Fixing the Screen Door magnetic metal latches on my RV Entry Door

On the RV - My screen door just flopped around because the metal magnetic latches were broken.  I decided that this was the easiest and quickest fix and a good place to start with my rv restoration process on this 1982 Fleetwood Jamboree.

1. First I removed the broken latches with a handheld screw driver.
    
    
2. Then I took the broken part over to Al’s RV (a motorhome and trailer parts store in Arizona) to match it up with a new part.  I purchased 2 latches (one for the top of the door and one for the bottom).  This is what one package looked like:
   
    
3. After getting the latches back to my house, I took the original screws and manually screwed them into the door frame with the new latches in place.  Here is the finished piece.
   

In total I spent $7 for the new magnetic latches - and I am very happy with the result

I am in the process of writing a series of step by step articles (with pictures!) about my restoration process. If you would like to be notified about that series then tell me your email address:

On Our Way to the Grand Canyon

We decided to break up the drive so we made a few stops along the way to the Grand Canyon (remember we live in a small town were it takes about 10 min. to get from one side to the other so we are not used to long drives ). On Wednesday, we drove for awhile then pulled off to the side of the road in the RV, ate and then went to sleep.

Thursday morning we headed to Flagstaff picked up a few things at Safeway and Savers, which was right next store( I can’t pass up a good thrift store, or garage sale), while Jeff did some work in the RV. From there we headed onto Sunset Crater, camped at the Bonito Campground, and checked out the surroundings. That afternoon we visited the Crater. P fell twice on the slippery rocks and badly scraped her knee, however she was still up for and asking us to read all the info at each station along the trail. She picked up a big Basalt rock and wanted to bring it home, but she couldn’t . She did however  later find a smaller rock at our camp sight that she could take. We sat in the Crater parking lot the rest of the day Jeff worked, kids played, and I read. Come evening, back at the campground I made dinner, While Jeff and the girls made a fire and roasted some mellows. That’s right we let them have dessert before dinner, all’s fair on vacation .

Here is our Bonito campsite:

Girls and I outside the visitors center :

Jeff and the kids next to a Spatter Cone (where lava used to explode out of the ground) :

Friday we drove to Wupatki National Monument ruins (very cool):

Girl in the ruins game arena:

Lunch in the RV:

Later Friday we headed to the Grand Canyon! I’ll write about it in the next post. I hope you have the stamina to hear about our whole trip. I’ll break it up into segments. This might take a while .

Painting a Popup Tent Camping Trailer

As I decided to rebuild my pop-up tent trailer for family camping, I thought I should go ahead and paint it as well. I did not want to take it to Maaco or have a professional paint it because I did not want to spend that kind of money. I figured I could do this all myself for a whole lot cheaper. Here is what I did.

First I removed all the canvas off the tent trailer. Since a tent trailer is designed to have the canvas removed, this was a rather simple task. You will also need to decide if you are going to paint the inside of the trailer too. In my case, I did - in fact I tore out the inside completely cause I was planning on doing a complete restore. 

Canvas removal and body preparation

Outside: In order for the paint to look nice and adhere well, you need to remove all the decals, pin-striping etc. After all the decals are removed, you should give the outside a nice light sanding with about 120 grit sandpaper. 

After sanding, give the trailer a nice power wash. This will get all the loose dirt and sandpaper residue (for the original paint & sanding) off. 

Now it is time to mask off the areas of the trailer you don’t want to get painted. I masked off:

• Tires
• Door handle / latch
• Side lights
• Rear lights
• Trailer Tongue

For the parts I didn’t mask off AND didn’t want painted, I removed. for example, I removed the outside freshwater supply inlet and the land line power inlet.

Freshwater Supply Inlet

The Tongue on my Trailer was rusted and a very brownish color - I used this spray I got from Wal-mart that turns rust into black primer. Came out looking real nice.

Ok- now before you go any further, you will need a few items for the painting. Here is what you will need:

•  an HVLP Paint sprayer (I purchased this at Harbor Freight on sale for $17)
• An air compressor (the bigger the better as far as gallons go - but at least a 2 gallon)
• Vaseline
• 1 to 2 Gallons of Oil Based Paint for painting steel (I used BAR-OX Gloss enamel white paint. It is made by Devoe Paint)
• Paint Thinner

Now it is time to paint. First, make sure you are out in the open so the paint fumes and over spray don’t get on anything you care about. Now start your air compressor going to fill up the air tank. To get the paint ready, fill your HVLP sprayer about 3/4 of the way with the Paint. Now add paint thinner in small doses to make the paint more like water in thickness. This is so you don’t clog up your sprayer. Attach your Paint Hopper to the HVLP sprayer and then attach the sprayer to the Air hose.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Take that Vaseline that I told you to have handy and smear it on all parts of your body that is exposed to the air - Face, hands, ears, neck etc. WHY? Because you are going to get overspray and oil based paint doesn’t come off very easily. Having Vaseline on your skin allows you to just wipe off all the over spray that gets on your body. It is like wearing a paint suit, only cheaper

To spray, start at one end of the trailer and spray about 12 inches away from the surface of the trailer. Continue horizontally about your arms reach. Then let go of the sprayer trigger. And repeat this process back to where you started from. You want even spray stokes back and forth. Do this a total of two times before moving lower on the body. Then move to the area you haven’t painted on that side of the trailer and repeat this process over and over until the whole trailer is painted.

Painted popup trailer

When you are done painting, let it dry for at least 24 hours - then use a buffer and buff your new paint job

I am in the process of writing a series of step by step articles (with pictures!) about my restoration process. If you would like to be notified about that series then tell me your email address:

Welcome Back my Love!

After 2 years of not working from home, my Love is returning. Of our almost 9 years of marriage, only about 3 of those years he’s worked outside the home. I was used to having him around. Then 2 years ago he said that he needed to get an office here in town, I was very sad and shed quite a few tears. However after those 2 years, when he said he was returning home, I didn’t know what it would be like adjusting to having him here all the time again.

Well, last week was his first week working from home again, and I have already adjusted just fine . I forgot how nice it is to have him here! To be able to walk into his office just to say “I love you”, a kiss here a kiss there, him not missing anything that the kids do or say, being able to leave the baby here napping if I have to run and do something; these are just a few of the reasons it is awesome to have him back.

I know that it is a big adjustment for him also. He has been used to having the comraderie of other men around, and built friendships that he will miss. I pray we are making the transition as joyful for him as it is for us.

 We are all excited about now being able to take more and longer trips in the RV. We have a trip planned the end of this month to the Grand Canyon. We will be gone for a week this time, visiting other places along the way. Jeff looks forward to being a bigger part of the homeschool experience.  For this trip we will be taking a break from our normal school work and attempting our very first lapbook, the topic the “Grand Canyon” of course. With a little help from In the Hands Of a Child I hope it will be a great success. I’ll write more on lapbooking later.

Anyway in the words of my darling P “It’s going to be a new life for us now that Daddy is home.” (with excitement in her voice ). I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

The Boy’s Got Style

My son went almost a whole day dressed like this:

The shoes  are at least two sizes too big, but they have a choo choo(Thomas) on them, so they quickly became His favorite. He strutted around thinking he was very cool. At least the hat kept him warm .

Changing from Sonlight LA to English for the Thoughtful Child and Phonics Pathways

Homeschooling is quite the adventure. I thought I was going to make changes in our History/Geography from Sonlight. Turns out changes happened else where. I love Sonlight Cores, & Read -Alouds. My prior idea of stretching it out over two years did not fly with my girls. R (the one I was worried about it being to much for her to handle) would ask, “Can we please do the other page?” After trying to shorten things at least 4 times, and being met with the same response, we went back to the regular schedule. I believe we just needed to get into the groove. It has been smooth sailing since.

I ended up making the changes needed in Language Arts, however. SL Language Arts was too much work and did not suit the girls, very well. P’s reading level is way above the Readers 1 for SL LA 1. She was bored with the reading assignments, but the LA assignment were still at her level. I switched her to the Readers 2 (which we already had), and we still use some of the SL LA 1; such as the spelling lists, Explode the Code, and every once in awhile some of the activities and games. However for P’s LA we have switched to “English For the Thoughtful Child”. For R we have switched to “Phonics Pathways” with a little copy work added on, . Both of these are working great! I love their simplicity.

With ETC I love it’s artistic creative feel.The works of art to observe and discuss, the poems to memorize, the stories to narrate are all right up my ally. P catches on pretty quickly and loves to think through thing, so this book is great for her (I have a feeling it might not work for R, we shall see). The lessons are different lengths so sometimes a lesson take 1 day sometimes 4 days. It also depend on P’s understanding of the concepts,to determine how long we take. If you want or need a script this is not for you. You need to know or recall your early LA skills (no teachers manual). I did skip the lesson on the new moon, because I didn’t know the answers and couldn’t find them . Anyway I have been able to make this one really work for us. It brings in more of the Charlotte Mason methods I have been so interested in.

As I have said before, R has been begging to learn to read, just like Sister. SL LA K was good, but too slow for her liking. So I purchased PP. We skipped the Letter sounds; since she knew these; and started with the consonant short vowel blends such as- Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu. We are finished with these and are now on the short 3 letter word as in -Bad, Bed… It is amazing how the consonant short vowel blends help her to easily and quickly identify these words. The program is super easy (just a few minute a day). I love it! P reads very well. However I believe this program would have made it much easier and less confusing, than all my trial and error, ways of trying to teach her.

I’ll let you know if I change anything else .  All this can be frustrating, but part of it is fun because it means I am learning more about my girls and how they learn best. I do realize that I need to put more prayer into my curriculum decisions from now on. He knows better than I do, what they need. If I can hand this over to Him I  will fare much better in coming years.

A New Look

As you can see our blog has a new look. Tell me what you think. Do you like it more than the other one? I feel like this one is more “me”. I would love to be the person in this picture. On those hard days that come my way; I will day dream that I am in this heavenly place.

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

I foolishly caught a  baby horny toad on our camping trip, thinking we could keep it as a pet (a learning experience right?). Well R fell completely in love with Isabella Rose, the name given to our “princess” horny toad. R would stare at her and talk to her for long periods of time (notice that I said “would”). Upon arriving home after our trip we researched how to feed and take care of Isabella. It turns out horny toads are very difficult to keep in captivity. Even the San Diego Zoo lost hundreds their first time around. The recommendations were that you have many years of experience with reptiles before attempting to keep them as pets.

So before we had a dead horny toad on our hands, I told Jeff we had better set Is. free. The hard part came when I had to tell R. She begged to keep him at least until the end of the day with tears streaming down her cheeks. I told her we would, thinking it would be easier anyway with Jeff home. Night fell and I almost forgot about Is’s freedom ceremony. P was quick to remind me, as she has to do with many things(I’m very forgetful). I told R it was time, she cried, and my heart broke. As she gently held Isabella she told her she loved her and gave her a kiss. She was very cautious as she set Is. down still covering her with her hand afraid S would step on her. We watched Is. scurry into the dark. R tried to follow.

I held my little girl while she cried “But, I love her Mamma.”. I explained that when we love something or someone we have to do what is best for it/them. This was a hard lesson for my precious 4 year old. It is scary to think that many of the lessons my children will have in life will be much harder than this one. I trust that God will give me the wisdom necessary to help them learn and grow through these, and maybe soften the blows some.

Oh, by the way, we will be buying some gold fish this week, since we are studying fish in school.I hope there isn’t, but probably will be some lessons in mortality coming our way. I pray my animal loving girl can handle this one.

2nd RV Trip

We said we were going to do it and we did. We had our 2^nd trip in the RV. What a great time! Since we went by ourselves we decided to stay in a camp ground. The place we found was great. The camp sites were spread out very nicely, so we still had breathing room.  My Parents came to visit us on Saturday (lots of fun). We roasted mellows. I read to myself, the girls, and my hubby. I love when I have lots of time to read. Thank you Father for the silence! It was nice to relax together as a family.

Here is part of the view we had from our door:

My goofy kids:

Playing freeze tag with daddy:

Sisterly Love:

Breakfast in our home on wheels(little cereal boxes are such a treat):

Father and son, cloud watching:

Fun in the creek:

Enjoying Life:

Ok, so I took all the pictures and I’m in none of them. Believe me, I was there. 

I only have two complaints of the whole trip. One is that Jeff, R, and I got eaten alive by mosquitos. S and P must have special bug repellent built into their skin. But the rest of us were like an all you can eat buffet. At one point I must have had 10 layers of OFF sprayed on me. It seemed to do absolutely nothing!

Complaint number Two is that it went by too fast. We wish we could have stayed longer, and almost did, but the Boy went through all the t-shirts and onesies I had packed, in those three short days. Believe me none of them were clean enough to be used a second time (completely filthy).

The RV is one of the best purchases we have ever made. It takes a lot of the stress off of me and allows me to just enjoy these awesome times God gives us. I am so thankful for His creation of nature and His creation of my family; enjoying them together is the ULTIMATE! We would love to do this once a month.

More Adjustment To Be Made

I  have decided to take our History/Geography, Language Arts K & 1, and Science K (from Sonlight) and slow them down. It was just proving to be too much for us to finish in a day. Plus my 4 year old was not able to give me enough of her attention to complete the assigned reading for History/Geography, and Science (she really wants to participate with us though). I probably should have started with P4/5. If I would have used the Sonlight forums before ordering I would have figured this out.

 I plan on stretching 1 week into 1 1/2 or 2 weeks for all these subjects. In  H/G, and Sc. I will read only 1 out of the 2 pages required each day. I don’t think that slowing down will be holding P back any. I’m hoping that by covering 1 day in 2 it will give more review helping her to really remember what we are learning. In Language Arts 1 P is very capable of the work, however some days just have too much for her to complete. LA K is actually just fine for R, but there is no harm in slowing down some, she’s only 4. We’ll be doing “Teach Your Child To Read In A 100 Easy Lessons”, because she’s begging to read (we’ll take this slow also).

Our Read Alouds we will continue with as scheduled because the girls love them and do not loose interest. We have only substituted one of the books, “The Family Under the Bridge” for another one. In Math we will keep on track also. I have chosen to change our math program from Saxon to Math-U-See. I haven’t received it yet, but I will let you know how I like it. We recently got back from the Homeschool Convention and were able to see and touch the Math-U-See curriculum. We were really impressed with their workshop demo. If you know me, you know that I HATE math and am AWFUL at it. I was amazed that I understood their teaching methods as explained in the demo. The teaching DVD’s that come with it sound so great to me, especially as the girls get older and I become dumber. Hopefully this program will really work. It says a lot when I’m excited about learning Math again or maybe for the first time .

Again God is teaching me to let go of any unrealistic expectation I may set for myself or others. Not just homeschooling but life is full of adjustments and changes that need to be made. I pray that God will give me more wisdom with each learning opportunity so that there are less and less of these as time goes by. We’ll see what happens next year .