Year 2, Day 21: Inauguration Day

After putting together a long post for tomorrow, and needing to share some things about today's inauguration, I have decided to start a new page within this blog called, "Melinda's Imperfect Ponderings."  I'd like to write more about how I personally feel and think, and I'm tired of all the back and forth of agreement and disagreement on my Facebook page when I have strong opinion.  And after typing up tomorrow's post, I realized, that isn't the purpose of the main part of this blog.  This is a family blog, which chronicles the day to day living we do.  It is not a platform for me to air my personal opinions, especially if they differ from Jared's, which they have at times. So, bear with me as I transition where I put some of my words, as I'm sure my opinions will sneak back onto the main page.  I'm a writer in training, so it takes me a bit to form what I want to say and how to say it.  I didn't plan to grow our blog in this manner and I don't foresee us making money from our blog.  But I do have some things I want to say to others.  My spiritual gifts include teaching, which doesn't just mean getting up in front of large groups.  It can mean one on one mentorship, or teaching through writing.  I'm not a natural verbal teacher, but rather a pen and paper one.  I'm excited that the Holy Spirit prompted me to do something a bit different today, and basically told me where it needs to go within the grand scheme of things.  So, let's do this!

My first couple of posts on the new page will go out this evening hopefully.  One will be about the Inauguration of Mr. Donald J. Trump as our 45th President of the United States of America.  I will state the facts of what we did here, but my opinions will go on the other page.  Make sense?  Not really?  Ok, then, just try to follow along.

Justin's friend stayed over last night (the friend who lost his cousin/brother), which was fun and great.  I let them whisper talk for a long time before they finally fell asleep.  That's what sleepovers are for, right?  I warned the boys that we would be watching the Inauguration today, but they still weren't happy about it.  In fact, they goofed off during the whole hour we watched. We watched it live on YouTube through the White House feed so we wouldn't have to listen to commentary on this or that thing.  It was like we were there at the ceremony!  I tried to explain a few things, or at least convey to them that today was about the office of the Vice President and President and not about Mr. Trump himself and that it doesn't matter who we voted for or the actual politics behind everything.  Today was history in the making.  But they boys weren't buying it.  Oh well, I tried.  I enjoyed it.  I love ceremonies.  And I love meaningful rituals.  I didn't agree with everything President Trump said in his speech, but I was happy to hear Franklin Graham participate.  It's an exciting thing to see democracy at work, including the peaceful transfer of power.  I will talk more about that in another post on the other page.

Also, today, we all felt a little queasy.  I think the ground beef we ate last night had been defrosted and frozen a couple of times or put back into the freezer past it's prime because it did taste a little off.  We ruled out flu because we weren't repetitively throwing up, but rather just queasy off and on, and able to get up and doing things here and there.  I apologized to the friend's mom as well.  Oh, plus, the kids sit too close to the TV and can get motion sickness from their video games!  Duh!

We finished the day by going out with 2 couples that have Benaiah's age kids and older!  It was kind of nice not to have to talk about elementary or toddler issues.  We went to a new restaurant called Hops and Fire, which means, yes, lots of things were cooked with beer or wine in them, plus they had a full beer/wine menu.  However, one of the couples choose it because they had a totally separate gluten free menu and had dedicated fryers for the gluten free food!  They also have vegan menus, too.  And gluten free beer.  It was pricey, but worth it as a special treat!  The 3 women of the group stay away from gluten, so it made sense to try it out.  I had onion rings for the first time in 4 years!  Plus a fried pork steak sandwhich on gluten free bun, which was definitely not as bad as some buns I've had.  Score!  The only issue I had with the restaurant was that it had a very open tall ceiling which made it very loud and I couldn't hear the couple at the end of the table.  I had to lean in and sit a certain way, which was very uncomfortable.  I have decided that loud and crowded restaurants are not the way to go when I want to eat.

Benaiah and his friends, some of which were part of one of the families we went out to eat with, played in a euchre (a card game) school fundraiser night at Benaiah's school.  Even one of the kids' grandparents played!  The room was full and everyone had a blast!  On the car ride from the school back to our friends' house (we carpooled), Benaiah and his three guy friends laughed the entire 20 minutes!  Like hysterical laughter!  Over what, you might ask?  A new inside joke or key word of the night, it hurts "right here."  Yes, one of the guys had sore arms from working out and for some reason, saying "right here" would send Benaiah into a giggling fit.  But a boy version of a giggle fit, which is loud and deep, and coughing, and red faced.  You had to be there!  I was laughing at them because my word, they are crazy!  I now know why Benaiah loves the Strunks.  They have such a great time together just being crazy teens!  No need for alcohol and drugs and such.  Just be 14-16 yr old goofballs.  It was very sweet, but I was so glad to get out of their van and I'm glad that I don't have to deal with that every day either.  And this is why I am not a sponsor in the youth group.  But Jared was being sarcastic right back at them, or giving them a "you're too slow" high five, or what not.  I think he would enjoy being a sponsor on a CIY trip or something.  We did sponsor youth group a bit when his brother was still in it and I was a freshman in college or something.  Anyway, great times!

The daughter of the Strunk family (who I hear just plays along with the boys), watched the 3 little ones for us since Gary and Leah had a dinner obligation.  She said she had a blast with them, although the middles didn't feel great.  They watched movies and Abishai played and played.  He even made a friend, who was one of the daycare kids, before she left with her mom for the evening.  The Strunk mom, Lisa, babysits 4 littles ones during the day while her 4 kids are at school.  Anyway, Abishai had a blast and stayed awake until we got back at like 10 pm.  Yes, we were all exhausted. (Thus this post is going out a little late).

President Elect Donald J. Trump

I pulled out the megablock brand of duplos since Abishai demonstrated at the Lego Store that he could put them together.  He played with them a bit until he found some cars, and then it was all downhill, literally from there.  I'm sure he'll get back to building with them though.

These two made several versions of Trump while they watched the inauguration.

Aw, Abishai loves to love on people!  Very cute!

Franklin Graham!

Abishai was kicking Justin very hard!  He can be a big bully if he's allowed to be.  We'll need to keep an eye on him so that it doesn't get out of hand.

Jared tweeted something about finally having a desk.  Yeah!  I see his nice nameplate, too!

Doing Grandpa Bible class and writing down assignments for next week.  We've now put Keturah and Nora together and Everly and Justin together in two separate classes.  They are all starting in Genesis and going through the main events.

Abishai and his new playmate!

Benaiah hanging out with his friends at school.  I feel so small when I'm next to all of them.  They are man sized, and yet, so childish still.

Playing with his rubix cube before the tournament begins.

Some more of Benaiah's friends, Silas, Benjamin, Drew, and Conner.

My child's locker.  Say what?! What are crackers doing all over the place in there?  He had asked a friend for some crackers and the friend gave me a whole stack.  And what's with the empty lunchbox?  Oh my goodness.

At least he has his schedules posted.  And Dad came along and crushed some of the crackers in the locker so now Benaiah really has to clean it out on Monday.  Oh, and he doesn't use a padlock.  There's nothing worth stealing in there, so why bother, right?  Plus it's a small Christian school and he probably trusts them a little too much that they won't do anything stupid with the contents of his locker.

Gluten free onion rings, fired pickles, and fried pork steak!

Playing in the Euchre tournament.  They had a blast, but he and his friend Ethan in the blue cap didn't win any prizes.  I wanted Benaiah to tell me who is who so I basically stalked him in between the last two games, but he kept walking away.  I guess he's gotten to the point of not wanting his mother around.  Sad day for me.  I'm just curious.  I don't want to analyze his people or criticize anything.  I just want to know because why not know?  Oh, teens, what are we going to do with them?  Love them and hang on the rope as tightly as we can as they thrash about figuring out their lives.  Fun times!  But exhausting!