (or can do the same thing with chicken). Depending on thickness I usually do 2.5 min per side for the tuna so they are still med rare.

Before serving, drizzle on coconut aminos over ‘rice’ and veggie mix, salt and pepper.

Top with Ahi Tuna steak and drizzle the ‘mayo sauce’ over the top. Enjoy!

New dōTERRA Oils, products and kids line!

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AMAZING!!!! Take a look at all these new dōTERRA oils and products!

People ask me all the time why we use dōTERRA. Did you know over 80% of all essential oils on the market have adulteration or contamination? Don’t mess around with that, you guys. dōTERRA runs each batch through 3rd party testing and are the only oil company that they have found without any adulteration. We use these for therapeutic benefits and on our KIDS too – why gamble with safety when you don’t have to. With allergies, we cannot risk that.

So….on to these new oils – I am ecstatic about every single one of these oils and cannot wait for you guys to learn about their intense therapeutic benefits! Many of these will be available October 1! Click on the links to get a lot of detailed info on how to use these!

As much as I was to firehose you with all this exciting stuff, we will take small bites and really dig into each of these over the next 6 weeks!

If you guys are in the medical field or into facts, science and research, you really need to download the live stream education and training. (events.doterra.com) There is a lot of very very detailed info on how and why these oils work with and for specific body systems….too much to effectively translate. 😂

What are you most excited about??

Turmeric (15ml)

Pink Pepper (5ml)

Green Mandarin (15ml)

Yarrow | POM (30ml droper)

(Yarrow EO in a specially blended Pomegranate Seed Oil delivery system)

Hydrating ‘Beautiful’ Blend Body Mist

Kids Line– 6 (10ml rollers)

– Brave

– Calmer

– Stronger

– Rescuer

– Steady

– Thinker

On Guard Mouthwash

Balance Natural Deodorant

Copaiba Softgels

Magnolia Touch (10ml)

Homework Helpers

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We do not even try to do school without these helpers at the table. Sometimes no matter how hard they are trying, they get into a rut with their work and need a little boost to keep the frustration and tension from taking over – sometimes them – almost always me 😁

These 2 rollers are must-haves to get the mood going back in the right direction and calm down the frustration!

Neroli is excellent to raise GABA and therefore lower brain chatter, also reducing stress and anxiousness – so we can reset and get back to square one!

Cheer is a great blend to do just what it says – cheer you up! Both are touch rollers so they are pre-diluted and super easy to roll on the back of the neck or along the spine right when you need it.

If you don’t have these two and want them – shoot me a message and I can get them to you stat. No one needs to try and get through homeschool or homework without them!

Hot wheels birthday cupcakes

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Every year the birthday ‘themes’ have become one of the things the boys look forward to the most, and SO FAR it has been enough to keep them away from wanting the big parties that so many kids have nowadays that I just really cannot stand. I love planning events more than the average mom, but when it comes to kids birthday parties, I can seriously do without all that crazy hype and social expectation.

I did, however, get myself into a bind with these themes and it started because my oldest (now 8 year old) was allergic to EVERYTHING and I did not want him to feel deprived of a birthday cake so had to learn how to make them myself and then make them look like I didn’t necessarily make them myself 😂

So each year the kids look forward to helping with their cake – the idea, design and implementation, though I am really trying to steer them toward the awesomeness of CUPCAKES! Amen?!

OH so much easier and way more practical. So this year my 7 year old chose Hot Wheels and we came up with this super basic cupcake and mini cake design that he loved. Easiest thing ever and he got to help pick out a few cars to use as toppers for .87 at the store. Win!

Ok, so when you let your 7 year old be in charge of the ‘grass’ it may look a little crazy, but who cares – they love it.

This was a simple gluten free mix.

To decorate:

1) spread some basic white frosting smoothly where you want the road. Be careful to ONLY put the frosting where you want the road or this part can actually go wrong

2) sprinkle on or dip upside-down into small black sprinkles for the ‘pavement’

3) use the green easy decorating frosting cans to make the ‘grass’ all around the road

4) place your little Hot Wheels car right on top

5) DONE! I mean, so easy and every little boy loves them.

Travel tip {doTERRA supplements}

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This is so simple, but oh so much cuter than other labels you can find. Many of you have these supplement travel cases that you can find at www.oillife.com or www.aromatools.com, but here is my tip of the day…

1) Gently peel back the label on an empty or almost empty bottle and cut just past the cute dotted border to make a square

2) Place your new little sticker on one of your vinyl zip pouches from the case

3) you now have your travel stash and do not have to sort by days (because SURELY I am not the only one that forgets and then gets all confused and stressed about what I needed to take when)

4) you can cut the ingredients label in the same way and put it on the back of the pouch in case you want to share with a friend and get questions about what specifically is included!

5) happy and HEALTHY traveling!

Cinco De Mayo Fiesta Menu

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FLASHBACK TO 2009!! I found this old post from our Cinco de Mayo fiesta 8 years ago and had to resurrect it. This was SUCH a fun party if you’re looking for some Cinco de Mayo fun this weekend!

If only I knew where my photos were from that year…..sigh.

Thankfully we’ve also come a ways in eating REAL food and there is so much of this that can be done with great ingredients, so lose the Lime Tostitos, Velveeta and the Diet Coke with Lime 😉
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One day left before the big Nacho Libre Fiesta and I think I’ve narrowed down the menu.  If you’re thinking of doing a Cinco de Mayo party at all this week here are some recipes and menu ideas I’ve rounded up that may be helpful.  We will have about 20 guests total.  I’ll post a follow-up next week to show how things went!

Taco Bar

  • Carne Asada (steaks thinly sliced and set in this marinade for 24+ hours)
  • Shredded Chicken (chicken breasts in Chipotle Lime marinade for 24+ hours)
  • Ground Beef with the organic taco seasoning
  • Crumbled Mexican Queso Fresco
  • Shredded White Blend Mexican Cheeses
  • Tomatoes, Onions, Lettuce, Cilantro
  • Corn and Flour tortillas from our local Mexican market
    (check and see if you have a local Mexican food market – the quality is MUCH better & they are generally cheaper)

Chips/Salsa Station

  • tortilla chips
  • Black Bean & Roasted Corn salsa
  • tomatillo salsa
    (tomatillos (halved, face down) and corn roasted under broiler, tiny bit of jalepeno, lime juice, onion, garlic, salt, pinch of sugar)
  • mango salsa
    (1 diced mango, can sweet corn, chopped red onion, chopped tomato, cilantro, lime juice, pinch of sugar)
  • guacamole
  • So-bad-for-you chili cheese dip (block of velveeta melted with 1 can hormel chile no beans)

Sides

  • Elote (mexican corn on the cob) as featured in Nacho Libre
  • Black Bean Cakes
  • Tostones (fried plantains) with garlic salt (best if plantains are still a bit green but just starting to yellow)

Desserts

Drinks

  • Margaritas
  • Diet Coke with Lime
  • Fresh squeezed Ginger Lemonade

Anyone else doing any Cinco de Mayo festivities?

FarmFit!

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This week’s farm task is prepping our garden area so we have a spot for the pretty raised beds we are constructing. We decided on a plot of land not too far from the house to start this venture, but there is not a flat spot up here, so we get to

1) move a LOT of dirt

2) terrace the raised beds

3) all of the above

Before any of that, we had a few dead trees that had to come down, so that leads to today’s WOD:: tree flipping! Who needs a gym when you have these tasks at hand?!

Seriously:: want to save a lot of $$, get an amazing workout, fresh air and sunshine!? We can hook you up! ?

We are planning to use part of this tree to fill the bottom half of the raised beds to compost out and also help with water retention. Hoping and praying our old tractor will help us with the next phases – brush clearing and turning up the dirt!

Welcome to Apple Trail Farm!

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  • We are so excited to finally land in this place we will call home and begin to develop our dreams to have a small bio-dynamic farm! So thankful for the twists and turns of life that have brought us here.The agenda moving forward is to spend time together as a full-time family learning the skills needed to love Jesus, grow healthy food, be responsible with our environment, contribute to our community, share essential oils, educate others on natural living options, and have lots of adventure along the way!
  • We look forward to continued airstream travels in our future, but stay tuned for more information on our tiny home on wheels taking on a special role as a landing spot/guest house for those of you who want to make a stop on your travels and adventures!
  • Follow along as we learn how to do this as we go 🙂 I’m sure we will make lots of mistakes and learn a lot the hard way, but we sure can’t wait to jump in and get started.
  • Our current projects:
    ~ renovating our mountain farmhouse cabin located in the center of our many acres of property
    ~ working the land and the pastures
    ~ growing an organic bio-dynamic garden
    ~ cultivating a ‘food forest’
  • In the next few years we’ll also plan to raise a large barn, add in chickens and some animals and harvest a few choice crops….including lots of apples from our apple trees!

Raised Beds

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We have been working hard moving stuff into the house, but we decided that our first big farm project (our list is long) would be to start our garden!

Not only will this give us {fingers crossed} lots of delicious organic produce, but will be a great thing for us to work on as a family and help us get off to a running start to working this land and having our farm actually produce something!

So we’ve started all our seeds and have a good batch of little things ready for their new homes. With the weather warming up and the ideal day to plant approaching (thanks, master gardener at the local market for your tips), it is time to build the raised beds.

We originally wanted to wait on a garden this year and had told ourselves we would not jump into anything this year since we needed time to survey the land and get to know what will work and what won’t, but of course we could not help ourselves and what better way to learn than experience, right?!

The garden will be grown with 100% organic seed and we’re going to attempt to control pests via companion planting. I’m sure we will make lots of mistakes along the way, but so far we have a good little batch of plants growing in!

We opted for raised beds for several reasons, the main being that we may learn the position of the garden may need adjusting over the years, and we can better control the soil and make adjustments as needed. We also plan to dig a trough for water collection around the top slope near the garden that will help retain a lot of water that the plants can pull from as needed. Thankfully here in North Carolina we get a lot of rain and things seem to grow really well without much assistance.

We’re  using a mix of corrugated metal and cedar to construct the beds. The corrugated metal cut down on the cost of making the entire things from cedar and also give them a fun industrial farm look. They finished the first 8′ x 4′ bed today as the prototype. It is over 2′ high which I think is quite a bit deeper than we will need or want, but we’ll see how that goes. We have a LOT of great usable dirt that we can pull from on the land, but are searching for a front end loader attachment for our tractor before we can really move the dirt that we want. Thankfully the farm came with an old John Deere tractor so we at least have something to work with and add attachments to as we move forwards.

We are still arranging the final layout of the garden area and have several more beds to construct, so I’ll do an updated post when we get them all built and put in!

the mountains are calling

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You know how the best things in life happen when you least expect it?! So much has changed for us in 2017. We stumbled upon a gem of a spot late January, and one thing led to another. Now we closed on our new home with lots of acreage in the mountains of NC! It has already been a huge adventure….one that is just beginning.


While our love for travel and adventure has not changed, our desire to have a home base and a place we can stay outdoors and work the land has led us to this area. We had never imagined North Carolina would be the place we’d call home, but now that we’re here we could not imagine it any other way!

The climate is very moderate both in summers and winters which will be a welcome change from the heat of the California desert. The views make it easy to hop out of bed in the morning and beckon for a cup of coffee with friends on the rocking chairs to wind down the day.

We have dreamed for as long as we can remember of eventually finding some land to homestead and let the kids run – to live a simpler, cleaner life and do it on purpose. While we aren’t planning on taking on animals for awhile so we can still hit the road in the airstream (once it returns from FL with all the repairs), we have an abundance of fruit trees and are seeding for our garden that will hopefully produce a lot of good food for us throughout the years. Amazing at how the boys are thriving in this new setting already. It’s like having a private mountain campground and the best part is we have no TV or screens to tie up their minds. They are playing hard, sleeping hard, and their sense of imagination and adventure is growing each day.

We couldn’t help but jump right into our projects and we have a long list that we’ll have to pace ourselves on over the years. First thing that had to go up was the new tree swing and we have spent the better part of the past 2 weeks cleaning out a lot of the house and old furniture as the original owners passed on many years ago and it has only been used as a short term vacation rental since.

While life in a small town will be a bit of an adjustment, we love the idea of the slower pace and have already met some wonderful people in the community.

Stay tuned for our updates on building a homestead, lots of fixer uppers (renovating our old mountain cottage/farmhouse), landscape projects, beyond organic gardening and our journey to create a small permaculture farm in time with the land we have been given! We hope you’ll follow us on this new chapter of our ever changing journey – we enjoy sharing this with you and hope for lots of friends and family to join us here in this new home!
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What next?

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So I really thought we should name the airstream Waldo, but it seemed rather masculine for it….after many conversations about the name we still have yet to nail one down since our children had strongly opposing opinions on the matter. Anyway, name or not, our little tiny home has landed for awhile and we are taking a ‘break’ with some family. In fact, they want us to stay around so much that they are actually finishing out their basement so that we can have a ‘landing spot’ to come during our travels with some of our own furniture from our last sticks and bricks house!! Can you believe that!? We are super blessed that they would even consider doing that for us, and we are helping right now as they finish off that basement area (which is actually larger than our last house). So yes, before we’re even fully done with the airstream we’ve found ourselves knee deep in another renovation project, but I guess we know by now we’re suckers for a good renovation. While we’ve had fun staying here for an extended visit with LOTS of space, we miss some of the simplicity of our tiny home and having all the essentials right there at our fingertips.

Never to worry, we are hitting the road again in a few weeks and will focus on traveling around the ‘other’ side of the country for most of this summer! While I can’t pretend for a second that I don’t miss California weather, it is fun to get out and see all of our wonderful friends on the east side 🙂

We are looking at 2017 being a GREAT year for us as a family, traveling this half of the country and visiting many of your smiling faces. Our 6 month crash into full time life on the road was a big success, despite doing part of it in construction and going WAY too fast for what we wanted to be able to spend time in each place and really get to know it well.

Our favorite take-away from the 12 states and 12,000 miles we put on the new truck was probably the time we had on the Oregon coast. We saw SO MANY beautiful places, but that one struck a special place in our hearts. Not sure if it was enough to pull us back to stay, but we still have a lot more states to explore!! Along with this transition, we are FINALLY settling in to a pace that we can manage, doing school with the boys and traveling around teaching lots of awesome people more about natural lifestyle changes and how to use essential oils. That also means I have more time now to keep up with our travels and our posts, which makes me happy. There are way too many memories that we’ve made not to document them and share them with those who are following our journey!

Stay tuned for our 2017 adventures!!

People make the places

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I’m pretty mad at myself. We are over 2 months into our life on the road and have been so busy figuring out this new life that I have been a complete failure at documenting our journey short of an Instagram photo a day (hey, at least we’ve got that going)! 

More than just a travel log, I want to capture the little things – stories of the people and the moments. Like the time we took a turn off because a boy needed a potty break and found ourselves in the little one horse town of Concrete, Washington.  Not only did we stumble upon an entirely gluten free cafe that was like a little slice of heaven for our two who usually can’t order much when we go out to eat, but we struck up conversation (and by we, I mean Erin since we all know he’s the outgoing one) with a guy who turned out to be the pastor of the church in town. In a matter of minutes it felt like we had friends there and before we knew it, our kids had a few new toys for the road and he was sending us off with a blessing and a basket full of fresh apples right off their tree. 

Or the new friend I made who chatter with me for 2 hours in an ER on Whidbey Island while our youngest was covered in blood and waiting for stitches.

Or a friend we know through doterra who opened up her cabin to us, allowed us to park at her house, made us a delicious salmon dinner and took us fishing the next morning. We may have only seen her a few times before this, but she treated us like family and the kids never wanted to leave.

Or the friend of Erin’s we met up with this week that he had not seen in years, who drove to another town in the pouring rain (though I guess there used to that up here in the PNW) and spent a few hours with us in the weirdest little coffee shop we’ve encountered yet. Who got on the ground and played with our kids. They cried when he left because they wanted to spend more time with him.

Their are still good people out there, and finding them is what makes our travel rich. It’s not the scenery, though breathtaking, because after awhile all the beautiful mountains, beaches and landscapes look the same. It’s the people. Life on the road is amazing, but lonely when you are moving from place to place. The people – both new and old friends that we are crossing paths with and the memories we are making with each other are the highlights of each week! I want to document the stories that our travel atlas maps will not be able to tell 10 years down the road!

Pismo Beach – CA Central Coast

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There is nothing as wonderful as waking up to the sound of the ocean, a cool breeze with overcast skies and nothing on the agenda for the day.


 Last night we rolled into our campsite at Oceano Dunes – Pismo Beach State Park!


This morning we set out on the trail from the camp to the beach with no idea what we would find. Thankfully after a pretty little walk through some wooded areas we came through the clearing to these awesome sand dunes for miles. 


So the shoes came off and hours of running, sliding, jumping fun in the softest, finest sand we have found in this country ensued.


Thankfully they wore out for a short bit and I had a few minutes to snap some pics against this perfect coastal dunes backdrop.


We also discovered Pismo recreational vehicle area is the only place on the CA coast that you can drive your vehicles right onto the beach (at your own risk of getting stuck, of course). Thankfully the beach was still open and beautiful with the occasional horseback rider in the distance.


Pismo is a nice change from the crowded beaches of LA or the rugged coastline further south, and we LOVE the cooler climate of central coast!!