BFFs

Yesterday one of the girls in my Primary Sunday School class left for me a thoughtful little gift and a sweet letter.  What a happy surprise!

Later, when we got home from church David asked me about it, and I told him who gave it to me.  It just so happens that David loves to follow this particular (older) girl around, so he was excited to hear it was from Alexis.  That's when he announced, "Alexis is my best friend!"  I thought it was funny/cute/sweet that he had singled her out as his "best friend."

But then today he told me, "Caillou is my best friend."  "Caillou is your best friend?"  "Yes, and Teletubbies too.  Teletubbies is my best friend too."

Hmmm. . . I wonder how Alexis would feel knowing she's in the same category as Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, La-La, and Po?

Wish list: David's

. . . and a train ride

At last!  The big train ride!

A train bridge--very exciting!
Here is Mary desperately trying to get down and crawl around the floor of the train car.  What a wiggler she is!
Poor Mary, confined to the backpack (where, incidentally, she was much more content):
As for the "scenic" part of the trip?  It consisted of a saw mill, trailer parks, an asphalt plant, an old brick factory, an abandoned brewery, a ready-mix concrete plant, and an assortment of dilapidated buildings:
Okay, so some of it was "scenic" (in the more traditional sense):
Mary finally dozed off for a much needed nap:
Our train stopped at Robbins Crossings, a restored village maintained by Hocking College.  There was all sorts of stuff going on at Hocking College that weekend, including an arts and crafts fair and a world championship wood cutting competition.

David had his first taste of root beer:
This is what he thought:
In addition to the crafts and woodcutting, there was also a Civil War reenactment in progress, canons included:

We rode inside on the ride back in a passenger car from the 1920s:

The train was very exciting:  After we got back to the car, the kids fell asleep within 30 seconds. Perfect!  We drove home.

Four hikes . . .

In a moment of brilliance (rare for us these days), we decided to borrow a baby backpack for our trip to Hocking Hills.  With two backpacks, we managed to go on four hikes--which is about three more than we could have done otherwise.  Here's to totin' your three-year-old on your back!  (Er, your husband's back!)

Hike #1--Cedar Falls (followed by a cookout--the closest we came to camping on this trip)

Hike #2--Old Man's Cave and the Lower Falls (and the visitor's center)

This hike included bridges and tunnels!

These are Mary's first real shoes--not a bad way to break them in!

Hike #3--Ash Cave

Poor baby.  So tired!

Hike #4--Cantwell Cliffs  (If three is a charm, then four is . . . a disaster?)

 

David wanting to chop down trees instead of hike:

Mary watching David water a tree:

  (It could have gone better.  Apparently, David's second-cousin Victor needs to teach him a thing or two.)

A tight squeeze:

Beautiful!  But soon after this we got lost and had to backtrack:

Uh-oh.  The trail ended here:

A short-cut that was too tight!

 We didn't fit, and David ended up with a skinned leg and cheeks covered with tears:

(But somehow I think the worst hike turned out to be the best!  Funny how that happens.)

Recovery

After six days without power last week, I think we have finally recovered:

1. My freezer is filling up again.  I even made a trip to Trader Joe's today to replace some of the items that were so tragically lost.  (I am terrible about "stocking up" on things.  I plan my menu, make my shopping list, and that's what I buy.  Period.  As a result, my freezer usually has about 3 things in it.  Except for last week.  As luck would have it, for the first time in the history of the universe, my freezer was stocked.  And not with just any old stuff--but with really good Trader Joe's stuff.  Oh, how my heart breaks to think of it.  Luck has a perverse sense of humor sometimes.)
2. I am caught up on laundry--well, as caught up as is humanly possible with a self-feeding baby and an almost-potty-trained preschooler.  (The laundry was absolutely the worst part of last week.  Because my dad had been in town, I was already way behind on laundry when we lost power.  And it just kept piling up and piling up.  As luck, perverse luck, would have it, David managed to wet the bed 3 times last week, while wearing a diaper!  Sure, I did a little washing by hand.  Most of all, I am so grateful to the friends who allowed me to do emergency loads of laundry at their homes!  But 2 or 3 loads now and then was but a small dent in the ever growing Mt. Everest sitting on my washer.  I felt like I was suffocating under all that laundry.  With every messy bib, smelly towel, and dirty T-shirt, the pressure on my chest grew greater and greater.  Finally, Friday night I realized I had to conquer the mountain, be it by laundromat or camping out at a friend's house for 18 hours.  So I divided the laundry so I could see what I was really dealing with.  The result?  13 loads!!  I was crushed, broken, completely demoralized.  That's when I called Deanna, my best friend from high school who I used to call to cry about boys.  I was bawling, and I'm sure she thought someone had died--no, I just had a lot of laundry to do.  But after a nice discussion of the financial meltdown, Sarah Palin, and the Beatniks, I felt much better.)
3. The bathrooms are clean.  (Actually, an advantage to having no light was that I couldn't ever see how dirty the bathrooms were.  It was great.  Ignorance is bliss!  I think we might institute a flashlight/candlelight-only rule in the bathrooms from now on--then I won't have to clean them!  On the down side, David still insisted on going to the bathroom alone with the door closed (without a flashlight!), and since his aim isn't the greatest even in the noonday sun . . . well, you can imagine what "his" bathroom was like.)
   
4. The lost shingles have been replaced, and our landlord took away the fallen tree branches.  (Besides the fact that we don't have to try to sell a house next spring, there are other advantages to renting, like:  the landlord took away the fallen tree branches.)

Oh, and to briefly recap what we are recovering from:  A week ago Sunday, in what I think was a surprise for most people, the remnants of Ike and a storm from the Great Lakes collided, producing a huge windstorm with hurricane-like winds of 40-70 mph.  In an area like this, with lots of big old trees and above-ground power lines, it was a disaster.  Millions of people were without power, and, since many of Ohio's crews were sent to Texas, other out-of-state crews had to be brought in to restore our power, so the initial recovery was slow.  Most people had their power back by Wednesday (that's still 3 days!); ours was restored on Saturday; there were still people in our neighborhood without power today.  This has been a very interesting experience, to say the least.  

Upcoming "camping trip"

This weekend is our big camping trip . . . at the Holiday Inn!   Let me explain.

Since we decided not to go to Utah this month (which, by the way, was a really bad decision--it pains me to think that I could have been eating at Cafe Rio surrounded by friends and family instead of sitting in the dark here wishing I could vacuum), we thought it would be fun to go camping.  We decided to go camping at Hocking Hills State Park, where there are plenty of short hikes, pretty scenery, and interesting caves.  

As we thought about taking our family camping for the first time, we realized that a two-person backpacking tent and a WhisperLite stove were probably not going to meet every one's needs.  While we could certainly borrow/rent/buy all the necessary equipment, it seemed like a whole lot of work, especially for one weekend.  Maybe if we planned to camp on a regular basis we would drop the money and invest in the gear . . . but neither one of us sees frequents camping trips in our near future.  Well, if we weren't going to camp, then we could do the next best thing--stay in a cabin!

I immediately began researching cabins in the Hocking Hills area.  I was totally overwhelmed with the number of cabins available!  How would I ever choose?  But I soon realized that they all had two things in common.  (1)  Jacuzzis.  Nice idea in theory.  Bad idea with David and Mary.  (2)  Kitchen counters.  As looked at picture after picture of each and every cabin, I kept seeing kitchen counters.  And I saw the breakfast dishes, the spilled milk and granola glued to the counter, the peanut butter-covered knife laying there, the smeared sticky honey, the crumbs, the crumbs, the crumbs!  I couldn't get those kitchen counters out of my head!  I started counting how many times during my "vacation" I was going to wipe off the counters.  Suddenly, I didn't want to go anymore.  Why would I want to go stay in some crummy un-baby-proofed cabin only to spend the entire weekend cleaning up the kitchen, over and over again?  No thank you.  I'd rather stay home and clean up my own kitchen over and over again.  That's when I changed my Internet search from "cabins" to "hotels."

I quickly learned that in a town in the Hocking Hills area there is a Holiday Inn Express.  It's not far from the state park, they serve breakfast, there is a pool, and there are no kitchen counters.  

I discussed my concerns about the cabins with Greg, who whole-heartedly agreed.  (Greg wipes off the counters just as much as I do, if not more.)  So we made reservations at the Holiday Inn.  (At the same time we bought tickets for a ride on a restored railway, conveniently located near the Holiday Inn.)   Maybe one day it will be worth the effort (and financial investment) to camp.  And maybe one day it will be fun to pack everything up (including the refrigerator) and temporarily relocate to a cabin in the woods.  But today is not that day.  Today I want a reprieve from wiping off the kitchen counter.  Which is why we are going camping at the Holiday Inn. 

26.2

Saturday morning at 7:30 am I heard the F-22's fly over.  That meant the marathon had begun, and the kids and I better had get a move on if we were going to see Greg at the 10-mile mark.  (For the record, if we had accompanied Greg to the starting line . . . well, I doubt he ever would have made it to the starting line.)  I loaded everyone into the car, and we drove the back way up to downtown Fairborn.  I was so paranoid about missing him that I made sure we were all in place at 8:20 (just in case Greg was running a 5-minute mile pace or something--you never know!).  

Here are my kiddos ready and waiting to cheer on their dad:

Still waiting:

And still waiting:
David passed the time clapping for other runners (once they finally began appearing), and Mary munched on my keys.

Then, at 8:40, just as promised, there was Daddy!

He gave David a high-five, which I just barely caught on camera, but I'm so glad I did:
After Greg had passed, we hurried over to see him at another point, and made it just in time.  Unfortunately, David thought we were watching his dad finish and couldn't understand why his dad kept running.  He was clearly disappointed, and cried, "I need my daddy!"  Sorry, but your daddy still had a long, long way to go.

Fortunately, there was a bouncy castle to distract David from his gloom:
And a giant dragon:
Meanwhile, Mary enjoyed listening to the live band on the corner and watching the runners go by:
Soon enough we left, for we had much work to do before Daddy got home.  (No, we did not plan to see him cross the finish line.  Trust me, it was better for everyone, most of all for Greg, who did not need his whiny, needy family--myself included--accosting him when all he wants is to collapse in the relative peace and quiet of the runner's recovery area.)  So we went about our morning activities, and I kept thinking whenever I looked at the time, "He's still running," and "I can't believe he's still running."  Even though he wasn't able to train for the last three weeks because of an injured hamstring, I knew Greg was prepared, and I wasn't worried about him.  But I still carried a prayer in my heart all morning for him.  I also saw this sign, and I liked it a lot:
When we got home, David and I made a banner to congratulate Greg on completing his second marathon.  Then we went to the store to buy balloons.  David picked out a Sesame Street one.  At least it didn't say "Happy Birthday," although David did tell me he was going to sing "Happy Birthday" to Daddy when he got home.  What other reason could there be for celebrating?  I explained we were happy because Daddy was running in a really long race.  That's when David decided that Daddy was going win--and who was I to argue otherwise?

After a relaxing, family-free hour in the recovery area, Greg made it home in very good shape.  We were all super excited to see him, and David was happy that his daddy had won the race (a belief that was confirmed by Greg's impressive-looking medal).  Greg not only beat his previous time, but arrived home in good enough shape to tackle those never-ending daddy-duties provided by his high-maintenance children.  (That's way more impressive than crossing the finish line first!)
Mary was especially impressed by the medal.  Look at these pictures:



It did make it in her mouth a fair amount that afternoon, but David did his very best to make sure it stayed on his dad and away from his baby sister's slobber.

I realize I have said very little about Greg's actual race.  For that, you'll have to talk to him.  You can also see his stats online (285th out of 1798 total runners and 28th out of the 136 runners in his age group--Not too shabby!!)  

I conclude with the words David wanted to paint on the banner, but we didn't have room:

Go, Daddy, Go!  You're Awesome!