Year 4, July 15th-18th, 2019: Pre Vacation Crazies/TCM

Ok, it's Monday again.  I'm actually feeling pretty good after having a fun day yesterday.  I'm even a bit more hopeful that I can fix my hormones, but enough about that.  Today I took Abishai on little date to a "touch a truck" event in Beech Grove.  It was only 4 vehicles, but other touch a truck events have more than 20.  Oh well, I'll try to get to the Raymond Park one next year.  Abishai wasn't so sure of it either, if he should touch things or climb in.  I think next time I will bring the others so they can reassure him.  It was very hot, too, and not many kids around. But he did get to see a fire truck, two bucket trucks and a garbage truck! Then we went to the grocery store for a few things, and I told him if he was good he could get a treat.  Well, he got two treats, a hot wheels car and a big bag of specialty jelly beans, which he then didn't like.  I'll have to get him some regular ones when I come across them.  I asked him what kind of rules do we have for being in the store, like what do we do with our hands? Put them in our pockets.  What do we do with our feet? Walk.  I've learned how to better interact with him from watching other vloggers talk to their kids.  You just never know where your parenting tips will come from! After the grocery store, we went to the UPS store to send some returns back to Amazon.  I just returned both sets of those mini lightbulbs and will try again another day and use a different source to find what I need.  He was a little trooper through the errands.

Meanwhile, the other two kids were home on their electronics.  Benaiah had spent the night at Ethan's house, then he went with them to the mall, then he went to Ava's house to swim, and then......he went to church to hang out with the other drummers while they....get this....talked with a drummer from THE Hillsong worship band/group/church! Oh my goodness!  Somehow one of the other guys made a connection, so they were able to ask the Hillsong drummer all kinds of questions.  Now, Benaiah is exhausted and didn't give me any details today, but I'm sure it was cool.  He's actually a bit frustrated with Ava because he keeps having to rearrange his schedule or what he wants to do with her around things that come up with her schedule, like her new job or babysitting or family events.  I had to hold in a chuckle because oh my word, haven't I been frustrated with the same thing for years! Dude, welcome to adulthood!  Welcome to having frustrations within a relationship.  I think he's going to have a new found appreciation for what I've been dealing with.  Poor guy!  Such is life! Lol!

The rest of the day was spent at home puttering, starting to clean and pack, playing in the pool, resting, and having a nice dinner.  I made a quick inventory of what was in the fridge and threw away some stuff I knew we wouldn't eat and made a plan to eat up the rest without defrosting more meat and making more leftovers.  And whatever is left, we'll take with us.  But I kind of doubt there will be anything to take. We got through fruit and vegetables quickly, and I had judged pretty well how much we would eat in a week.  It's going to go fine, I'm sure.  And Ava's going to house sit for us, yeah! I did make a little packing list, although I can go without one.  But this time we'll have more beach stuff, and I want to be sure I have things for Washington, D.C., like electrolyte drink packets.  I found some things that were very close to gatorade or powerade that have salt and sugar in them but not quite it.  I also found some that had caffeine in them as well.  I used to drink similar packets years ago.  You dump the contents of the packet into 16 oz of water and away you go.  I just need a 20 oz pop bottle that is thicker than the 16 oz water bottles and we'll be fine.  Housing has been arranged, Gary found a wheelchair for me for D.C. and I'm in a good mood.  All is well.

I am excited for the drive to Delaware because I'm going to sit front with both of my men while they take turns driving and pick their brains.  I have some things to discuss and get caught up on with Jared and I want to pick Benaiah's brain a bit more on some recent things he's mentioned.  I know Benaiah will share what he can and he knows I'll stop asking questions when he asks me to.  But first, we have to get through the next few days.  Taco Tuesday, here we come!

The roundabout at Edgewood and Franklin is almost complete! We saw a sign about our intersection being closed on the day we return from vacation, so hopefully this one will be open by then.  It's amazing how quickly these can go in.  Actually, Beech Grove's roundabout took one month, but that's because they didn't have a month of rain to deal with.

Abishai saw Jared's water bottle on the counter this morning and was concerned that he had left it behind.  I was confused, too, so we refilled it, put in the C02 and surprised Daddy with it.

Uh-oh! Daddy's airplane fell off the desk!  We'll have to bring the instructions back so we can remake it.

We played a bit of gaga ball while Daddy was on the phone for 15 minutes.  We tried to keep quiet, but it was hard!

IPL (electric company) large bucket truck!  Check out how high that thing can go!

Beech Grove Fire Department pumper truck with lots of colorful buttons! I'm sure we've seen that one when we had a ton of fire trucks on our street in Beech Grove because of an alley fire.  I think we had upwards of 13 or 14 emergency vehicles from all kinds of departments!  Can you say overkill?  Lol.

A relatively clean garbage truck!  Abishai had never seen a white garbage truck before, and neither had I.  The paint scheme has changed in the 7 years since we lived there.

Garbage truck and smaller bucket truck owned by Beech Grove.

Abishai gladly set the table for dinner, including a place setting for Benaiah.  He gave Justin the green plate because he lieks green, and he gave Benaiah the orange plate because it's not green.  And then he did switch his plate with Keturah's because the light blue is her favorite color.  He also made sure everyone had napkins and forks.

It's exhausting waiting for Daddy to come home!

And that's how you play video games from your man cave! Or rather their couch fort.

The last Taco Tuesday (for us anyway) was a decent day.  Justin and Keturah enjoyed time with their friends, and I took Abishai over to CFA.  We tried to be as cheap as possible and it worked out fine.  Then I had to sign off on Benaiah selling his Nintendo Switch back to Game Stop.  Jared and I really didn't try to stop him from doing that.  Yes, he lost $100, but he would lose even more if he waited longer because another version is coming out soon.  He then promptly spent half of what he got back on an awesome bluetooth wireless speaker, but hey, that's what people do.  We resell our old stuff and get new stuff. Again, a good lesson to learn.  Then he went on back to the mall to get his boots fixed.  They will cost him almost as much to fix as to buy them, but again, lesson learned.  He did get to spend a little bit of time with Ava today.  And now he's starting his homework for health class tomorrow.  I could smack him for that.  He's had like two weeks to do it.

Otherwise, Keturah puttered, the other boys had electronics, I took a nap and we had leftovers for dinner.  Not a huge big day, but it worked.  Oh, Abishai did want to walk around the block this morning so in his pjs with no shoes, we started walking around the block on his motorcycle trike.  We made it all the way over to Grandma's house and the neighbors across the street were out.  So, we had an impromptu play date for a little bit.  It was a little awkward, but they are new to the Creek, so it was good to have some one on one time with the mom.  I approached the duck nest too quickly and scared mama duck, but at least she was there.  She had uncovered one of the eggs though, maybe because it got too hot? But I'm glad she was back.  Then we had to head back home to get to Taco Bell. All that Abishai wants to talk about it is going to the beach on vacation because Blippi did.  I'm not sure he's going to really like the sand once he's on it, but whoe knows.  I've got water shoes for the others to use, so they can't complain about icky toes.

Tomorrow is Children's Museum day and Thursday is packing day.  And I guess I didn't take any pictures today, so here's a fun screenshot I did.

Why is this so true at our house?

Wednesday was our day at the Children's Museum again.  It was our last time to see the Paw Patrol exhibit, and Abishai actually didn't spend a lot of time in there.  Actually, he was all over the place today, not really spending a lot of time in one spot.  And after 5 hrs of that and him just really losing it, it was time to leave.  Overall, it was a decent trip.  I was in a paitent mood and was able to take the time time to look kids in the eyes and discipline without getting angry.  We saw a little bit of things that we didn't see last time like the overlook to the dinosaurs, the balls in playscape, and of course the new Greek permanent exhibit (we are saving the temporary one you have to pay more for to see another day).  We also got to finally go inside the sports tree house!  And, it was just like a playground inside, the pathways were small, places got clogged, etc.  Oh, and the big kids got to "golf." We also saw the annual Hot Wheels exhibit in it's new location in the sports legend area.  It also closes down the end of this month.  But to me, it's losing it's luster.  It needs a makeover with new paint and parts that are fixed.  It has changed locations at least 4 times in the building depending on the year and what else is occupying those areas.  Anyway, it's one of Abishai's favorites of course, but there is a permanent track in the sports legend area, as well as the pit stop challenge and a car to drive.

I'll journal more with the pictures, but write this out there.  I did not feel great again today.  I had the beginnings of a headache when we left and it only got worse.  I drank propel water, but it contains aspartame and I think that hurt my stomach.  I also tried a different energy packet blend by Kroger, and couldn't finish that either.  Finally I tried Alkalime by Young Living and it took an hour, but my stomach ache and my headache cleared up a bit.  I'll show you the ingredients below.  I was on my feet for 5 hrs, most of the time in an air conditioned building, with moderate sized crowds that we are used to, and I still had issues.  This makes me even more nervous for D.C.  Plus, with Abishai growing ancy and darting in and out sometimes, I know he won't be able to stay in a quiet museum with air conditioning but it's going to be 127 degree heat index outside so that's not a good option either.  My anxiety is creeping up again.  I just have to keep realistic expectations of myself, keep everyone in the loop, and really, seriously, check out of parenting for the week.  I hate to do that, but besides imparting some history lessons on the kids, I just can't use my energy on discipline or making decisions about everyone else's food or bathroom stops, etc.  I want to enjoy this trip, too.  AND, the van's a/c is out! Jared says it's drying the air but not cooling it.  Ugh! And of course he thinks we don't have time to get it fixed.  We sort of do because we can leave when we want, but still.  We definitely can't afford this.  I'm so mad about it!

Ok, enough of that.  As a vlogger clarified today about her own words, "I didn't say to expect everything to go wrong in order to be negative, but I'm expecting things to go wrong and to have adventures with these hiccups (like their truck breaking down, or ants in their RV, all the while doing IVF treatments!)"  But that's how both of her and her husband tackle life: head on, full force.  I need to embrace a little more of the "adventure/let's have fun with this" kind of attitude instead "Oh no, not another crisis, I can't handle this, God hates me, I'm going to die" kind of attitude. So pray for us this week as we travel, for my health, for the A/C, for this bruised forearm bone I have from hitting it with full force on a new display today at the museum, and for lots and lots of patience.  And no headaches.  I'm a much better person without headaches.  Headaches that stem from all kinds of sources.  Thanks.

TCM Playlist for July 17th, 2019

Buttons! We didn't stay long in Paw Patrol, but we had to touch all the buttons.

Helping pack the Pup Packs for a rescue mission.

Justin, Justin, Justin! Come play!

Gathering up snowballs.

And dumping them out again.

Yeah, we finally got to go in the treehouse in the Sports Legend area!  But it was SO CUTE and hard to get through with the small crowd.

I really think we have a soccer player in the family!  Look at that pose!

And a camera man, like his mommy and brother Miah.

Aw, big brother and little brother in front of Bumblebee.

He loves to do these cardboard cutout things.  Big robot!

Put the balls in the tube and they get sucked up and through all the tubes, some of which the kids can change.  What fun!

He easily made it up to the top of the pond lily pads without hesitating or crying.  What a big boy!

Abishai saw goggles in the area where some regular wood building blocks were and thought we needed them in order to build.  Smart thinking!

Time to build!

Balls and tubes.

The tunnel is like a tornado and you can throw things up and it swirls and twirls a bit.  I think it's funny that Justin and Keturah got in there.  We were in Playscape and they are only supposed to be helpers and stand back and let the little kids play.

More ball action pushing the balls up the "stairs."

Can't resist a ride in the fast race car of course!

New supplement for me!  And it has exactly what I need in an electrolyte kind of beverage without all the nasty stuff like sugar.  Stevia doesn't like me much either, but it's way better than aspartame.  Thanks Young Living!

EWWWWWW  why does this have to happen everywhere while we are on vacation and want to be outside!  The dewpoint was 80 degrees!  That's gross!

Lots of steps when you go to the Children's Museum.

DSLR pics

These flower pictures were from May and I don't know if I shared them previously or not since I hadn't uploaded them to my computer.  I know I probably took some picture with my phone, too, and must have uploaded those that day.  Jared severely trimmed back the rose bush last year and look at how beautiful it came out this year!

Just another reminder that when God is using your circumstances to cut away the dead stuff, He will turn you into something more beautiful than you were.

Time for the new permanent exhibit!  Time to visit ancient and modern Greece!  So exiting!

Back to Paw Patrol for a little bit.

Reading a book in Everest's ski lodge!

Planting flowers.

Look!  There's plants on the roof of the museum!  Why?

Oh, here's why, it's great for drainage, for insects, and the environment.

Roar! The hairy head dinosaur is going to get you!  (Who said dinosaurs didn't have hair?  They could have, right?)

Since we were on an upper level, I showed the kids the dinosphere exhibit and it was raining and thundering!  We also got to see some employees dusting off the fake foliage.

Ooo, it's a screen! Of course!  But sad times, the dinosaur nest are is walled off so they can expand the paleo lab.  That was our favorite place to play!  We knew that they were doing that though.  And the guy in the digging pit said they are expanding the exhibit to include the Jurassic era, which has bigger bones like Brachiosaurus.  What they have now is from the Cretaceous(?) era.  I don't think Creation scientists follow these "eras" but it's ok to group the dinosaurs sort of together like that.  I'm sure I can find more information on it, but I'm not worried about it.  If my kids were obsessive about dinosaurs, I would make sure they had the right information from creationmuseum.org.

Such a beautiful (fake) sky!

We went quickly through all the dinosphere things because well, we did a lot there last time.

Hi, dinosaur!

Check out the moon!  Cool!

Always ready to dig.  Always ready to be a Ninja.  Homeschooler by day, Ninja at night.

Dig, dig, dig.

So sad.  No more dinosaur egg nests.

Breezed through trains, as well.

Time to really dig into the the new ancient and modern Greece, say hi!

Snacks in Greece, what makes them the same or different than ours?  Juice boxes.

Lays and Ruffles!

Pepsi products!  Not Coke!  Yeah!

Abishai loves to play with cooking stuff, so he spent a long time cooking up all kinds of yummy Grecian food.

He kept taking pieces of "food" from one person's place to put on our plates. I think that's stealing a bit, but no one seemed to mind.

Pyros and more....

There's always special presentations showing some of the cultural traditions.  I think they were talking about weddings.

I'll happily take your money!

This was some fabric, stuffed like a pillow to make it look like a layer of noodles.

Thin pillow of noddles!

Yum! Gyros!

How to make gyros.

We found some ancient things!  Not crazy about the BCE part, but hey, the timing was during the time of Christ.

Keturah said her eyes hurt after looking at this.  Not sure what it's made of, but it looks like an owl.  I guess owls meant a lot to Grecians.

Of course the classic Greek architecture.

Nice old coin.

Everybody has their own way to brew coffee.  Sweet!

They even had fake dogs!

Taking care of the turtles in the turtle rescue center.  It's for loggerhead turtles.  I didn't know they lived in the Mediterranean Sea!

All the turtles needed a shot of antibiotics.

Look at all the things that can grow on a turtle shell!

I told the two middle kids to run off and read stuff and I'll ask them later what they learned.  Justin told him about what the Greeks believe in now, and that's Orthodox Christianity.  The numbers might look high, but I wonder how many of them are true Christians in our sense of the word or just Christians in name only.  You did see shrines or pictures of Jesus everywhere.

Researching turtle eggs.

Of course fish is one of the main staples to eat and sell.

Some Grecian medications that are the same as ours but different labeling.

Keturah was fascinated with how you make olive oil and thought it was a good exhibit for Daddy who loves it!  You grind up the olives of course into a paste.

Olive paste.

The whole process.

Then press the oil out of the paste.

And finally fill the cans of oil.

Lots of ancient artifacts in a Grecian home..  Mixing the old with the new.  Quite interesting.

Homework!

Math homework and bus pass!

Same books as ours, but written in Greek.

They always do well with redecorating this area.

Sweets to eat including Baklava, which I've had.  Flaky crust and sweet middle.  Yummy!

Lots of homes and businesses have areas for pictures of Jesus and saints.

Fishing!

Yes, you can walk into an airplane to watch a video about Greece before you enter the exhibit.

The annual Hot Wheels exhibit that goes along with the month of May, aka IndyCar race month! It is only there for a couple of months, though.  This time they put it in an area of the Sports Legend area in place of a basketball exhibit we actually never went in (I thought it was a permanent exhibit, maybe it will come back when Hot Wheels is packed up again).  Because it's been used every year for about 10 years and has been in 4 different locations, it's in pretty rough shape.  I think it needs some new paint and parts or totally revamped.  They did take or recreate a few pieces of it for the permanent exhibit in Sports Legends.  But this is a favorite of ours, the downhill racing track!

Lots of old favorites.

Hey, we went on a field trip to Dalara last year!

More treehouse pics.  It feels super cramped in there, so not ideal for pictures.  Maybe for a panoramic? I didn't think about doing that though.

This is a great example of it look like!  Lots of windows and places to crawl in and out of.  It wasn't any warmer inside than it was outside, just cramped.

Looking out one of the little hidey holes.  Sweet!

It's a pretty neat tree with all kinds of sports things on the side.  Hi, Keturah!

More of the outside decor.

We also tried the "golf" area.  They had metal/plastic golf clubs and colored tennis balls. Kind of weird and Abishai only lasted two holes, so we sat in the shade while the other two did theirs.  I had to stay close by because they don't allow kids to run around without supervision, yes, even 14 yr olds.  Just think: a bunch of 14 yr old school children running around a children's museum unsupervised, yikes!

Keturah and Justin "golfing."  Not as fun as proper mini golf.  Especially in the heat.

Very low airplane.  Being just north of downtown, the museum is in the direct path of many flights from the east coast to the airport on the westside.

Abishai plus cars equals #daymade

My little bossy camera man.

Who's the kid here?  The both of them!  Justin is never embarrassed to play with things that are for "little" kids.  He still loves the mechanics of making the cars jump.  He definitely is my engineer type guy, and so is Abishai.

Abishai is very good at this pit stop "game" now.  He still needs help to hold the tire on while he screws it in place. 

Then upstairs we went to play with sand, except we didn't play with sand very long.  In fact, Abishai didn't play with much very long.  He was all over the place.  Here's that tornado tunnel again.

Always climbing!

Oo, this is why I should the DSLR more often.  Great picture and great time in the sand!

Keturah loved the thing that spun the sand off of it.

IndyGo is trying to streamline some of their bus routes so they have created these new bus stops in the middle of a couple of main thoroughfares called the Red Line Project and dedicated lanes of traffic for the buses.  Interesting.  I hope it works!

Woah! I never noticed how the ceiling was vented like that!  I was just trying to get a decent photo of "The Pond," the lily pads, and the boats.  Cool!

Abishai can be a little pushy sometimes.  Thankfully the little girl took it in stride.  You stuff the kerchiefs inside the tube, press a button, and air blows them up and out.

Carefully playing in the water so his clothes don't get wet.  After the first time or two with him at the water table, and him not liking any drop of water on his clothes, and the protective vests being soaked, I make sure we have extra clothes with us in the building just in case.  Nowadays, the diaper bag stays in the van permanently, but in all reality, it can probably be dismantled soon.

Building blocks.

Big brother helping with the ball.  There was a broken bar inside the glass we couldn't fix and the balls kept falling down.  Thankfully, they do roll just out, but it was kind of disappointing that part of the device didn't work.

 Thursday was crazy packing day!  I worked hard today, steadily doing the tasks I know needed to be done.  And yes, all of it got done.  After arguing with Jared about the van's a/c situation, he finally took it to Logan's and they said it was the compressor.  So, we could take it to Radiator Plus to try to get it fixed before we left or we could find another solution.  Well, we choose the later.  And thanks to some awesome friends, we are borrowing their van and they are going to try to fix the compressor while we are gone.  I had to run an errand today and boy was it hot to have the windows down and no a/c.  I haven't had to feel that since I was a kid.  Thankfully it was a short trip to meet up with Keturah's friend Jordan so they could go to a water park together, then Kroger for medication, drop off recycling, visit Jared, and stop in at the library to get the soundtrack to Newsies.  Abishai was a trooper and he ended up with two new die cast 4 inch long cars because now he thinks every time we go into Kroger he needs a gift.  I told him that he is paying for the cars.  He had three in his hands and I got him to put one of them back.  But the other two were pretty cool, so I caved.  Yes, I didn't want a scene and yes, he's the spoiled baby of the family.  Anyway, there's that.  He also picked two Star Wars books after he turned down my offer to find Peppa Pig books.  Such a boy.

Yup, packing and cleaning. Washing clothes to take with us.  Packing up food stuff. Testing out a new packet of energy drink type powder.  Actually, this one had as much caffeine as a Monster Drink does, plus the taurine and B vitamins and other natural energy boosters.  I didn't chug it and I didn't get sick on it.  That's because it has sucrose, or sugar, in it rather than aspartame.  I'm as sensitive to aspartame as my mother was.  Blech. So, the caffeine definitely helped today.  Abishai did well not dumping stuff out.  Everybody showered and packed well enough.  I'm sure there will be last minute things to do in the morning like chores and packing up cold food and shoving toothbrushes in a plastic bag to take with us. Keturah will need a shower since she's getting back so late.  It's 10:15 and she's not home yet.  She had a few more clothing items to pack as well.  But usually on a busy morning, I'm the one with most tasks so the kids will have time to finish up everything they need to.

What started out as an emotional day, turned out well because Jared and I apologized and moved on.  I was crying because he said he was anticipating my complaining on our driving and the whole trip.  I've been worried about my attitude on this trip for months now.  Everybody knows I'm not trying to be mean.  I don't want to be left behind with a headache.  It hurts me that he's anticipating my bad actions.  He shouldn't have to worry about that. But at the same time, I've lived with chronic illness for over 10 years and I've been very vocal about my needs, while at the same time pushing myself through them to try to be "normal." It's not an easy task.  So, I got through the tears and life moved on.  Hopefully we can do that all week.  I need Jared to be on my side and do most of the parenting.  I'll take care of myself.  And I'm grateful that most of the time he does understand and helps.  But being a caregiver is hard work, too.  It can be very frustrating.  So, we are all praying for a fun time and lots of memories made.  Some of us are just more negative and anxious than others.  Sigh.

Almost done.  We'll be able to drive on it when we get back, but our intersection will be closed because of a roundabout being built there as well.

Farmer Abishai driving the tractor in his pj's.  Where are we going?  He makes up stories that we don't always understand.  Sweet!

How I feel every day, so sometimes I just need the quiet to think.

How sweet is this?! George Bush and Michael W. Smith have been friends since the early 1990's.  And Maine is right next to New Hampshire, so......I thought it was sweet thugh.

Bacon bison burger cookies!  The only protein left in the house were these two packages of ground venison.  They were  still a little frozen which made it easier to slice them.  At least we know what we can eat on the road tomorrow!

Showing Ava how to water the trees.

Where Keturah is at this evening.  He's having a blast!  Yeah!  And don't worry, we have backpacks for everyone.

Aw, so sweet! Keturah loves swimming, so this was perfect timing!  She was underfoot at home and I know she wanted to spend more time Jordan.  I love it when I can say yes!

Bathing beauties!

The End