Year 2, Day 360: The Saga Continues

The journey to NOLA has turned into a saga.  Abishai ate too much food, swallowed too much pool water, traveled too long, or he indeed has the stomach flu, because he was throwing up sick all night long, every hour on the hour.  Jared and I are exhausted.  Grandma came to the rescue, and although we could have handled it by ourselves, having another person there was comforting to me.  It was all over the bed and the floor has Jared got the poor baby into the bathtub.  And it was nasty.  I don't like traveling because of my back pain, but add a simple sickness like this and it takes me over the edge.  As I type, we are trying to get Abishai to at least eat a slice of bread or a few crackers so we can give him car sickness medicine.  I know the others are anxious to leave, but you can't rush the process.  Jared is very patient and understanding with Abishai and is an excellent keeper of the peace when I need him to be.  There were some skirmishes over the last two days (we don't deal well when we are stressed and rushed, we take things slower than most and the stress gets the better of us), but hopefully we can move past it and have a good day.  Only time will tell for Abishai and us.

Cut scene to: The Next Day

Sort of.  Let's finish up Tuesday, driving, etc. first

The rest of the trip was uneventful.  We left the hotel a little after 11am, and pulled into Aaron and Shauna's driveway at 8:30pm.  Not too shabby.  The roads had a little bit of traffic on them.  It rained for a little bit of the way towards the end of the day, and as we got out of the van. We stopped for a late lunch and gas fill up near Huntsville.  It was fun driving through Alabama now that I "know" some people who live there! (vloggers, yes).  I tried to bring up some points to the kids that these states are where the Civil War and the Civil Rights movements took place.  We are in the Deep South!  Accents galore!  It's too bad that we actually don't stop on this roadtrips to visit other places along the way.  It's always about getting to the end as quickly as possible.  Someday I'd like to do a part of Route 66 or just mosey on across the US stopping in various places without a real plan.  But, that's probably just a pipe dream.

Abishai felt better and better as the day went along.  He's not showing any other signs of sickness, so I'm guessing it was food and the pool water.  However, Grandma was feeling sick again and Jared also felt lightheaded.  So Grandma crashed on the couch as soon as we got in the door while others unpacked the van.  I put some things away and followed the kids around with my big camera capturing all the happy squeals that occurred.  I'm trying not to use my phone because my phone and/or iCloud is constantly full, no matter how hard I try to clean it off.  (I save certain videos and pictures for certain reasons).  And I should take most pics and vids on the better camera anyway.  And I can permanently buy more storage for the camera, instead of renting cloud space for the phone.  ANYWAY, happy squeal fest!  Abishai had fallen asleep with 1 hr to go, so I told everyone not to scream too loud.  But you should have heard those girls!  Grandpa sat in the backseat with Keturah because Abishai wanted me with him, so he kept her calm by asking her questions.  He also quizzed Benaiah and Justin by having them recite Matthew 5-7 to them.  Yes, that's 3 CHAPTERS not just a few verses.  I guess they are ready to score well on their first semester Bible class in Bible college, because several Bible colleges requires it.  And it's so chock full of practical verses for life, of course.  Gary always uses his time wisely, so I'm not surprised he did that.

Gary drove about half of the time, so he didn't do much reading or typing in the car this time.  He did call his brothers on Christmas Day, and made other minor phone calls to others.  Which was a good reminder to me to at least text my siblings.  I had just talked to Stefanie on Christmas Eve and my brother had called me the week before.  I don't have contact with my other sister, but Stefanie does.  There was a small snowstorm coming, so Stefanie wasn't going to Boston (area) to see Kristina, my other sister.  My brother is usually busy with his (soon to be ex) wife's family and his own kids, so I didn't want to bother him.  I felt bad that I didn't make plans with him because he does live only 40 minutes away, and I told him that, but he was fine with it.  His daughter was having a medical procedure on the Thursday before Christmas, and she isn't allowed to be around any kind of sickness, minor or major, so we would have had to cancel anyway.  Her birthday is coming up in February, so maybe we can get up there between now and then.  I feel bad, but a 40 minute drive can be tough to schedule in.  So, my siblings and I did talk, and that's good enough.  I'm glad Gary has set an example to me as I am the leader of the Howell family.  My extended family all lives in NH and MA and we talk occasionally or see pictures on Facebook.  And that's why I carry on the Howell traditions as faithfully as I do in the fall and during the holidays.

So, we wrapped up the day with squeal fest, dropped over 4 people and all the gifts, and then headed to the "Mustard Seed" house a block away.  Abishai finally went to bed about 10:30pm.  The "mustard seed" house deserves a short blog on its' own, but basically, it's a larger house (for this area) and can house up to 28 people who have been and will be here to help with all the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.  Yes, there are still groups that come down (but they are much fewer in number) because there's still clean up and restoration to be done.  It doesn't look like a disaster hit, but there's projects here and there.  I'll find out the story of the house from Aaron later, but they custom built bunkbeds and turned the garage into bedroom.  4 bunk rooms, 1 double bed, 2 showers, 3 toilets.  And it's got an interesting set of decor and interior.  It's very unique and when I looked around, I thought to myself, I wonder how much of this is original and how much of this has been rebuilt by the crews that have visited.  We drove by a church today that I think I could tell where the water line was on it based on the moss/mold on the side of it.  It's not mold necessarily, it's just green stuff on the bricks and the church looks active and cleaned up.  I like to point these things out to the kids often so that they start asking similar questions and stop thinking just about themselves. Another question that I don't think about often is: what could this become?  I don't have that kind of foresight/dreamer/visionary person.  I can plan, once something is somewhat decided on (or rather schedule out what needs to be done when), but I can't envision things creatively.  I can't see how a bowling alley can become a church like "The Gathering" became 10 years ago down here in Chalmette, LA.    I'm grateful for those with that skill.  I'm just the "help," which is funny because that's what Jared put on Gary's present's gift tag: "from the oldest son and the help."  It took Gary a minute to figure it out.

I typed, boys went to bed.  I didn't hear how the other kids slept at Aaron and Shauna's except that they woke up much earlier than we did.   I imagine that they went to bed just fine, and even if it was really late, they will recover at some point.  We haven't been down here like this for the whole week in 8 years.  We were here for a day before the cruise 3 years ago, but it's different when you settle in for the whole week.  The rest of the week will be Christmas, movies, board games, Legos, bounce houses, bowling?, indoor putt putt?, (it's finally cold down here, 47 degrees F!), etc.  Should be fun!

Some pics from the night before (they were on my camera, not my phone).  Making himself at home with all his stuff.

Keturah got her dolls all settled in as well.

None of us think twice about letting Abishai ride on the cart.  It took two cartfuls to bring everything up because it was 8 people plus gifts.

Picnic supper.

Buffet style!

Normal activities  Yes, we brought the PS4 with us.

I'm ready to go swimmin'! He took off his pants himself!

And tried to put his swim diaper on.

Again, the screen time.  Justin had 2 hrs in the car, but the others didn't do hardly anything.

This one can't connect to wifi, so he can listen to whatever he has downloaded or play his offline games.  He also downloaded and learned how to say the Lord's Prayer in ASL (sign language).  He wants to take it next semester, but it's a two semester class.  So, the teacher, the favorite Mrs. McCollum said he had to memorize the Lord's Prayer and pass the final exam of this semester at a certain level and she'll let him join.  He thinks he did or will do fine on the test.

This was in the next morning, so today, when Abishai wasn't feeling himself.  It took awhile for all of us, including him, to know if he'd be ok.  He was being picky on what he ate as well.  He had dry heaved several times, and his tummy muscles hurt, too.

Much later and much happier in the day when Mommy joined him up front.  Garbage truck!  It pleases me that I did actually indeed pick the right truck for him.

I took several pictures along the road for various reasons.  Some to share with vlogger friends, and some because they reminded me of history.

Somewhere in Alabama.

Backwoods of Alabama.

The vloggers live in Huntsville, but used to live in Birmingham and have family there.  Plus it's a bigger city than Huntsville.

Birmingham!

Right along the Alabama/Mississippi border, we stopped at this rest area.  I believe it is the place we stopped at the last time we drove down here 8 (not 7) years ago.  The place where we walked up the hill in the dark and an armadillo jumped up in front of Leah and Jared.  I was following behind, so I saw it leap up, too.  We have told the story numerous times so the memory is burned into my memory.  Opossums and armadillos creep out Leah.

Reading in the car time!

This is what the van looks like from the 2nd row in the front.  Abishai wanted some mommy time, so I sat with him.

Playing peek a boo with Daddy, and since we were getting a bit stir crazy at this point, Abishai was finding it a little extra hilarious.

Just because we stopped and someone offers to buy you a drink, doesn't mean you have to take them up on it! My children need some manners.  Justin wanted to get a Mt. Dew at 7 pm at night only to save it for tomorrow.  Hoarder, much?  Or resourceful? 

Aw, holding hands with his mommy.

So close we can smell it!  Well, not tonight, but it might sometimes.  I don't know, but it does have waterways near it.

Bwahahaha, a take on your typical "pumpkin spice everything" motto.

Finally here! Squeal! Everly's room!

Nora playing with Abishai with Everly's Legos.

I took lots of screen shots, too, on the way down.

Brrr.....

Still brrr.....and Chalmette was no more than 50.

Yeah! I earned $60 just riding in the car thanks to repeat customers and an end of year sale!

Last leg of the journey!

4 people dropped off with their luggage and the gifts.  Then it was off to the mustard seed house.  This couch used to be Aaron's and Shauna's.  Little man takes notes from big man.

Abishai knew exactly how to make himself feel at home, although it was approaching 10 pm.