Taking after his Grandpa

Great trip to the air and space today. We met up with some friends from church to tour the Udvar-Hazy branch of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.  Jasper had been eagerly looking forward to this trip and was so excited to go!  He was very interested in looking at and talking about all of the planes and helicopters and rockets they have there.  And could have sat in the observation tower watching planes take off and land all day!  

He kept asking me if they had any planes like Dusty (from the Planes movie) so I stopped by the information desk and asked if they had any crop dusters. There were about half a dozen little old men behind the desk and they started falling all over themselves in eagerness to help me out. One came around from the desk and volunteered to walk us to where each of the two crop dusters they have were. He gave Jasper and I our own little private tour of the museum on the way pointing out especially interesting planes housed there (the Enola Gay--which dropped the nuclear bomb, the First Fed Ex Plane, the largest collection of military planes in the world, etc) then he showed us the two crop dusters and shared everything he knew about them. Another tour guide found us and gave me a bunch of papers he'd printed out about crop dusters. They said that it's not often they have someone so young asking specific questions. And that we were only the second person ever to ask about crop dusters specifically. One of them got a little emotional talking about how great it is to see the younger generation taking an interest. 

Jasper sure is a pleasant kid to take on an outing! 
Tomorrow I am going to take him with me to meet with my adviser at school. I am 99% sure it will be just fine. Certain other children of mine would never be able to handle such an outing though. Funny how kids can be so very different from one another. They just really come with their own personalities don't they?

School Days

We are all back into the school swing now.  I thought I was looking forward to it so much and now I find myself kind of sad to drop them off in the morning, missing them during the day, and overwhelmed with the demands of my own new class schedule--which is a lot more demanding than my previous two semesters.  I'm also finding myself having to make some decisions regarding my long term school and career plans a little sooner than I'd thought.  And that has been stressing me out.
  
It's all good stuff, but it takes some time to adjust.

Gavin's first day of Kindergarten was, in his words, "epic."  That word makes me feel old, but it definitely means he liked it.  ;)  The second day, he didn't want to go.  And he cried so much at drop off that the school counselor had to come help him separate from me.   Today was the third day and while he expressed some reluctance over breakfast, he went happily off to class once we got there.  It helped that the giant moth he'd found on the playground yesterday was still there today and a great teacher had even done research about the moth overnight and had cool facts to share with him today.

Jasper misses Gavin, but has had two playdates with his good friend Henry this week and spent a lot of time with our pets.  I've never really considered myself an "animal person" but I do think all these pets are really good for my kids.

Family Vacation Part 2: Indulgent Fun and Relaxation

So after Richmond, we finally arrived at Great Wolf Lodge. We had planned a maximum of four hours for the drive, but with all our stops and I-95 traffic, it was eight hours before we actually got there. The entrance is truly impressive! 

The kids were so excited to be there! We spent the evening at the waterpark and then drove down the street for a late dinner at IHOP (because $20/per person for a buffet, when 4 of us are considered adults is just not happening! So glad we packed food for breakfasts and lunches!) and then put the kids to bed incredibly late. With all of us in one room it took forever for them to fall asleep, but it made me really happy laying there in the dark and listening to them all giggling together. Highlights included Gavin commenting on the fact that Gideon had opted to sleep on the floor rather than sharing a bed with anyone by saying "Gideon is really sleeping on the floor?! That's ADORABLE." I have no idea why his choice of the word "adorable" so tickled my funny bone, but it makes me laugh just remembering. And then somehow Serenity and Gideon switched places and all three boys were in one bed and Gideon was telling them stories to lure them into sleep. He and Gavin so often struggle to get a long, it was a balm to my mama heart to hear them being happy together like that. In the end, the two little boys ended up falling asleep in bed with me and then I snuck out to join Rob in his bed. We repeated this pattern the second night. 

The waterpark was AWESOME

(this picture just shows a small part of it)

Gideon and Gavin loved the surfing simulator, the big kids had a ball on the waterslides and wave pool. The little boys loved the kiddie pool with it's small slides and ropes that triggered sprinklers and dumped buckets full of water. There was a water basketball court that Gavin thought was great and a lazy river that Jasper enjoyed. We spent the whole morning of our second day playing happily in the water. 


Around noon, poor Gideon totally wiped out in the wave pool and scraped up his face on the bottom of the pool.
 

This incident really put a damper on the trip for him. We took him to the lifeguard stand and got him patched up and then took a break for lunch. He was so pitiful sitting there staring dejectedly into his hamburger and lamenting "I just want to go home and play Minecraft with Hope [his pet rat] on my shoulder." He'd already been feeling a little homesick and missing Hope and this was just kind of the end of his fun for the trip. After lunch, he said he didn't want to swim anymore and went to the room and took a nap. 

The rest of us played a little longer. Rob and Serenity and I tried to convince Gavin to try one of the big waterslides with us, but he refused. Jasper, however, overheard us talking about it and said HE really really wanted to go! There was one large slide that did allow kids his size to ride. It was one of the longest slides there and you rode it in as a group of 2-4 sitting inside a little raft. We agreed that he could ride it with Rob and Serenity and I'd stay at the bottom with Gavin, but Gavin had an EPIC meltdown about it. He was terrified that something bad was going to happen to Jasper and begged us, sobbing not to let him ride it. We assured him it would be fine, and sent them on their way, but he cried and cried and then ran away from me, up the stairs to where they were all in line waiting to ride and threw himself at Rob's feet crying and begging him not to do it. And then JASPER started to cry, not because he was scared but because he thought we were not going to let him ride. Eventually, Rob carried Gavin down the stairs (because he's too big for me to wrestle when he's freaking out like that) and I continued in the line with Jasper and Serenity. When it was finally our turn, we all sat down in the raft when suddenly Serenity jumped up and said "I can't do this!" I was utterly perplexed because she had already BEEN ON THIS RIDE. Twice. She said "I'm sorry. I just can't take Jasper down this slide." And then she LEFT. And because she left, Jasper was suddenly too scared to go, so we all got out and walked back down the stairs. I was so mad at Serenity. After all that mess with Gavin and everything! Fortunately, the next day Jasper said he wanted to try again. Rob took him just the two of them and he LOVED it. Gavin and I sat at the bottom and talked with the lifeguards about how no one had ever died on that ride before. And after he'd gone once with Rob, Serenity agreed to go down with me and Jasper, so he got to do it twice and everyone got to redeem themselves for their silly behavior. 

In addition to the waterpark, Great Wolf Lodge had a lot of activities we didn't choose to do--minigolf and bowling and 3-D games and a spa. We did buy a ridiculously overpriced wand for their MagiQuest game, which I didn't play, but Rob did it with the boys. It's basically like a big treasure hunt all over the lodge. They had this cheesy animatronics show in the lobby several times a day. Jasper was MESMERIZED by it and sat through it three times. 


They also did bedtime stories, dance parties, balloon animals and a bunch of other fun stuff in the lobby. It was a really fabulously Kid Oriented place and we just had a nice relaxing few days of Family Time. It was mostly very positive. Gideon got really moody the last day. He was just totally ready to go home. Fortunately the drive home went a lot faster than the drive there!

All in all a successful family vacation. We feel very lucky to be able to have such a fun and relaxing time!  Gavin wishes he could live at The Great Wolf Lodge.

Family Vacation Part 1: Making Homeless Friends and Visiting Famous Graveyards

This past week, the kids and I participated in something called GISHWES (the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen.)  With our team of 12 other people from around the world, we rushed to capture 155 photos/videos of crazy challenges.  Our family dressed up our pet rats like vikings and photographed them in Barbie cars (two separate photo shoots, not vikings IN Barbie cars), and depicted "Death by Chocolate."  Our family vacation happened to fall, inconveniently, in the middle of GISHWES week, so on the way out of town, we stopped in Washington DC to complete a couple of challenges. 

We took a picture in front of the capital building with a sign that says "Washington DC, where cooperation is a dirty word." Then we drove around for a ridiculous long time trying to find a homeless person with whom to strike up a conversation (the challenge was "Strike up a conversation with a homeless person, talk to them until you know their first name, where they are from, and what their favorite food is. Bring them that food and, if they give you permission, take your picture with them and their meal.") The homeless tend to stand out a lot more in the winter and after circling several blocks, Rob dropped me off to explore on foot for a bit, which worked much better. 

I ended up at Franklin Square, which at lunch time is conveniently surrounded by food trucks offering every kind of food imaginable, making the "buy them their favorite meal" part of the challenge easier. After walking around for a bit, and a short conversation with a very nice man who refused any food, saying he couldn't eat because of his "nerves," I noticed a woman looking really frustrated as she parted company with a couple of men in business suits who appeared to be ignoring her. She walked over to a bus stop, where she had a ragged collection of belongings stored in two large plastic pails. She leaned her forehead against the wall of the bus stop and sighed dejectedly. I walked over to her and asked if she was OK. She looked up, startled and surprised, looked me in the eye for a moment and then sighed and said "no. No, I'm not OK." I said I was sorry, asked if I could do anything, maybe buy her lunch? She looked incredulous, I gestured to the lunch trucks and said I'd buy her anything she wanted and she said "Um...sure...really? Thanks!" and began gathering up all her stuff and we set off. I offered to help carry one of the buckets and she hesitated. I told her it was fine if she was more comfortable carrying them herself, but if she wanted help I was happy to. She hesitated, deciding if she could trust me, then handed me one of the buckets. 

She took a very long time deciding what she wanted to eat, and as we walked around the circle, she talked non-stop in a stream of released emotions that made me think of a woman who really needed a good talk with a girlfriend, but had no friends to talk to. She is from L.A. Has been in DC for two years, on the streets for one. She used to be an EMT, I'm not sure how she ended up on the streets. She told me she was upset today because some men who used to sit on the corner where she played drums to earn money had stolen her drums. As a joke. And that a few days before that a man she had spend some time with stole several hundred dollars she had been saving and spent it on drugs. Then he came to "her place" (the piece of sidewalk she sleeps on) to apologize, demanded that she forgive him and let him sleep next to her. When she refused, he pinned her to the ground and threatened to kill her. She was able to fend him off with a can of pepper spray she'd found in an alley and the promise that she'd haunt him in jail if he killed her. She said all this kind of matter of fact, not jockeying for sympathy or shock, but in the exact manner that a college girl would complain about a bad date. 

She talked in the same manner about being threatened by police. One of whom told her she wasn't allowed to sit on a bench on a public street and that if he saw her there again, he would arrest her and throw all her belongings in the trash (the loss of her belongings was a much bigger threat than the arrest.) She also said the police frequently take her water bottles and smell them, accusing her of drinking "like I'd get smashed living on the streets! Are you kidding me? Do you know what would happen to me? I get nervous enough just when I get tired!" 

She eventually settled on Greek food--a lamb gyro, because she loves lamb. I insisted she get baklava and a soda as well. As we walked back to the bus stop, she saw a dime on the ground and stopped, set down all her belongings, picked it up and put it in her pocket. Then she looked at me, smiled a little embarrassed and said "they add up." Then she told me about when she had a house, and she had this big glass jar, where she'd throw spare change, "nickles and dimes and quarters and things like they was nothing." And one day she poured them all out and counted them up and it was something like $250 all just sitting there in that big glass jar on her counter. 

By this point, Rob had sent me a couple of texts asking if I was OK and I told her I needed to go. We shook hands, I asked if I could take her picture, which I needed for the competition (though I didn't tell her that), and also because I wanted to remember her. I kind of wished I could exchange email addresses or something because I want to know the rest of her story. It was a really...poignant experience. I'm glad I did GISHWES, just for that one challenge. 



Leaving the city, our next stop was in Richmond, to visit another of Rob's Family History Landmarks. This one was the grave of an ancestor who was in some high government positions in the state government here in Virginia. I think for some reason we were expecting another small country cemetery, but the cemetery was in fact huge and fancy. It reminded me a lot of Arlington Cemetery. Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond is the burial place of hundreds (possibly thousands? I'm not sure) of Confederate Soldiers as well as the president of the Confederacy (Jefferson Davis) and two U.S. Presidents (James Monroe and John Tyler.) So finding his ancestor involved stopping at a visitors center and purchasing maps and things. Crazy. And since we were there, we visited the famous graves too. Serenity is going to have an awesome History Report!


I don't watch Dr Who, but James Monroe's tomb made me think of a TARDIS

These are our "waiting in the car while Dad takes forever in the Visitor's Center" faces. Roadtrip documentation is not complete without a few car faces






So that was the drive there. This is super long already, so I will save the actual vacation for another post.

Family History

At our elementary school, students are required, during the first quarter of sixth grade, to submit a presentation to their history class about a family field trip they took over the summer.  Gideon was lucky because the Summer before he started sixth grade, our family drove from Virginia to Utah, so he had his pick of a lot of great history sites (he went with Mt Rushmore.)  This summer we aren't doing much traveling--just a short trip to Williamsburg.  And while Williamsburg is, indeed, a fabulous historical site, Serenity figures "everyone has been there and there will be a ton of reports on that this year."  She wants to do something different.

Rob, meanwhile, has within the last few years developed an avid interest in family history, and in tracking his family line back a couple hundred years, he discovered that he had relatives buried just a few hours drive from here.  In fact, on his grandfather's side, the first ancestor to migrate to America is buried here in Virginia--and he was a veteran of the Revolutionary war!  So he suggested visiting their grave sites as our family field trip.  Serenity LOVED the idea, and we decided to go this afternoon.

Gavin had a lot of confused ideas about zombies and skeletons when he heard we were making a trip to a graveyard.  He actually told me I needed to change into something "more scary."  I'm pretty sure he didn't actually expect zombies and skeletons, but he WAS expecting snakes for some reason.  He even brought a jar for catching them.  He was very disappointed to find no snakes anywhere.  And spent the rest of the trip begging to go hiking or fishing instead (the graveyards were way out in the country which is Gavin's favorite place to be.)

Rob seemed thrilled with the trip.  The first graveyard we visited seemed almost entirely full of Koiners/Coiners (the name was changed after the migrated from Germany and went through a few different spellings) and a brochure he picked up at the church even said that a Koiner built the church!  And that they were one of two prominent families in the area.

Serenity also really got into the whole thing.  I was surprised and pleased by how excited she was about it all.  Maybe she'll decide to be a historian instead of a veterinarian!  (both good choices)

All in all a successful trip, though a lot of driving for one day (about five hours in the car round trip, plus another hour of exploring/picture taking outside the car.)  Glad we went.  I think it will make for a good report!

Rob: Scourge of Wasps

Here's how manly my husband is:  Tonight we took the kids and dogs for a walk to the park.  Arriving at the park, Rob bent to tie the dog's leash to a bench without realizing that the bench was harboring a wasp nest!  Swarmed by wasps he was quickly stung on his hand.  Since the dog was now tied to the wasp's nest, we couldn't just leave, so Rob proceeded to stand there and single handedly kill every wasp (about ten of them) armed only with a shoe.

I'm impressed.

Things That are Good Tonight

1. I am 99.99% sure that I got an A on my final test tonight (on Asian Religions.)  I felt really good about it.  And SO PROUD of myself for studying so hard because it was NOT an easy A.


2. Gideon is really enjoying Algebra camp, unexpectedly so.  His favorite part of the day today was "learning new math stuff.  Because learning new stuff about math is really exciting and interesting."  We clearly have different ideas about exciting and interesting but yay for learning!  Also, on an amusing aside, his least favorite part of the day?  Ice blocking with the church youth group.  It's dangerous and stupid and he pretty much hates being outside because he might get a tick and it is hot and muggy (not especially hot or muggy today, btw)  This kid... he is his own guy.


3. I am a Cool Mom and agreed to dye Serenity's hair for her today.  She wanted to go red, and I think I did a pretty good bottle job.  She is disappointed because it isn't BRIGHT RED, but I think it turned out really cute and natural looking.  She's angling for a second go to see if it will go brighter.  I'm thinking about it.  Meanwhile, we bought the stuff to put purple highlights in mine, but I am not sure I am brave enough to do that at home.  
    (as an aside on her, I came home from school to find her editing zits and "bags under her eyes" from old photographs "just because it is fun."  Sigh.  Can we please not be going there yet?  You are pretty just the way you are.  And pretty isn't as important as you think it is anyway.)


4. The little boys are asleep.  :)  I like them.  They are cute and sweet and I will miss them when they are grown, but they are exhausting.  Oh!  BUT they did have a great day.  They went to a program at the library about dinosaurs and it was wonderful and they got to hold REAL T-Rex tooth and Velociraptor fossils!  Gavin was IN HEAVEN.  And they had fun with friends this morning--we made masks and cookies--and tonight they played in the pool while I made dinner (with Rob supervising from his lawn chair.)  So pretty much the perfect Kid Day.  I feel like a Winner Mom today.  Until I look at the laundry, but we'll just ignore that.