Hello Everyone and welcome to Nic of Time Travel – adventure blog!! I am happy that you have stopped by. My name is Nicole, I live in Williamsburg, VA – I have an amazing boyfriend, 6 children (5 of my own and 1 step son but all are my children) and a 100lb dog. My boyfriend and I meet years ago when we were both volunteer firefighters. Both of us married and got divorced. I have 4 children from my marriage, Blake has 1.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNl0epMeAeFU2a8MAA4TUfQ
The kids made their own YouTube channel, please subscribe and like their videos! Thanks!
- Ethan – 12
- Nick – 10
- Arianna – 9
- Isabella – 7
- Austin – 6
- Taylor – 2
I was selling Hot Wheel cars on our local Facebook Trash and Treasure page and he asked if he could purchase them. He came to my house, we talked for over an hour and texted for the next 10 days, had our first date and have been together ever since.
Blake and I have so much in common, with our love of travel and happy place being the mountains. Blake introduced me to tent camping which I absolutely love. A year and a half after we started dating we welcomed our daughter to the world – Taylor Olivia. She joins us on all of our traveling adventures.
I overcame so much through my divorce and starting over again. I worked from the bottom up. Started all over again with nothing, literally nothing. I was a 911 dispatcher, great job, and decent pay for a single mom, horrible hours. I also moved out of the school district. My 2 kids in school at the time, begged me to find a way for them to stay at their school so me being me, I always seem to be able to “FIGURE IT OUT”. I found a job within their school system and this allowed the kids to stay at their current school, but it also meant I took a $12,000 pay cut. This is a lot when I was starting over. I worked 2 jobs just to make ends meet. My ex and I have 50/50 custody of our children, they are with me for a week and him for a week. The weeks I didn’t have them, I would work for the schools during the day and waitressing at night. No time for me, but I was fine with that. I would sacrifice anything for my children. I wanted them to be able to do all the things they loved to do before I became a single mom. 8 months later I was able to get a better position within the school system working for technology.
“We don’t have time”, “It cost too much”, “We have 6 kids”, “We have kids”, so many excuses not to travel, not just by me but also by so many other people. Enough with excuses, I decided to do what my motto is and “FIGURE IT OUT”. Yes I have 6 kids so that means having to figure it out with a family of 8. This made my passion even better.
Blake and I started traveling about 2 months after we began dating. In the beginning it was easy for us to get away. The weeks we didn’t have the kids it was just the 2 of us and we could get in the car and go. The weeks we would have our kids, we would take them on day hikes and go places nearby. We had our first big family trip 6/7/2019. We were very nervous as this would be the first time we went overnight as a family of 7. The only thing that could make the trip even better was if we had sun instead of rain. Like with everything else, we embraced it and made the most of it.
August of 2019 is when I really found my niche with traveling. Last minute, unplanned travel. Check out my post on Washington/Oregon and learn all about our completely unplanned trip to the other side of the United States.
These unplanned trips have become such an adventure for our family. 99% of the time everything works out, there is however that 1%, which again, we embrace.
Blake, Taylor and I do a lot of big weekend trips the weeks/weekends we don’t have the kids and at the same time we do a lot of trips when we are a party of 8.
One of the things we do with the kids is never tell them where we are going. I hate to get their hopes up and then have something happen to where we end up having to cancel or change the plans. We tell the kids to get in the car and they always know it is going to be an adventure. They of course always try to get us to tell them where we are going, knowing that we wont tell them. These adventures can be as quick as going to Busch Gardens for a couple of hours. We are very fortunate, we live 15 minutes from Busch Gardens/Water County/Colonial Williamsburg. Or just to the mountains for the day. We are about 2 hours from Afton Mountain. Blake is a firefighter and gets a 5 day break every 3 weeks and we always take advantage of these weekends.
Is it hard finding places to stay, especially last minute with a family of 8? Sometimes. Do I make it happen? Yes. I find places to stay in the car on the way to our destination. For me it is a thrill, a thrill of the hunt for last minute deals, a thrill to make it happen and “FIGURE IT OUT”.
Please follow and subscribe to my blog and hear all about our family of 8’s crazy last minute adventures. If you have a suggestion of places to see, restaurants to try, etc. let me know and I will post all about it. If you would like to learn more about me and how to plan your families last minute travel – please reach out. I welcome any and all comments!
Nic of Time - Travel 