Traveling Wishes

Changes again!

2010-01-15T13:44:00.000-08:00

Our new little house in the desert. As you can see we need to do some landscaping!

What an unexpected, whirlwind, upside down year God has led the Haroldson family through. It has been such a blessing to know that the love, support and prayers of so many were behind us.

Last winter we found that we all had a growing desire in our hearts to do something different and stretching. We had talked many times about taking our music on the road. We all loved traveling, performing and most of all we had seen the impact and the fruit of our ministry in a way that was hard to put into words and define. But we knew we did have something to share and we wanted to explore how God could use us. So when circumstances in our lives changed to open the door to go on the road, we all felt ready to take the leap and see where God led us.
What a trip it has been! We have performed at churches all across the country, festivals, RV parks, schools etc and we have visited congregations of all denominations; Presbyterian, Full Gospel, Baptist, etc. And we have learned so much about ourselves and about the way Christians “do church”. One of the most important things we have learned is that there are Christians all over this country faithfully preaching God’s Word. God is being glorified in many different ways and through various worship styles all over this land. We learned that our way of “doing church” was certainly not the only way and that though we all have our personal preferences there are many, many ways to serve the Lord in His body. It has been so exciting to see!
The fellowship time after our concerts has been precious, as that is when we really have a chance to see God at work. We have been able to discuss all varieties of subjects with others including family, marriage, homeschooling, courtship, parenting and most importantly of all, Christ. We have encouraged a sad gentleman to return to his wife, prayed with another as he received Christ and encouraged others to make their relationship with their teens a priority. Our young adults have had invitations to talk to youth groups and they have had a chance to answer question such as “Why don’t you have boyfriends?” and “Do you really like being with your parents?” We know God has used this time to improve our music even more and to define our style. But more importantly our ability to share Christ, to be stretched out of our comfort zones and serve, has also had a refining and stretching that we hope will continue. In addition we have been encouraged, taught and challenged by different Pastors and church bodies all over the country.
We have also had lots of fun, seeing National parks, museums, historic sites and even Disney World! We have learned to do without, proved that 8 people can live in 300 sq feet quite happily and that all the material possessions we left behind in storage are really not that important. (Although right now we sure wish we had our winter clothes!) This experience has been an awesome, memory making, and growing time for all 8 Haroldsons.
When we set out on this adventure we decided we would try to do it for one year with the understanding that God would lead us and guide as to when and where to stop. Some aspects of our travel have been very hard and some younger family members have had a harder time than others with the more difficult aspects of this lifestyle. As parents, we began to feel that the benefits and delights of our travels the older family members experienced were not equal to the stress on some of the younger children. In addition Kelsey became engaged to Rick Holets, (the oldest son of our long time friends David and Rita Holets) and naturally she is eager and excited to settle down with him in his home town area of Albuquerque. So, a few weeks ago Dennis began to look for a job that would enable us to settle back into one place and we began to get a vision for how we could continue our ministry but still have a home base to give the younger girls more stability. We wanted to really let God guide us in showing us where and how He could use us. As we traveled we considered other states and places for our future home. All along our trip we visited some great churches that we felt we could settle right down with and we saw some lovely places that we really felt drawn to but the bottom line is we all really missed New Mexico and the west. We have deep roots here and all our family is in Colorado and New Mexico and Kelsey’s future husband is here, so we began to seek out a job situation for Dennis back in NM. The day after we began looking several openings came up in his field in the Rio Rancho School district (For those of you who are unfamiliar with the state, Rio Rancho is a city of 70,000 right next to Albuquerque NM). He was offered 2 different positions and he has accepted one. Brock has some great opportunities in Albuquerque and needs a bigger city for his chosen profession and Kelsey and Rick will be settling in the Alb area where Rick has a job as an engineer. So we felt that God had strongly pointed the way for us to settle down here.
We are blessed to already have good connection with Word of Life Fellowship in Albuquerque and will be making that our church home. Another awesome way that God has engineered this move is that the Pastor of Word of Life is a recording engineer and musician who can encourage and help the kids with their music. So we will be ending our adventure as fulltime musical gypsies and settling back to a more conventional lifestyle. We have found a nice house on ½ acre lot to call home and we are excited about fixing it up and making a new nest. We want to let you know that we will be open for visitors this summer!
June 5, 2010 will be an exciting day for all of us as Kelsey becomes a wife and we gain a new son! And we gain a new band member as Rick is also a musician who composes and plays keyboard, mandolin and guitar. So Desert Skies will continue in a new home base and we already finding opportunities awaiting us here in the Albuquerque area and further a field in the state to share our music.
We will be selling our big, full timer’s RV and then looking for a smaller “weekender” size unit so if anyone know another family who needs an RV that sleeps a crew, send them our way. To our Four Corners area friends, we will miss all of you but we are only 3 hours way and now you have someone to visit in RR!
Love and Blessings,
The Haroldson’s

And the Winner is.....

2009-11-05T18:39:00.000-08:00

We have 30 states under our belts now and for each of us certain things have stood out in certain places. So I decided to give our some informal awards for my personal favorites. Just a clarification, these prize winners represent my personal favorites and may not necessarily represent the views of each member of the family!

Best Scenery: East Tennessee, Great Smokies

Best Church Potlucks: Idaho

Hottest Temperature so far: Spokane, Washington - weird I know

Best Fall Colors: East Tennessee

Best prices on groceries: Indiana

Favorite Tourist Attraction: Colonial Williamsburg

Favorite National Park: Yellowstone

Favorite Museum: Smithsonian Air and Space

Best State Park: Turkey Run, Indiana

Most stuff seen and learned: Washington D.C.

Saddest Place: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Friendliest People: every state!

Strongest Accent: East Tennessee

Prettiest Town: Annapolis, Maryland

and finally

Favorite Concert : Albuquerque , New Mexico

Grocery Shopping

2009-11-05T18:17:00.000-08:00

My 23 year career as a Mom I have relished shopping the food sales, stocking up my pantry when prices were low and feeding my family for as low an amount as possible. Moving into an RV meant giving up my 2 pantries my giant freezer and my money saving habits. I have made peace with shopping every other day and learned to resist the urge to purchase 2 cases of tuna when I see it on sale but I just can't bear to pay full price for something that is supposed to be on sale. And most stores insist you have a shopper's membership card in order to get the sale price. So I collect them all. I refuse to pay .99 when there is sale sign for .79! Wish they just give everyone the sale price and not make us get the cards! My wallet is getting heavy!

RV Living

2009-10-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

Many folks wonder how we can fit 8 people into a motor home and live in it as our full time home.

It really is not as bad as it sounds at first! Condensing your life into a very small space is really quite therapeutic and gives you an opportunity to find out what is really important to you. When you only get to bring along one small box of your personal possessions you really have to think about what is really important. And when you go from 10 feet of closet bar to 10 inches... you find out you really didn't wear all those clothes anyway! Surprisingly, (or maybe not) none of us miss too much of the "stuff" we had to leave behind, But we have a motor home that it especially suited to a large family. It took along time to find and there are not many out there. But God brought us the exact one we wanted in most amazing way and at price we could afford. Now it is not the perfect house for 8 people, 4 of them adults, but it is about as good as it can get for our adventure so unless someone wants to give us a half million dollar entertainer's bus, it is home, sweet home! And since that is highly unlikely let me tell you what we like about our house on wheels:

1. It has 2 bathrooms! That's right, a motor home with 2 restrooms, one with a shower, one with just the "necessities". This is such a blessing with 6 women in the family!

2. It has a sleeping space for each of us. Since most RV's are made for retired couples who only need one bed, this is a big deal! There is an amazing amount of privacy for the space.

3. It is a cool color.

4. It has a big slide that makes it so much more open and spacious feeling.

5. And that slide makes it large enough for us to practice in.

6. It tows our Suburban without us even noticing it. This is very important as most RVs cannot tow more than 5,000 pounds and no 5,000 pound vehicle holds 8 people.

7. And Dennis' favorite, it has an International diesel engine and chassis, that is WHY it can tow the Suburban.

OK, I'll admit eight people in an RV does cause some inconvenience so here is what I don't like:

1. I miss my washer and dryer.

2. My pantry is not big enough to shop the sales any more and stock up so grocery shopping cost me more than I'm used to.

3. We seem to be getting more colds as it is hard to isolate a sick person.

4. No bathtub.

5. Not enough room for all my books and shoes.

But it is home for now and an adventure like this reminds you that home really is where your heart is anyway, not walls and doors!

Maryland

2009-10-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

Did you know that the people in Maryland will feed you delicious meals, take your dirty laundry home with them and return it folded and smelling sweet, bring you gift boxes of yummy snacks and bake you muffins, cinnamon rolls, cookies and homemade bread? Did you know they will gift you with an old family violin, loan you movies and take you out for dinner? I think we will have to come back to Maryland! Thank you to all our new Maryland friends!

Three days in July,1863

2009-10-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

Brock strolls down the path at Gettysburg battlefield.

When Dennis realized we were so close to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, one of the most significant battle fields of the war between the states, he decided we just had to stop by. It was a sobering and moving time, walking the battlefields and the cemetery, seeing where history had been made and thinking of those long ago mothers, wives and sisters. I had expected to see one large battlefield and was surprised to learn that the battle really took place in the whole town and surrounding area. 50,000 men were casualties of the battle on July 2, 3 and 4th, 1863. Northern and southern soldiers were doing what they thought was right to preserve their homes and families. As I watched Brock walk through the battlefields I could not help think of all the other strong and vital young men who walked there only to have it be their final resting place. I thought of the mothers all those years ago who saw their sons ride off with bravery, enthusiasm and loyalty, never to return home. When President Lincoln visited the battle fields and saw the hurriedly made grave sites he ordered that all the men, Confederate and Union, be buried in a proper cemetery. At the dedication of the cemetery he gave his most famous speech, the Gettysburg address, words that still live on today. It is ironic that President Lincoln said " The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. " Lincoln was wrong about that! His words are now engraved on the cemetery monument, hang in the Library of Congress and the White House walls, are etched in stone on the walls of the Lincoln memorial and are some of the most quoted words an American has ever uttered. Visiting the site has sparked an interest in me to learn more about this time period and the struggle our country faced as a young nation with a huge divisive problem to solve. Any book or movie suggestions for me?

The Valley of Death, where thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers were lost.

Cows, Corn and Cold!

2009-10-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

Indiana was great fun! We have enjoyed the hospitality of the Hoosiers immensely! Our host family outdid themselves with love, food and friendship. Their home church was welcoming and supportive. And so we now have discovered another home away from home in the south Indianapolis area.

One of the highlights of our visit here in the Hoosier state was an opportunity to perform at the fall festival of a large dairy. Knowing nothing about milk cows, we took advantage of the chance to learn a lot more about where our milk comes from. Did you know that a dairy cow eats around 100 pounds of food a day and drinks 30 gallons of water? All that intake results in about 8 gallons of milk per day for human customers. That is a lot of food! I was impressed with the routine cleanliness of the process and the space and care the cows are given. I think we hear a lot of myths about our food production and quality that we might find out are not true if we got a chance to tour actual facilities. Of course raising animals involves a certain yuck factor...they have to make manure! But that same a manure is used to fertilize the acres of feed corn fields that feed the cows so it is an efficient system.

Our awesome hosts! Who just happened to have the same names as us! Thank you Dennis and Tracy!

Jocelyn displays CD's.

Performing at Kelsay Farms, see the gloves? It was cold!

2009-09-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

In spite of being born in Europe, I am a western girl! I have very little memory of my childhood in England and many memories of California, Colorado and New Mexico. I have had some wonderful trips to Idaho and Montana. I am acclimated to dry weather, big skies and low density population. So I was completly surprised that I love the mid-west! I had a mentel picture of flat land, grasses, few trees, tornados and brown wheat fields. Although I hear there are parts of the mid-west that meet that description, the route we have taken has surrounded us with giant oak trees, abundent wildlife, rolling hills and the prettiest, tidiest little towns I have ever seen. Although midwestern winters don't sound too fun to this desert girl, and I still don't like the idea of tornados, I am quite smitten with the scenery. Here are few photos of the sights that we have enjoyed.

Wild turkies in Nebraska

Hiking in the woods of Wisconsin...like Laura and Mary Ingalls

Cool mushrooms!

A covered bridge in Illinios

2009-08-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

This past week we had the blessing of attending "Renewing the Family" camp in Glorietta, New Mexico. ( www.renewingthefamily.com/) This camp is a time for families to gather together and build relationships by playing eating, learning and worshipping together. The topic of the camp this year was love and we heard teachings on love as it applies to marriage, parents and children and the body of Christ. The messages were well presented and very challenging but, for me, one phrase that was used really jumped out at me as it has become our life lately. Pastor Swanson of Reformation Church mentioned the type of love we are all called to have, phileoxenia or a love for strangers or foreigners. I immediately thought about all the wonderful churches and families we have had the privilege of staying with in the past 2 months. When we set out on our journey we knew we we would be asking the body of Christ to host us as we traveled from church to church. We arrived in church parking lots and in driveways of complete strangers. We were greeted with hugs, handshakes and hospitality every single time. We have been parked our motor home in the driveways and in the backyards of complete strangers, used their utilities, borrowed showers and kitchens and surfed on their internet. We have been fed their best food and given gifts. In our RV right now I am using a new road Atlas (thank you Paul) , Huckleberry jam (Amber) a Montana Gazetteer, (Sandy), caramel (Tracy D) and homemade lemon curd (Darcy), We have done laundry, fixed cars, and built a bookshelf in the yards of new friends. We have sung praise songs, read Scripture and prayed with people we only met 24 hours earlier. We may have arrived as strangers but we left as family. We have truly been given the gift of pileoxenia! I did not know that term until this weekend but I have been humbled to be the grateful recipient of it for 10 weeks now. I hope when we are settled back down that we are given many opportunities to practice it from the other side of the fence but right now I am enjoying the love of Christ body and being reminded that we are truly all one family, wherever we go!

Porky-kines

2009-08-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

When you go on a trip one of the fun aspects for old and young alike is to collect souvenirs. Souvenir is a derivation of the french word for ”remember”. And on a cold winters days, those funny little items that you picked up in gift ships and tourist traps bring you a touch of that summer vacation feeling. But living full time in an RV makes is hard to buy anything, let alone a semi- useless item just to remind us of our stops. Storage is limited and must be allotted for only those things that are functional and necessary. However, when your 7 year old has a thing for porkykines you just have to let her have a few! Ohh..you say you don’t have any idea what a porkykine is? Well, you’d probably call them pine cones but when Miss J was little she confused the words pine cones and porcupine and some how a new critter was born in our house.... the porkykine. Now at 7 you’d think she’d notice that she pronounces it differently that the rest of us but she does not, largely because none of us can bring ourselves to correct her. Those mispronunciations are so cute and hard to let go of as they grow up. This love of nature souvenirs makes them are a sought after item to Miss J and she has a keen eye to spot them. Washington and Idaho state have plenty of them to find so she was amassing an excellent and slightly inconvenient collection of her type of souvenir. No souvenir spoons or T shirts for this girl! (She also brought about 50 acorns from Spokane in the RV intending to keep all of them. She had never seen a real acorn before so they were a wonderful discovery to her. ) We have indulged her collecting a bit more than the space in the RV warrants because she is the littlest, because she cheerfully gave up so many of her favorite items to make this trip and mostly she is so darn cute about it. Visiting with the Fernwood Community Church in Idaho brought her a new opportunity for expanding her growing collection. When a lady from the church saw Miss J picking up the pine cones and running to show them to us, this benefactor realized that J needed a REAL porkykines. So the next day, by special delivery, these arrived as a gift for our collector. When she removed them from bag her face and exclamations were precious. She could not have been given a more exciting gift. And of course we cannot tell her we don’t have room for them …..so I guess they will be traveling with us to points east of Idaho . They are some of the prettiest porkykines I have ever seen!

Tracy

PS After hearing me work on this blog Miss J figured out it was really pine cones. Now I am sad!

2009-07-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

Birthdays on the road will have to be celebrated in a different way than we did at home. Usual traditions will have to change and new traditions will have to be created. Birthdays are special at our house, as I am sure they are at yours, and in the 23 years our family has existed some particular Haroldson family "Must Dos" have evolved. First off, on your birthday you always get the day off from chores. If your birthday falls on a none chore day such as Sunday, then you get the next work day off. Then you get to pick the meals for the day. A popular breakfast choice is always Daddy's Roll Up Pancakes (crepes). The day before the birthdays we have the "PARADE OF PRESENTS". All non birthday family members go into Mom and Dad's room with bags and wrapping paper and fix up your gifts that have been collected over the last few weeks. We wrap them and then with a lot of fanfare and silliness we carry them out and around the living room in a parade. Then we deposit them in the lap of the celebrant and let him/her shake them for a while before displaying them in anticipation of the next day. And of course you get to choose a flavor of cake you would like! Brock just celebrated his 22nd birthday on July 17. We had a concert scheduled for a church plant it in Helena, Montana that evening. He got 3 small gifts wrapped in pillowcases. We only had about 3 feet in our tiny living room for the parade so it was not very impressive. His cake was a leftover chunk of cake from the church concert and his dinner was a quick sandwich grabbed before we performed. But he had just as special a birthday as ever! Traditions in a family are important but it is also good to learn to go with the flow and adapt to your situation. A birthday is a birthday where ever you go!

TLH

Travel Update 1

2009-07-14T11:20:00.001-07:00

Every so often I thought I'd post a bit about where we have been and what we have seen. So this is our travel update number one. After this I hope to do them once a week. Our first month has gone so quickly and I can't quite believe it has been that long! Our first stop was in Parker, Colorado where we camped out at the home of some good friends and worked on some repair and fixing up of our new home. Organizing our RV to hold all we needed to was a big job and is still being refined. The Denver are was rainy and mosquitoes reigned, covering us all in bites but while visiting our friends we got to do some fun things. This was one of my favorite things. I am enjoying a snuggle and a rock with Miss K and tiny Master W.

After the repairs etc we headed for our annual trip to the GospelGrass festival where we got to play music, reacquaint ourselves with other family bands we only see once in a while, watch friends play music and enjoy the annual band's dance. Then we were off to Wyoming to play at the Cody Rodeo, visit Yellowstone and then up into Montana where we are now. In Canyon Ferry, Montana we had an unexpected encounter with a bear, which you can see in person if you check out Brock's video blog here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Brockgrass. He has set up his own channel on You Tube to post video blogs about our travel and you can also see chapter one at this location.

We have one more day in the state of Montana and then it is on to Washington and Idaho for a week. There we will meet in person several sets of friends we have only met in cyberspace....should be fun!

TLH

The Adventure of the Unknown

2009-07-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

Our first month living in our RV, traveling and playing music has come to an end!
And, as with all new ventures, we have found out there is a lot we don't know about just what we have undertaken! Here are a few unknowns we have encountered so far:

1. We don't know how to cook in our mini kitchen with no oven and very little prep room...eating has not been very healthy so far.

2. Some of us don't know how to use a laundromat washer...but we are learning! (We did learn by observing a vey nice but upset lady in West Yellowstone: NEVER, EVER put in too much soap!)

3. We don't know where we will be in 8 weeks.

4. We still don't know where to put all the stuff we brought. We have a silly routine of "Put it on Mom and Dad's bed in the day, put it on the floor at night" and do it over each day. But fortunately the pile is getting smaller as time goes on.

5.We don't know how to put a music player on this blog!

6. We don't know if we trust Dad's inner sense of direction implicitly OR if we want to listen to "Lola", our GPS unit. They have both gotten us into trouble!

7. We don't know how to allow one person to sleep in while the others get up in our little home on wheels. The fact that we don't know how to do this is especially upsetting to Miss S and Miss N!

8. We don't know how to play music in the sun...so far we have been followed by a rain cloud that has made all our outdoor performances a little, well, damp.

But all these things are part of the adventure and the joy of our year on the road. We aim to conquer many of the unknowns while remaining calm and content about the ones we will never figure out. We do know this however, there are many, many other things we don't know how to do that we have yet to discover!
Tracy

Taking the Leap

2009-07-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Traveling Wishes...it is the name of a song Brock wrote. It one of his first compositions, a reflection of his desire to travel. Traveling Wishes...a desire all of us felt, a restlessness to see new things, things we've only read about and to meet new people and explore the country. But how do you take a family of 8 with children with ages ranging from adult to early elementary, leave behind "normal" life and just go travel the USA? Well you just jump in! And that is what we did. After prayer, checking it out with church members, with friends and family, and after countless hours of talking among ourselves, we felt that circumstances in our lives had led us to a point where a year on the road was possible. Our desire for our gypsy year is to explore the US with the children, share the music of our band, Desert Skies, with others and to inspire other families to have a vision for activities and ministries that will bring them closer together. So we did away with home ownership and a regular paycheck, put individual plans on hold and now we are free to see where God would lead us. So welcome to our journey! We invite you to check in and see what roads we end up on. You will also be able to follow our journey at the girls blog, www.haroldsonsisters.blogspot.com or Brock's video
journals on You Tube. Grab your map and see where we are, maybe we will come visit your neck of the woods!
Tracy