Year 4, February 8th-10th, 2019: Nearing the End

Yeah! We are on the downhill slide towards the end of Jared's and Gary's India trip!  After briefly talking on Saturday evening, we won't hear from them again until they have reached American soil.  They are having church, and then traveling by train to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.  They will sleep for a few hours, tour around, and then they will finish their train ride to Delhi.  They will board a plane late on Monday night, and get to Newark, NJ, in the wee hours of the morning, back pedaling because of the time zones.  And then they will fly to Indy and land mid morning.  We can't wait!  It's been emotionally hard to have Jared gone with all the different family scenarios going on right now.  The kids have been pretty normal, but we've fallen into a routine somewhat.  It's mainly just the extra driving I don't normally do, which means I can't rest and accomplish all that I normally do.  And I just simply miss Jared's physical touch.  On Saturday morning, Abishai even asked, is Daddy home yet?  We did have a decently long conversation that morning as Jared had gone back to his room before supper.  I then texted with him for a few minutes before his bedtime.

Meanwhile, on Friday, we had a rough exchange because I was trying to get to gym day.  We were late, again.  Abishai fell asleep in the car because he had gotten up super early.  It took him a little bit to warm up to the rest of the group, and he was hungry so he ate all the snacks we brought.  Then he followed Justin around like a little puppy dog.  Keturah was bored and stayed close by.  I listened in on a few conversations, one comparing what each person did with their homeschoolers, if they used a co op or at home classes or online classes.  Pretty informative conversation.  Home for lunch, and then I left Abishai with Justin and Keturah to go pick up Benaiah at work and make a quick run to Meijer.  I was gone for no more than 90 minutes and Abishai did great!  He did potty a #2 and Justin had to wipe him up, but they survived, lol.  They did NOT use screen time.  And then later on when I dropped Benaiah off at the movie theater to watch a movie with some guys for one of the guys' birthdays, I left Abishai again and they played video games.  I pretty pleased with this because now I can leave Abishai for those short runs instead of dragging him out in the cold and getting him in and out of the carseat.  We finished a bit of school when we got home.

We didn't take any pictures at gym day, but when we got home, we decided to brave the frigid near zero degrees windchill temps to go "skating" on backyard pond!  We had so much rain on Wednesday/Thursday and then the temperatures dropped into the teens before the water could recede.

No, we actually couldn't go skating, but it was so cool to look at and crunch through!

It's so weird stepping on ice and it flattens the grass underneath.  But if you went out too far, there was standing water under there.

Abishai loved it!  He did go out on it and crunched the ice mostly on the edges.  He tried going across it and ended up slipping on his bum.  But he got right up and went for it again.  Socks avoided it as much as he could.  The water underneath is probably very cold.

See how the grass is just smashed into the ground?

A layer of ice on top of grass.  I've never seen anything like it!

I made Justin and Keturah come outside because we had never seen this before.  Justin put on boots that were too small for him so he could barely walk.

Keturah went right out in the middle of it and tromped through the deep waters.

On Saturday, I let the kids just do whatever to see if they would actually do their chores without me nagging.  Nope.  Gotta keep the routine.  Chores weren't done until noon.  Keturah had her 2nd to alst basketball game and Grandma came to watch!  I picked up Benaiah from work with Abishai and then joined them for 3/4 of the game.  They were beaten, again, but Keturah ran for three straight quarters!  And then we came home and puttered.  I worked on cleaning up the garage so I can put buckets of toys out there from the sunroom making it easier to set up a pinata in the sunroom for the birthday party.  Dinner and then a few last minutes with Dad.  I told the kids that we are only doing math and they are reading history based books next week.  I've got too many appointments and interruptions with Jared coming home and Abishia's birthday in the middle of the week, and a Valentine's party on Friday at gym day.  And then Abishai's birthday party is on Saturday.  So, I'm giving myself permission to drop all subjects but math and reading, which don't involve a lot of me time.  I correct math, but most of the work is on their own.  Plus, it doesn't take a lot of brain space from me because math is logical and I love logic!  Plug and chug with equations and numbers and letters, my favorite!

Oh brrrr, not again!

These two happily played Paw Patrol for an hour! The littler doggies are the kids and the larger ones that go with the vehicles are the parents.  Keturah asked if the little ones wanted to go swimming and then one of the larger pups was the lifeguard.

Fresh, clean hair.  And proof of what I look at at this point of time so my kids can have something to remember me by someday.  Still overweight.  Not the best color on me, but, it's better than nothing.  Actually, I took this for Jared since I won't talk to him in over 2 1/2 days.  Sigh.

Jared took a selfie for me, but he didn't have a shirt on so I'm not going to post it.  Plus, he wasn't smiling.  Typical Jared.  His Twitter account profile picture is the "no selfies" sign.  He doesn't like them at all.

Second to last game.  Run, Keturah, run!  Get after the ball!

Time out for more coaching.

I'm thirsty, Mom, after my mini nap in the car.  He said we could share my water bottle.

Today's cheering squad brought to you by electronics.

Get ready to grab the ball!  The other coach was pretty loud and when their team was on defense, he kept saying, "harass."  Eek.

Stay with your person!

Bored! And he almost slipped down the bleachers because he wouldn't stay on the grey areas.  He wanted to snuggle and take a nap, too.

Keturah sat out 4th period.

At least we managed to keep his socks on this time.

Ugh.  Beaten again.

Sunday was a bit crazy with Grandma taking Benaiah to Shelby St to play drums and then coming back here to take middles with her to Franklin Rd.  Then I went with Abishai to Shelby St so I could bring him back.  I hadn't seen the new drum set up and it looks awesome!  I think the drum kit is surrounded it 3/4 of the way by glass and then there's an actual roof to it.  Then they mike the drums.  They also added mood lighting with some smaller versions of the multi ray lights we have at Franklin Road.  They used different colors of lights on different songs so now I can actually see Benaiah play and it adds an element on stage of color and interest. We ate pizza lunch with Grandma and then she took Benaiah, Keturah, and Abishai back to church at 4pm.  Justin and I went to the TobyMac/Jeremy Camp/Jordan Feliz concert downtown (there will be a separate post about that as usual).  Benaiah stayed for Crave and Keturah had kids' choir.  Thank you, Grandma!

Doesn't everybody eat breakfast upside down?

This was Jared's point of view today.  Indian Water Buffalo!  They don't eat cows because their religion deems them holy, but they eat a ton of chicken and some water buffalo.  They went to church, had lunch, and then rode a train for about 7 or 8 hrs.

Man!  These winter storms brew up and go from the northern border to the southern border!  They kind of in a way connects us to the family down south.  We are right on the snow/rain line today.  We got maybe 1 1/2 inches of snow and are expected a bit of sleet and/or rain.  Roads were a bit dicey.

Morning hair.  When you go from somewhat wet hair and put it in a flexi clip for the rest of the day, and then only put it your hair in a loose ponytail at night, these are the results.

Awww, our crew!

Sweet!  All dressed up for church.  Jared taught a college age Sunday School class of 150 young adults!  They asked him about one saved/always saved theory and he answered in such a way that Ajai, his interpreter said that the students won't forget.  They even gave him a round of applause!

Back at home we had snow!  Benaiah played drums at the Shelby St. campus so he got drive home in the snow.  A normal 20 minute ride took almost 45 minutes!  But he did it!  And he wanted to!

That's right, I don't have to drive anymore!  Whoop! Whoop!

Big, fluffy snow!

Our little street is covered in snow!

Abishai fell asleep on the ride to Grandma's house from Shelby St and took a bit of time to wake up fully.  But once he was awake, he was raring to go.  He ate some lunch and then played a round of good guys/bad guys with Grandma.  He got a sticker at the "other church's" Sunday School class that he said he was saving for Daddy.  And when they talked about families and what were the names of their moms and dads, he could list of Jared, Melinda, and Gary, but not Leah!  Lol! 

The End