Florida

Florida has much more to offer than a famous mouse and amusement parks. There are ocean beaches, manatees, dolphins, gators and more, The winters are warm and the summers are toasty. It is a favorite area for many RVers.

We first ventured into Florida January of 2017, and didn’t even sleep there. We were parked in Alabama, and drove across the border into Pensacola to explore the Gulf Shores National Seashore so the boys could finish their Jr Ranger Books. The day we went over, it was windy, cloudy and rained on us periodically. We braved it anyway, and had a great time exploring the old Fort. We even ran into an armadillo and Emmett chased it around.

Our first offical stop in Florida, was Fountain Florida. A small town at the eastern end of the panhandle. It is about an hour north of Panama City. We were only there for a hand full of days, and ventured down into Panama City to visit a Childrens Museum, and we went to the beach.

The weather didn’t cooperate, so instead we ate Oysters, and filmed our first episode of “New Food Friday” If you haven’t seen it, check it out.

While there, we visited the Florida Caverns State park. These are small under ground caverns. The boys completed the Jr Ranger program, and we got a guided tour that was very educational, small and more personal than our visit to The Carlsbad Caverns.

From Fountain we were off to Tallahassee for the Fulltime Families Annual Family Reunion. We spent a week there for a four day event that was host to over 85 families doing exactly what we are doing. There were many different RVs, everything you can image. The kids played hard, and we made many new friends, and got to know a community of full time RV families. It was an amazing event. While there, we didn’t take many pictures, and just embraced the event. It was way more than we would have imagined it would be.

From the Rally, we headed south to TTO. For those of you that don’t know what TTO is, its Thousand Trails Orlando. This is the meca of Thousand Trails members that winter in Florida. Its a huge resort with close to 1000 sites. We made ourselves at home there. We ventured out and visited Ikea, what a great place!!! We got some things to really optimize our trailer, and give it some Boudreaux Flare. We also went on a Fulltime Families Field Trip to Legoland. It was a great day. The rest of the time there, we really just spent at the house relaxing.

Our next stop for a few weeks was Peace River RV outside of Wauchula Florida. It’s a part of the Thousand Trails system, so we reserved 3 weeks there to get some winter sun. While there we got to pan for fossils and sharks teeth. We also drove down to Sanibel Island to collect shells. The girls ventured down to nearby Myakka to watch the World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions practice, and Brittany applied for a job and got it! During our time there, we transitioned her from living at home, to living on her own. It wasn’t good bye, but see you later. She toured with the show that summer in the same general area as we were traveling!

So, we spent the better part of two months in Florida and we didn’t really do much. We did go to Legoland, and checked out a couple beaches. We went to the Fulltime Families Rally, then spend the next 7 weeks just kind of relaxing.

We did start a new life change, Doug and Harmony were working on losing weight. Which as of this moment, they have lost a combined 47ish pounds! We repaired some things broken on the RV during our time in Florida, we did some decorating, and just lived our life! We really focused on the YouTube Channel while there, to make it our primary mode of sharing our journey.