Back to Life

Soooooo....we're home, praising God for a wonderful time away, praising Him for His protection on the long drive back and all His traveling mercies with so many children.  The kids did extremely well, even the little ones.  It was kind of out of a classic road-trip movie with all the "How many more minutes?" type questions or the "I have to go to the bathroom!" after we had just left a rest stop.  It was pretty funny.  RM and I would just look at each other with these surreal glances, but we would have to stop!

Reality set in pretty fast.  The older ones were doing school right away on the first day back while I was doing laundry and unpacking.  The younger ones really needed my help more so that was yesterday.  Slowly sitting with each one as they went through their curriculum, explaining the schedule, what the year would look like.  It went better than I thought.  I was expecting a lot of grief with going back to school after a looooong summer holiday, but you could tell, they had had enough loafing around and needed some reason for living again.  I even explained that I wanted them up early, setting their alarms for the first time in months, no problem.  That's when you know you had a good vacation!

As for expenses on the trip, RM kept meticulous records of each expense.  I haven't heard the overall results, but I think we did end up a little over as we made one final hilarious stop on the trip home which I'm embarrassed to write about.  There is a little redneck in all of us, I guess.... we visited the home of the Monster Truck, Grave Digger!  Yup, that truck is built in North Carolina and they have a little diner, a petting zoo, tons of Grave Digger memorabilia and of course a Monster Truck ride on a real Monster Truck.  There was no way I was going to go on it, let alone my little boys, but supposedly they all met the height criteria, so for $5 a head, we all fit on (it seated 12).  It was the craziest ride of my life!  My daughter videotaped the whole thing - we were all screaming as he took the corners like a mad man and went up the ramps as if he wanted air.  The ride couldn't have ended sooner for me.  I was so glad I went on to hold on to my little guy's head!  He would have knocked it on the hard chair for sure if I hadn't been there!  But, I have to admit, amidst all the screaming, I was laughing my head off, we all were!  It actually was quite fun, scary as anything, but fun!  So much for keeping the trip educational...... that definitely brought us down a notch!

There was one night that I found myself a little worried that we were missing "school", but the next day I recounted all the things we had done that had been a learning experience and I realized how I still get so caught up in the trap of what "school" is.  We definitely did school when I look back.... for example, with the fishing, I was amazed how in such a short amount of time, all of them (including the 5 year old) could identify each species of fish they caught, and they caught a lot.  We ended up catching pin, pig, croaker (they croak when you catch them!), drum, ribbon (who knew they existed?  All 3 of my older boys caught ribbon fish ranging from 2-3 Ft long! And they are shaped like a ribbon!  Very cool!).  In addition to that, they acquired excellent fishing skills, which I actually think is a great skill as a man to have to provide for his family!  They studied what each fisherman was doing on the pier, would go up to them to find out what they were doing to catch fish, became friends with a bunch of them and because of their being forward and the willingness of the men to share, they ended up catching the big ones.  It was really neat to see them go, morning and night, with all their gear and come back with all sorts of stories.  It was as if they took a fishing course.  I really loved that they became so adept at it.  Catching the fish was just bonus.

Going to the Wright Memorial was certainly the highlight of the trip.  We took so much away from that.  Definitely qualified as learning time, too.

We had put away the TV before we left as a way of helping all of us focus on getting ready to leave.  When we got there, there were TVs everywhere.  We caved and they ended up watching probably more TV in the short amount of time there than they'd seen in months.  Big mistake, except that each one of them commented throughout the trip, especially on the way home, that they were so glad we didn't have it back at the farm. They said, "Now we get it, Mom."  We thought it would develop an appetite, but amazingly it was almost an antidote for TV.  For sure there were a few shows we all sat around and enjoyed watching.  What boggled our minds was the number of commercials we had to endure!  The TV is still away, put it that way.  So that was a good learning experience.

The friends who stayed here.... that is a whole other story!  They had so much fun and invited all sorts of people up from the city, including 18 grandmas and grandpa who are typically locked up in their senior housing and brought them out to the farm for a day of country living!  So great!  Apparently it is now going to be an annual event!  In addition to them, they hosted numerous families who also live in the heart of the city and enjoyed camping at the farm and all sorts of animal chores.  My friend's words to me were, "We used your farm for the glory of God."  That made our heart sing.  To know our farm could be a blessing to so many without us even being here made us so happy.

Back at the beach, on the final day, we were going to take our family photo.  We didn't quite know how to do this as my daughter hadn't brought her tripod.  We figured we would ask someone down at the pier, but then I got brave and approached my neighbour.  She was more than happy to do it, so she followed us all the way down and took picture after picture which a random person at the pier probably wouldn't have agreed to.  The new photo on the top was definitely our favourite, so it made the blog and will go in our kitchen soon as a memory of our trip.

There you have it, 20 years of marriage, celebrated in the most fun way.  Will we do it again next year?  Not sure, it is already booked next year for that same week, so it is clearly a great spot to go.  Our kids sure hope we do it again!  The condition?  We will have to save and have the money so it doesn't go on credit.

Well, the alarm clocks should be going off soon....