The Bunch Get Ready for a Shake Down Trip.

One of many Amazon deliveries the new trailer needed.

What is a shake down trip? Well my non-rver friends, a shake down trip is the first trip you take your rv on. When new rv's are shipped to the dealers all the components are not tested (i.e. some parts will be faulty and need to be replaced). A shake down trip is where you stay close to home, and dealer, so if you encounter any issues you can immediately take it back to the dealer to fix. Since it has been below freezing, we have to keep the pipes winterized with anti freeze so it needs to be above freezing when we are gone so we can flush the pipes clean (and then probably re-winterize it when we get back). Temps this week are in the 30's and low 40's so next week looks like a better time to try it out.

We have decided to break our big trip up into 2 smaller trips. The first trip will be in May. We will visit Hot Springs, AR; St Louis, MO; Williamstown, KY, and Chicago, IL. The girls are excited about a "spa day" in Hot Springs. They were a little weirded out when they heard it was a public bath house until I explained it was just like a public swimming pool, but with the water from the Hot Springs. We aren't actually bathing in them! I am not sure yet what we will do in St Louis, but it is about half way between Hot Springs and Williamstown so it will be a stop. Williamstown has a life size version of the Arc that I have wanted to see for awhile. Chicago is the highlight of the trip. We plan to visit Maggie Daley Park (this is the coolest looking park I have ever seen), Millennium Park (have to get the iconic cloud gate  pic), and Lincoln Park (the park where Lincoln Zoo is located). It should be loads of fun, but since it is the windy city I am a little nervous about towing the trailer in high winds. D, on the other hand, won't shut up about how it is the murder capital of the USA. I have promised we won't go outside after dark. Dallas isn't too safe at night either so I really don't think there is too much of a difference. It looks like a great city with loads of free stuff to do. It really speaks my language!

I am teaching the girls' scout group about my people (the Cherokee's LOL) so we made dream catchers as a craft, plus it helped me use all the molted chicken feathers we have EVERY WHERE.

A native hairstyle called squash blossoms. Not a great look and rather hard to do, but the girls had fun styling each others hair (and mine).

T's basketball team made it to the finals, but sadly lost so they came in 2nd in their division. We would have won if we would have made more of our free throw shots because the other team fouled A LOT. However, everyone was just slightly off on their shots and we just came up short.

NO one else on his team ever showed up until there was like 5 minutes until game time. It ALWAYS made me nervous we were going to have to forfeit.

T's team with their 2nd place trophies. Some of them were not very sportsman like and I was proud that T wasn't like that at all. He just had fun and didn't take it too seriously if they lost.

We made Hawaiian turkey burgers for the Super bowl with homemade teriyaki sauce and grilled pineapple. Yummy!