Year 2, Day 108: Day 3 of packing, packing, packing!

I think I spent almost 4 hrs steadily putting objects in boxes today.  My back hurts!  Seriously, that's not a good thing.  Gotta slow down!  We haven't even signed a deal on a house yet!  I guess I'm more anxious to have a place of our own (with a yard) than I thought.  Or, I'm just bored being by myself with little man all day.  Speaking of little man, he only slept 2 hrs this afternoon which is NEVER a good thing!  Abishai is just a much nicer, less crazy child if he sleeps closer to 4 hrs in the afternoon.  He woke up crying, so I think he might have had a bad dream.  I'm so glad I took him to the church tonight so Jared could run after him while Benaiah was at D-group and Bible Bowl.  Anyway, I got a bunch done, so I'm happy.  Again, I need to figure out why we have so much and why I am so attached to so much stuff because I'm going to always have way too much stuff to fit whatever house we have.  How can I go from about half dozen rubbermaid roughneck tubs as an 18 year old to 100's of boxes and totes less than 20 years later?  We don't have much furniture either, it's mostly just stuff.  Hm,....the brain can't figure that out right now when I'm hurting this much....

The vacationing peeps took a long drive to the Gulf coast of Florida and had a blast.  I'll share some pics below.

Trying to keep the toddler busy while I packed, we brought out the rice bin. He concentrated on it for like 20 minutes!  He liked putting rice into another little container using a spoon.  Fine motor skills!

It was over 80 degrees again today, so the a/c was on.  But we had to open the window because we heard another fire truck!  We see at least one per day it seems.  We can usually hear the sirens when the windows are closed.  

Abishai loves watching the vloggers from Canada I watch because they have kids near his age.  He actually danced during one of their clips with a musical background.

Four boxes and a bookcase ready to go!

A much more open and cleaned up laundry room/pantry.

Top shelves are completely empty and everything that is left is current stuff we need until the last week before moving.

Two bags of recycling, 4 big pieces of house items (ironing board, dehumidifier, and shelves), plus two HUGE boxes of toys and 4 other boxes of stuff ready to go!

We also did a little "dot dot" and named colors.

Using his left hand!

Using his right hand!

And back to the left.

"I sit!"

Abishai thought he would take his nap in this chair, so he wanted all his stuffed animals, a piilow for his feet and blankets covering his stuffed animals "just so."  Oh yeah, and this silly bunny that our older neighbor in Charlottetown gave to Keturah a few years ago.  It gets really hot if left on too long, so I try not to leave it on when they are sleeping (speaking of, I need to sneak in his room tonight to turn it off.)

Now onto the other two peeps.  Homemade ice cream!

Gary said this was the nicest mini golf place they've ever been to!  And they played two rounds!

What fun, and look at how big those kids are!

Wow!  Is this a mini golf place or a theme park?  Incredible!

Cool castle!  Little known fact about me: I LOVE mini golf!  Seriously, if offered as a choice, it's what I would pick first!

Ah yes, Mr. Carb lover eating what he loves!  Pancakes!

Drinking up caramel sauce after she ate all her apple slices.

Wow, that looks like a really nice Denny's!  Most of the Johnson 12 love breakfast foods any time of the day.  That's why you'll find us at Denny's or Bob Evans often.  I'm super bummed that I can no longer eat eggs.  I did try them yesterday, but it didn't go well.  Sigh.  But I can eat sausage and everyone else gets to eat well!

Oh, and poor Benaiah (whoops!  I actually typed Banana because he has an Instagram account now that has "banana" in the name) has been dealing with a student at his school that doesn't care about school at all and saying some very racist things (and not just African American racism, ALL racism).  It's quite taxing on him to have to deal with this sort of thing especially when he IS trying to study hard during study hall.  He's had to hold back what he really wants to say and he feels like he wants to physically punch the kid.  I'm proud of Benaiah for NOT saying and doing worse things.  I'm glad he's getting to see a small bit of what the real world is like from the safety net of a small school that can deal with the situation before it completely gets out of control.  But still, it's exhausting.  I know from experience, i.e. Benaiah being a rough teen last year.  He's done a lot of maturing in the last few months.  He loves working at church in the afternoon and he's still got great grades.  He was even invited to go to a forensic lab on Friday with only 2 other guys from his science class because an upper science class is going.  I'm sure sometimes other kids might see him as a suck up to his teachers and administrator, so he's feeling the kids' jealousy when he does get to do certain things.  And this isn't because of who is his grandfather.  No, Benaiah has made a name for himself and has shown himself responsible and able to talk to and respect adults.  And that's because he's always been more surrounded by adults than by his peers.  Homeschooling does make a difference and I'm glad are finally seeing the fruit of our labors.  Just a few more weeks and he'll be done as a high school freshman and he'll be working on getting his drivers' permit!  Ah! He's going to be 15 years old!  How did THAT happen?  Wasn't he JUST playing in rice bins and learning to talk, while chewing on his favorite blankie?  The growing process of children is amazing and I'm grateful that I have been able to watch them grow more than the average American family by homeschooling and spending more daytime hours with them.

Tomorrow: more packing.  Friday: maybe Childrens' Museum and the other kids come home.  Saturday and Sunday: Keturah and the Childrens' Choir sing before each of the 4 services at church in order to promote the new musical, so come out and see them!  Sunday: Youth group and choir rehearsal.  Ah!