This is what happens when you put 35 roadschooling families together....

We're part of a group called Fulltime Families, a membership based club for people living in their RV with their children. They hold a few annual rallies (gatherings for members), the latest being the "West Coast Cali Rally" at Sweetwater Regional Park near San Diego.

We attended our first rally last winter in Florida and met so many wonderful families, some that we ended up traveling with later in the year. This time we knew what to expect and how to get the most out of it. The biggest key is to arrive early and stay late. We reserved our campsite for 10 days which was perfect for the 3 day rally. Upon arrival we met a few families while just walking around the park. Wednesday night we were invited to a campfire at the Barry's site where I met half a dozen other families. Thursday morning, the rally officially kicked off with a member brunch before games and a "soup social" (potluck soup dinner). You should have seen all the Instant Pots lined up! It's an electric pressure cooker that's super popular with RVers so we can cook quickly and without more costly propane. Here's our group of 35 families together!

Friday started with a group field trip to the Rueben Fleet Science Center. We've been here before, but some of the exhibits have changed. This one was especially fun. It took a photo of you then you could drag and drop other facial features over your own. The results are pretty entertaining.

While they were there, I snuck out to the cactus garden across the street and found a few Allen's hummingbirds. 

Once we returned from the field trip, I attended an essential oils class before we all gathered for a pizza party and outdoor movie, "Inside Out". It was a bit chilly, so we all headed to bed afterwards.

Saturday was the busiest day. We began with a group chat on roadschooling. Next was the group bike ride and kids' market. Kids set up vendor booths and sold everything from balloon animals to photo ops with a (bearded) dragon! My kids didn't try to sell anything, but they really enjoyed purchasing a few items and seeing what the other kids came up with.

The Parade of Homes is always one of my favorite parts of the rally. We split into 2 groups (moms and dads) and someone (a saint) watches ALL the kids while we tour each other's RV. It's really helpful to see not only the different setups, but how people have customized it and share ideas. The campground had reserved this whole back section for our group, so pretty much all of the RVs seen here are ours.

Next we formed groups for The Amazing Race. The kids and I joined our new friend Diane, in a race that sent us running all over the campground collecting clues that would direct us to the next task we had to complete. Each task was based on a popular geographic location within the US. We had fun even though our team came in last....so last that the welcoming group at the finish line had left. Ha! Once they realized, the entire group formed a tunnel and congratulated us on completing the race.

That night we enjoyed dinner together then a luau party. The limbo and hula hoop contests were quite entertaining and had some serious competition! 

On Sunday we ate doughnuts while saying goodbye to some of our new friends as the rally was officially over. Luckily many of us were sticking around for awhile, so we continued meeting at the playground and each other's sites for nightly campfires. Families bonded and one by one we said our goodbyes. We scheduled four additional homeschool field trips to local attractions over the next three weeks. 

I think we met even more families this rally than our first that we really got to know well and would like to travel with in the future. There's three families that will likely follow us, or maybe even caravan with us to Alaska this spring! 

Sweetwater was a nice location for me to look for new birds. The kids went with me down to the reservoir one of the days. I ended up giving two birding lessons during the rally to other families that had shown an interest.