Yurt Project -- Family life in the Round

Amidst the dismay and not-so-quiet disapproval of our families, my fiance and I have decided in light of having the opportunity that we would move our family, ourselves and our three kids (including our brand new baby girl) into a yurt. Northwest-hipster though it may seem, this transition means a lot to us and brings us much closer to the kind of lifestyle we really believe in. One that works in concert with nature and the systems therein, rather than the constant headbutting with the natural world one experiences in modern society.

The idea took on the possibility of becoming a reality a few years ago, and it didn't take much for my fiance, Jay, and I to jump on it. At first our plan was to build the yurt ourselves, I looked up all the instructions, materials, where and how we'd source them -- but in the end it come down to time over the savings of doing it ourselves. We did our research, and contacted Richard with CampingYurts.com to see what it would take to get a yurt built that could house our family for at least a year while we built another home on our property.

After a few discussions and suggestions from Richard we had a plan and about a month later we arranged picking up our new home from Eugene, Oregon where Richard sent his nephew, Richie, and a helper from CampingYurts, Australia, Mark, to assist us in the initial set up. Meeting us at our lovely little camp site we'd picked up from Airbnb for the weekend, Mark and Richie showed us a much more realistic version of yurt set up than what I was familiar with from YouTube videos. After initially telling us set up might take an hour, a few minor mistakes later it had taken about two, but that was all valuable for us learning as well. That evening we spent our first night in the yurt and got to watch the stars through the big lovely round.

After we broke down camp the next day and rolled back into town for dinner before heading back up to Vancouver where we had planned on continuing out to the next site where we'd be setting up the yurt, I instead promptly went into labor (oh, yeah, I was still pregnant then).

So, for the last week or so, we've had our two boys and brand-new little baby girl posted up in our new cozy yurt while we experience and explore North Clark County in Southwest Washington. It's been just lovely.

I plan on writing more about yurt family life, the Northwest in general, and other topics that spur my interests as I let the blog evolve into something I hope to use to connect to like minded folk.

Take care.