The J6 Journey: Year 5, January 1st-3rd, 2019: NOLA Part 4, 2020!

Ah, the parents left at 5:30am to go back home. We slept in until after 8. We were told that Abishai did just fine. Aaron heard him get up to go to the bathroom. And then he woke up and snuggled Everly. Awww! We've had a fun day at home. Slow breakfast, lots of giggles and games. The adults left the house for an hour to visit the coffee house, drop off recycling and see the youth room at the Gathering. Then the men went to the grocery store for some very spicy jambalaya. Oh, and we made our gingerbread houses! There were some tears from Keturah and Nora (Nora wanted to stretch first and wasn't ready to get started). But the rest of us did pretty well. We put the houses together and then let them set. We came back a couple of hours later to decorate them. Of course Shauna and I worked the longest on ours, lol. But, we had fun with it! The kids had their electronic time earlier with Minecraft and tablet and now we are finishing the day with the new live action Aladdin movie, although it's very late already. That's ok, most of us can sleep in the car tomorrow.

Oh yeah, the men packed the car with the gifts and the mini motorbike we are bringing home. I totally forgot to have Gary and Leah take home the gifts they gave us, so it's going to be interesting adding my duffel bag in the morning. Thank goodness Benaiah went home early. He was spending the afternoon and evening with Ethan. He said he's doing fine and went back to let Socks out and would vacuum. He's going to go out with Ava on Friday, and tomorrow he has a long workday. Fun times! And we all go back to school on Monday. But I think we're ready to get out of everybody's hair. It was nice to do our own thing today and have less people to have committees with, lol. (This movie is so distracting! Let's just work on pictures, shall we? It doesn't help that I know all the words to all the songs, lol.) It was a great movie though! Not much else to write except I cleaned up the guest house the best I could and we all went to bed early so we could get up and leave at a decent time the next day. Abishai kept asking when we were going home. When the extra extrovert is ready to go home, it's time to go home, lol.

Here's the playlist for all three days. Let's face it. No one wants to take videos and pics when they are grouchy. So, yup, here goes. NOLA Jan 1st-3rd, 2020 Playlist

Let's get this gingerbread house making party started! After reading the instructions, we all thought it was best to make the houses, let them set, and then come back to decorate them. It was a good thing we had all day to do them! Poor Nora wanted to start with us, but she also felt the need to stretch, and got overwhlemed making the right choice. Shauna ended up putting together Nora's house while Nora calmed down. Poor girl after my own heart, bless her! Nora did enjoy decorating though. It wasn't Nora's first meltdown of the week either.

That's a good Daddy getting in on the gingerbread house making. This is Abishai's doghouse.

Aaron helped out a lot of us. Group effort! This year we had proper decorating bags, but we had to transfer the icing from a foil pouch into the decorating bag. Why they didn't just come all ready to go, I don't know. We also had fondant to roll out and use, too.

Everly did hers all by herself! She had a little bit of complicated one being the tiny house, but she used some extra candy to get to the post to stand up.

Keturah was very frustrated from the beginning but Aaron and Shauna were very patient with her and got her to finish what she could.

Keturah's reindeer barn.

After the kids put their houses together, they went outside to ride bikes. No helmets, no shoes. Ugh! But they worked on getting a proper rhythm so they were spaced evenly in a circle in the intersection. It's a good thing these neighborhoods have very little traffic. They even tried to make bigger and smaller circles as they were riding. Kudos for having to cooperate!

Abishai was climbing this dome climbing gym and does pretty well. But soon after this picture, he tumbled head first into the center of the dome from that height in the picture. Thankfully he tucked his head but it was a nasty fall. A dome like this costs almost $200 on Amazon, but Aaron and Shauna got it free from her mom's house years and years ago. I think our kids would love it!

Riding in tandem like those motorcycles in the cage thing at the circus. Great coordination!

Don't let that smirk fool you! She just hates her picture being taken. I think she knows that I will still take it even if she makes a crazy face, so she's tolerating it a little better this year. She had a fantastic time decorating her house. She and Justin got the smaller houses, and I'm glad she was ok with it. Technically they could do two houses each because all of us had bigger ones to do. Praise God that they kids didn't through fits about that!

This one took me all day! And I didn't quite finish either. I'll do some finishing touches once I get it home. But, I also didn't have any disasters with it either because I took my time and used lots of icing and messed with it less than I normally do. I can't wait to decorate it!

Almost done!

See! She's a happy camper!

Daddy put a PP for Paw Patrol. Abishai didn't want to decorate it with the dog bones, but maybe when I get it out at home.

Cousins finishing the icing bag. Yum!

Minecrafting together! 4 of them together now that we have a 4th controller! This is why I wasn't mad at Jared for spending the money on Keturah's controller although I had already purchased all her gifts. Yes it's a video game. Yes they even fight over it. But they also look forward to continuing their map every time they see each other!

A little bit of fondant borrowed from another house before the adults escaped for coffee for an hour.

All done! Sweet!

Shauna's has the walkway, Keturah's in the back, Nora's has the gumdrops, and I have the lighthouse.

Cousins!

Justin's gumdrop house.

Justin's triangle house with Shauna's fondant tree. Man, when Shauna gets into a project, she doesn't stop! She's a true crafter!

Everly did this all by herself! Wow!

The current state of my lighthouse. I will add some more icing on the top to look like snow. It's not perfect, but I enjoyed doing what I could on it.

Nora's.

Everly's.

Keturah's.

Late dinner.

Just the kids and parents. No grandparents.

Jared wanted true jambalaya, so instead of take out, the men found this at grocery store. It was way too spicy for me, Keturah, and Abishai, but everyone else gobbled it up. They made two boxes and there were no leftovers.

It was one of those days I wish I could do better with cameras and lighting. The morning light was playing off my hair so well and showing off the natural strawberry shades I have. Remember, any of the highlighting in my hair is because I wear it up in the sun. There are no gray hairs and no artificial coloring.

Freshly washed hair with natural highlights in natural sunlight.

There, it's blurry, but you can see the different colors better.

Second to last picture together.

I found Nora reading to Abishai because Abishai asked her to. Sweet!

Apparently, Abishai is now dust mop as Everly pulls him around.

Another view of the lighthouse. I'm just crossing my fingers it made it through driving yesterday. When it was brought in, the box was set down on it's side, although it was clearly marked with "this side up." I have no idea where or how it was set in the van.

Take note of the scowl, but Jared played the "board" game with his siblings. Fun fact, Gloria Miller, Mark Miller's wife (former pastor at Indian Creek) made these boards and Leah had some made for each of us in our favorite colors based on our regions, like the Saints colors for Aaron and Shauna and Canadian/American colors for us.

Everly did everything except for the wreath. Shauna just couldn't let good fondant go to waste!

Watching the newest live version of Aladdin together. They had a lot of the same elements as the animated version, but lots of great updates as well, especially in some of the jokes. Will Smith played the part of the Genie very well. He put his own spin on it while honoring Robin Williams' version of it. Well done indeed. I loved the Cinderella live action film, too, because it adhered to the same traditions while adding some things that truly enhanced the story. I need to see Beauty and the Beast, which is also on Disney Plus. Yes these films are money makers for Disney, but they are also rekindling a love for the older films and connecting the generations. Oh, and I think the Little Mermaid comes out this year, although she is betrayed by an African American. Don't worry, I will go into the theater with an open mind. I've already read the reasons why they made this decision and it's ok, just a little disappointing.

Getting loaded up and eating breakfast went smoothly. We left at 9:15am central time. However, driving home was frustrating. The van was packed well with a smidge of room to spare. The kids behaved well and no one got sick. But the weather was awful. Rain all the way, sometimes very, very heavy. We went through two major accident spots, one taking an extra hour with a semi truck totally blocking the road and one just being a minor accident with rush hour traffic in Nashville, TN. Jared was fed up with it all and frustrated with getting different quotes by different people at the rental company. I had told him that we would not be back by 9pm and just make the van returnable the next day. He hadn't listened. Thankfully they did pro rate it since we got it in by 6am (before they opened today) instead of keeping it another 24 hrs. We had gotten home about 12:15am. His arms and back were very sore. I was mad at him for yelling at me and creating a scene in the car. It was very rough, I'm not going to lie. It's taken all day today, Friday, to yell out our frustrations and forgive one another. But that's the whole point, not to go to bed mad. People get mad, people yell, people make wrong assumptions. It's when we get stuck in those places for too long that bitterness and permanent damage is done.

We stopped twice for gas and bathroom and twice to eat, once at the same Wendy's as when we came down to NOLA and then again at Subway south of Nashville, TN. Note to self, Subway isn't the best place for gluten free options. Their "make your own salad" isn't great for the price. Oh well, live and learn. Wendy's and Chick Fil A are my best options and favorites. Anyways, I didn't have enough to drink so I started getting a headache. At least I wasn't miserable with snot this time, although I think it's my turn for a slight sinus infection because my snot today (Friday) was yellow. I did sleep even more this time because we had stayed up late New Year's Eve (two nights before) and the travel medication always makes me sleepy. I even slept soundly, too. I wasn't nearly as productive as I had hoped to me, but what's new. The car was packed well enough that we had easy access to a couple of snacks and Keturah's stomach was handling everything ok. I did spill my drink on my jeans and the van door which was a pain to clean up because kids can't follow directions and it was drizzling on us. That was the beginning of the main part of grouchiness for the rest of the trip. I think we just aren't the best travelers. I mean we do ok, kids behave and don't throw up, we know what to bring, but at the end of the day, we hate the long car rides. That's why I want to break it up when we do our next big one to New England. Maybe 6 hrs a day and then stop at an "attraction." None of this "hurry up and get from point A to point B" stuff. Gary thinks it's fun to try and break his own point A to point B records. Well, he's been to more places in between than I have and I just wish we could take our time and visit more things along the way. Someday maybe. Someday.

And today (Friday) it was my turn to be grouchy and on edge and ranting all day. I got up later than I had expected, and I just wanted everything done at once. I needed my house to be back to base so I can move forward because I have a lot of moving forward to do. I wasn't ready for my own emotional outbursts, so I couldn't stem the tide very well. I did somewhat apologize later. I also had a counseling session today, which didn't solve my problems, but gave me enough of a break to calm down, somewhat. I was still ranting when I got home. The kids did their chores and put away their bags ok this morning and finish up laundry this afternoon. Jared cleaned up the garage after his Christmas present(s) project(s). Benaiah finally got his teeth cleaned and because he couldn't stand to hear me rant and rave, he left with Ava for the evening. I can't blame him, although I'm so mad he didn't do the one thing I wanted him to do and he agreed to do over 36 hrs in advance. He had NOTHING to do all day Wednesday until work at 2pm on Thursday. I asked him to VACUUM because I knew I didn't want to put all our Christmas presents and traveling bags on top of mounds of dog hair. Based on how much there was after a weekend away, I knew it would be a lot. Well, he had agreed in a very confident, respectful "yes I'm going to do it" way to vacuum and he didn't. It bothers me to no end when someone (almost) promises to do something and it isn't done. So I am still mad at him and I want him to say he's sorry and instead he storms out. Whatever, we'll have to fix that one later.

But I did do two loads of laundry, picked up a few groceries, put away almost all of my stuff (except the Christmas gifts I want to take my time on opening and savor the moments with something new like the vacuum cleaner, insta pot and mixer), dealt with the mail, put other Christmas toys in new bins, emptied my bags, cleaned up my email and played my game (which I couldn't do on the road yesterday because we are nearing the end of our data for the month), etc. I'm at an impasse of sorts because I have severe brain fog and did so yesterday, too, which didn't allow me to make good to do lists and organize my brain. I think it has to do with my food intake especially sugar. I have a lot of good things, goals, changes to make, but I have to pick and choose what and when I'll start those. For example, the ladies' Bible study we are starting, IAHE stuff, personal spiritual goals to go with the Israel trip, changing my health which includes a change in diet method for Israel, do I bring back Lilla Rose this year, health goals like removing the cyst and teeth removal surgery, etc. etc. I can't change everything today or even this week, so what can I postpone? What is the most time sensitive? Which is the most labor intensive or hardest to implement? You can't start a bunch of new rhythms in the same week. We have a modified routine starting on Monday with Keturah's new choir class on Monday afternoons. Digesting a new food routine and adhering to it is a steep learning curve. Deciding on what things to focus on that Gary suggested in his email to all the Israel trip participants. How much do I prepare for the ladies' Bible study? What level of perfectionism will I have for each of these things or am I looking for some consistency and quality for follow? It's a little too much all at once. Plus the day to day and homeschooling and projects around the house. Sigh.

So, I snapped, and I snapped hard again today. I guess that's not too bad for a week away with relationships that are a bit on edge and two long travel days I'm not used to. At least Shauna understands some of what I go through when this happens. We had some great conversations on this trip catching up on where we are at individually and as part of the family. And I think the brothers did as well. We all just want whats best for all of us. Our hearts and intentions are all in the right places. It's in the execution of life that we all tend to mess up. We all learned about each other more and saw some different sides to ourselves. I know we made some steps in the right direction, but I also know we aren't where we all want to be yet. We adult children love and respect and hold up in honor Gary and Leah. But we still clash because we are humans. We are still finding where we fit in together. We all want the same thing, to be a strong family, and I know we will achieve it someday. We are still going through some transitioning and transformation. It's going to be rough for a bit longer. And I think as long as we keep that in mind, we will get through it. Grace and forgiveness.

Last morning shenanigans.

Everly, stop playing footwars and get your feet under the blankets!

On their mark,....

....Get set....and go! (see the video for the "go" part). They followed our car down the block.

We pass a couple of NASA buildings and places on our trip, plus the old abandoned amusement park. Abishai also got to see the big bridges in daylight. I took a couple of cool videos of them, too.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Lots of rain and it followed us because it was traveling north.

1 hr delay! It was obviously more like 1:30 when we passed it so only the semi truck was left. A backhose was picking up the debris before the semi could be uprighted. There were no other fire trucks or ambulances on the scene so the driver must have been taken to the hospital. Poor guy/girl.

We had to go up an off ramp and down the next ramp to go around it. We even had flaggers telling us where to go. I can't remember when we were traffic like this before.