Five and a half weeks on the road and we have found our rhythm — and it is quieter simpler and more genuinely satisfying than anything we had before.

If you want to know how we got here start with How COVID Gave Us Back the Life We Always Wanted — that is where this whole chapter really began.

The kids usually wake up first and head out to the sunroom around 7. They turn on cartoons, cuddle under blankets or play with toys. Adam and I wake up before or after them, and have our coffee. We sit together and work throughout the morning.

About a month ago, I went part time with Adams company to help pull reports, analyze data, and am Adams personal assistant 🙂 I work until about 12 each day, sometimes I head back to my computer in the afternoon if there is more to be done.

In the morning, we make the kids breakfast and they play most of the morning. I think we are super lucky, those three truly entertain themselves. Between legos, magnet blocks, games, and parading around the back yard in their safari hats going on self built missions, they are always busy.

We don’t do school everyday, well official school anyway. Some days we sit one on one for 20-30 minutes and work on a new skill. Some days it is all three kids with me working on another subject. Sometimes it is in the morning, other times the afternoon. Most of the time its the kids coming to me and saying we are ready to do school!

We wrote about why we believe this kind of learning works better for our family in Finding Happiness with Minimalism — less structure more presence.”

The kids do use Khan Academy Kids every day. I give them assignments through the app that they have to complete and then they get 15-20 minutes of personal game time on the electronics.

Somewhere in the middle there we have lunch, but to be completely honest, sometimes I am deep in a report and guess what, our kids make themselves a platter for lunch.

When Adam is done with work, we all go outside and play. Usually it is Daddy Tackle Fight. But lately, it has been outside beach time. During this time, I have been doing my Betty Rocker workout and then I take off on my hour walk.

I come back and make dinner and feed the kids. They bathe and are off to bed at 7:30 aiming to be asleep by 8. Adam and I have been making ourselves dinner for after they are asleep so we can spend time together. Adam tends to do his workout somewhere in this span of time. He uses the NTC (Nike Training Club) app.

Our days are pretty relaxed, simple and easy. We are doing our best to not take on added stressors and just focusing on what is happening between our 4 walls. We are happy and feel complete.

We discovered this rhythm first in Ohio in a tiny lake house that taught us everything about how little space and stuff we actually need — Size Does Not Matter is still one of our favorite posts.

Of course we have our moments, the kids bicker, voices are raised, tears fall… but overall… things are just as we had hoped they would be on this trip.

Adam and I have thrown around the idea of trading in our minivan for a leisure roadtrek, this one has our attention, https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/312305140078749 The price is a bit steep for us, but my goodness this would change our year and is not outrageous to think of this as an every day vehicle after as it isn’t THAT big. (It does have enough seatbelts AND sleeping space for us at this point in our lives)

I guess we will continue to dream, as that is what we do best. At night, once the kids are asleep, we dream and have our best conversations as we have always done. We throw around tons of ideas of the what-ifs, what-next, and can we or/and should we.

We still have a 367 days of travel ahead of us and the possibilities are wide open.

Q: What does a typical day look like for a homeschooling family traveling full time? A: Ours starts with kids padding out to the sunroom for cartoons and blankets while Adam and I have coffee and work through the morning. Breakfast happens somewhere in there. School is thirty minutes of focused one on one time — sometimes in the morning sometimes the afternoon sometimes all three kids together sometimes just one. Khan Academy Kids handles daily independent learning with built in game time as a reward. Lunch gets made by whoever is available including increasingly often the kids themselves. Then outside time workout time dinner bath bed by 7:30. Simple and completely sustainable.

Q: How do you work remotely while traveling full time with three kids? A: Adam works from early morning through midday. Nicole went part time with Adam’s company handling reports data analysis and general operations which means both parents are available and working through the morning while the kids genuinely entertain themselves — Legos magnet blocks safari hat missions in the backyard and Khan Academy. By early afternoon work is done and the family day begins. The schedule sounds structured but it feels remarkably relaxed because every element of it was chosen intentionally.

Q: How do you homeschool while working and traveling full time? A: By letting go of the idea that school has to look like school. Some days it is twenty minutes one on one on a specific skill. Some days it is all three kids working on something together. Some days the kids come to us and say they are ready which is honestly the most encouraging thing that has ever happened in our educational journey. Khan Academy Kids provides daily consistency and the world provides everything else.

Q: How do you maintain your relationship as a couple while traveling full time with kids? A: Dinner after the kids are asleep. Every night. Adam and I make ourselves a proper dinner sit together and have the kind of conversation that the busy noise of regular life never quite allowed. The dreaming happens here — the what ifs the what nexts the can we and should we. It is the best part of every day and we protect it fiercely.

Q: Is full time family travel actually as good as it sounds? A: The kids bicker. Voices get raised occasionally. Tears happen. We are a family not a highlight reel. But the overall answer is yes — genuinely unreservedly yes. The simplicity the togetherness the absence of the manufactured busyness that used to fill every hour has produced a version of our family that is calmer happier and more connected than we have ever been. 367 days of travel ahead and we would not trade a single one.