Part 4

Living in a motor home with two small children is quite an experience, but not as bad as you might think. Zachary was too big to nap by then and there was no way to keep him quiet enough in that small space for Katie to nap, so she simply had to stop napping before she was even two years old. We made it into a home as much as we could. We had a small patio and we put all of the toys on it and made a make-shift fence around it. We spread out a big rug on the patio and put a T.V. in the outside compartments so that we had an outdoor living room. It really wasn't so terrible, and Joe and I always seemed to do our best together when we were in the worst situations. The R.V. Park had a pool, so while Joe was at work during the day, the kids and I spent all day swimming. Both my kids learned how to swim in that pool. All of the snowbirds staying at the R.V. Park loved Zach and Katie and we would stop and chat with them while we rode bikes around the parking lot. The worst thing about living in the motor home was the heat. Hemet reaches 110 degrees during the summer and it was impossible to keep our home cool. When we weren't swimming, we would spend time at Chucke Cheeses just to be in an air conditioned building. We also spent a lot of time over at my grandparents which was only about 10 minutes away. I always considered that a blessing. One night, while the kids were sleeping, Joe and I were watching T.V. outside in the living room, when we saw a mouse pop it's head out around the T.V. I freaked out, but Joe wouldn't do anything about it, so we saw our little mouse often. After we made it through six months of camping, we decided to move back to Vegas where it was cheaper to live and stay with Joes mom, who I didn't know well, until we could figure everything out. We had packed everything up and were all set to go, but the motor home wouldn't start. When Joe opened the hood to see what the problem was, we found our little mouse friends home. There was a huge nest in there and a whole lot of work to do to get rid of it, replace chewed on wires, and get going. It took us another week to get out of there and a whole lot of money, but we were on the road, back to Vegas. Joe got a job quickly at a rock plant and we moved into Joes moms house, all 4 of us in one room. Living with Joes mom wasn't too bad. His older brother James and his younger brother Nick also lived there, and it was interesting to listen to Joes family tell stories and argue. It really gave me insight into why Joe was who he was. His whole family was a bunch of loony bins! But it was quite entertaining for a time. One thing I love about Las Vegas is the parks. They are amazing and the kids and I would spend a good portion of the day at the park. The other thing I love about Vegas is Canyon Ridge Christian Church. I had finally found a really great church home and they had a small group called married, but spiritually single, where I found a wonderful group of women who knew exactly what I was going through. Thank goodness for these supportive women whom I leaned on for the next 5 years.