Focht Family Blog

This week has been busy as always but we have had some fun surprises. On January 14th, my baby boy turned 6!!! I still can’t believe that he is already that old. On Joshua’s birthday we spent the day at Hollywood Studios since he wanted to have lunch at the Sci-Fi Theater. After lunch we headed to Rock-N-Rollercoaster so that Samantha and Timmy could ride. When we came out of the ride, my mom was talking to a woman and her kids and it ends up that it was Kerry from the comments on my blog. Kerry was one of the first people that was not family to leave a comment on my blog. Over our years on the road I have emailed her many times because she wanted to be able to do the same with her family. She is now on the road and somehow my mom and her met up outside of the ride. Kerry has 6 kids and her oldest daughter is the same age as Samantha. The girls instantly bonded. Kerry and her family ended up at the same campground as us for the last few days so the kids have been playing together, doing school together, swimming together, and we even had a sleepover at our house for the girls. Here is a picture of Samantha with Katherine this morning as their family was saying goodbye…

New toys… I finally ordered a dishwasher. It is a portable countertop dishwasher that holds 6 place settings. I LOVE IT!!! I am convinced it takes less water than I use when I wash dishes and it gets them much cleaner than I could. Nathan is already trying to figure out how to get rid of it but I don’t think he wants to pay for the drawer model to be installed since there would be cabinetry changes needed. Here is a picture…

New Skills… Samantha has been wanting to learn how to cook. I told her that once a week she could choose something to make. Today we were at Publix getting groceries and I was looking at some of their recipe cards that are free to take. Samantha asked if she could pick one to make so she chose a Raspberry Salmon with Butter & Herb Rice. Since we don’t eat seafood we changed it to a chicken recipe and gathered all of the ingredients. Tonight she made dinner and dessert. She did everything herself including turning the chicken when it was needed. She has never cooked before except for making brownies. Everything tasted WONDERFUL!! She did an amazing job! Here is a picture of my dinner…

Samantha chose Pillsbury Grands cinnamon rolls for dessert. Again she did everything by herself….

I should have let her try this years ago! It was so nice to have a wonderful dinner and dessert and not have to do anything but the dishes and with the dishwasher that was an easy job!!

I don’t think my pictures will do justice to Nathan’s hard work but I will try. Here is a picture of Samantha’s room area….

Nathan’s dad built the base for the bed and the dressers and mattress are from our old house life. They have been in storage.

Here is another picture of the dressers with the guinea pig cage…

Here is a view of the major building project… the boys’ loft.

There is a hole in the middle of the loft that the boys crawl through to get to their beds. The loft is mounted on the hydraulic system so it can still be raised if we need it to be. Otherwise we leave it set at 60″ from the ground. Here are pictures of the loft taken from above…

Nathan still needs to add railings to the feet of the beds and the sides of the hole and build a ladder. Right now they are using a step stool to climb into bed…

One of the things that we lost with this fifth wheel was a bigger fridge. We had a 12cf fridge in the RV but this one only has an 8cf fridge. So Nathan bought a small (10cf) residential fridge and put it in the garage area….

We also lost our large pantry so across from the fridge is a new pantry…

AND the best addition is Nathan’s Christmas present to me…

Now we can do laundry without having to go to the laundromats. My mom doesn’t know what to do with all of her time since she is the one who usually went to the laundromats while I stayed home with the kids.

Last night we put the guinea pigs in their cage and let them settle in. Dawn kept to the corner the whole night and barely moved. This morning I promised the kids that we could take them out and hold them. We took Twilight out and she cuddled and cooed. We took Dawn out and she chewed on my shirt, my watch, and then on me! Coupled with her hiding in the corner of the cage we decided to trade her in. The pet store gives you 15 days for trading in or changing your mind, or in case the animal gets sick or dies. So after lunch we boxed Dawn up and traded her in for a different guinea pig. We kept the name so we have a “new” Dawn. I am happy to report that the new Dawn is quite the cuddler!!

As promised, here are some pictures of our new home. First the outside of the fifth wheel…

In the nose of the fifth wheel is our bedroom. I love the fact that I have a bed I can walk around and that there is a cabinet where we can put a washer/dryer in….

In the hallway is our new bathroom. It has a smaller shower which is fun when you shave your legs but other than that I now have more cabinets and more counter space…

After the hallway is the living room/kitchen. Here is a picture taken from the hallway showing our huge TV that we watch the football games from our two recliners (I added these comments for Al)….

My kitchen is smaller and we do not have a dining table anymore but we do have bigger bedrooms so I guess you have to choose where your space is. Here is a picture taken from the kids’ bedroom that shows one of the recliners…

Now one of the MAJOR reasons we bought this… the second bathroom…

This next picture I am including so you can see what was installed for a before picture. This shows the two hydraulic beds in the back. We should be done with the “new” bedroom for the kids in the next couple of days so once everything is done I will post after pictures…