Maryland, day one

In some states, it is very easy to visit all of the National Park sites located in that state because there are only one or two. For example, Iowa only has two (done), and Vermont and New Hampshire each only have one (done). We've been to eleven of the sites located in Pennsylvania. In addition to eventually visiting all of the sites in our home state, I'm hoping that we can eventually visit all of the National Park sites in Maryland, Ohio (we're almost done), Virginia, and all but one in New York. Prior to today, the National Park Service sites we had visited in Maryland included Antietam, Catoctin, C&O Canal, and Fort McHenry. I have wanted to see the wild ponies at Assateague/Chincoteague Island since I was a child. Several months ago I made plans for us to spend a three-day weekend in Maryland to visit some of the National Park sites in this state. 

Our first stop today was the Hampton National Historic Site, which features a very large 18th-century mansion. It is located north of Baltimore. Today was a very rainy day with highs in the 50s in contrast to seven days ago when it was in the 80s and sunny. Originally, I planned for our second stop to be the zoo in Baltimore and our third stop to be the museum at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Because of the weather, I changed our plans. Our second stop ended up being the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park. We had dinner in Salisbury instead of Annapolis and arrived at our hotel in Ocean City a couple of hours earlier than originally planned. The kids had done a Junior Ranger badge for the Harriet Tubman park through the mail in 2019, but it turned out they had two different booklets. The completion of one earns someone the badge they already received so they each completed the other booklet which earned them each a patch. They each also earned a badge at our first stop. As of today, we've been to 109 different National Park sites so far, and the kids have each earned between 166-173 badges/patches. The weather is supposed to be better at Assateague tomorrow, for which I'm very grateful as we're planning to be on a kayaking tour. 

Refreshing Mountain

In May 2019 we attended our first Homeschool Day at Refreshing Mountain. We returned again in the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020. Since then, we hadn't been able to attend due to either scheduling conflicts or because all the spots had already been taken when I tried to sign my kids up. The first three times we attended they divided the kids into groups by age and told the kids when to switch from station to station. This time the kids were not divided into groups. We selected a time slot for the zip lining and ropes course, but other than that we could do the activities at whatever time we wanted. Three other families we know were also there on Tuesday. My kids spent their first hour on the ziplines and ropes course. They did the ropes course multiple times. After that, we met up with some of our friends for a presentation on snakes. The kids ran around for a while, and then my kids attended a presentation on birds of prey. The kids played on the playground and ate their lunches over the next hour.  After the lunch break, they all went to the climbing tower. Our friends had arrived earlier than we did so they left after the climbing tower. My kids did the pedal cars, slingshot, and farm animal presentation next. For their final activity, Nadia and Ian chose to ride the zip lines one more time, and Oliver opted to climb a different part of the rock wall. The weather was a bit chillier, but we were very grateful it didn't rain. On the way home, we stopped and had dinner at a friend's house. Kay was the principal of the school prior to me. She invited the woman who had been the kindergarten teacher to join us. Kay and Allen were at our house last year, but it had probably been 20 years since I had seen Joan. 

Our friends hosted their first homeschool game day on February 24. Today that same family is hosting what is the fourth game day that our kids have attended since February 24. I'm scheduled to host one next month. I've also scheduled two field trips for homeschoolers in our area next month, and in both cases, more than twenty students and nine parents are signed up for each trip. I'm thankful my kids have these opportunities to spend time with friends!

This week we received the bad news that Margie has bone cancer. She will likely be placed in hospice in the near future. They are trying to determine whether or not she should have a surgical procedure to place pins in her right hip to prevent it from fracturing before she goes to hospice. I remember what it felt like when I found out that my mom had stage four ovarian cancer. My heart goes out to my dad, her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc. Seven years ago, my dad was walking this same road with my mom. Unless God chooses to miraculously heal her, it seems that my kids will experience three grandmas passing away from cancer within seven years. Margie has been their grandma (Gubba) for almost six years. We are praying that they can keep Margie as comfortable as possible. She's been in a tremendous amount of pain. We're also praying for comfort for everyone who will grieve her absence. I'm eternally grateful that she is a believer; we know that her destiny is secure, and I also find comfort in knowing that my dad and others can rely on the Lord to carry them through these difficult times. 

51

Yesterday I turned 51 years old. Some years nothing has really happened to celebrate my birthday. Last year I bought tickets for us to see a show at Sight and Sound on my birthday, and we also ate lunch at a smorgasbord restaurant in that area. This year two of my friends made my birthday special. On Thursday Tab treated me to lunch at Panera because I love their strawberry poppyseed salad. We ate outside the restaurant because it was a lovely day, and we sat and talked for a while after we ate. Thankfully, the kids are old enough that I can leave them for a few hours, and since our school year is winding down it takes less time to finish our schoolwork. I picked up donuts for Friday morning, Venarri's pizza for our dinner, and our favorite peanut butter Oreo homemade ice cream. I'm not really a big fan of donuts, but the kids and Paul really enjoy them, so I bought a half dozen as that is one of our family's birthday traditions. We rarely get our pizza from Venarri's, but it's my favorite pizza place in Pennsylvania. Tab also gave me a card in which she had written some sentences that almost brought me to tears they were so touching. On Friday, my friend, Cheri, took me to lunch at a restaurant I had never been to before. Many entrees on their menu interested me, but I ended up choosing a strawberry crepe because I haven't eaten a crepe in several years. It was delicious! We ate outside and walked around the town some after we finished eating. I don't have lunch with a friend very often. I think it's been at least 14 years since I had two lunches with a friend in the same week. I'm very grateful for these two friends! I also talked on the phone this week with my friend, Joyce, Yvonne, Aunt Janet, Aunt Tina, and my dad. Some weeks I don't talk to anyone on the phone, so I definitely was on the phone more this week than usual! I also received a birthday card in the mail from Paul's dad and my friend, Kay. I gave Cheri my first birthday burger reward from Red Robin. I gave Oliver my free birthday pastry from McDonald's as he loves cinnamon rolls. I got a free birthday pastry from Panera yesterday. I picked a cookie that I hadn't tried there before and split the cookie between Oliver, Nadia, and myself. Paul got me a pair of sneakers, and my dad and Margie got me a tablecloth, book, Perkins gift card, and snowmen to put on the garage lights next winter. Last year was the first time that any of my kids bought me a birthday gift. None of them got me a gift this year, but the boys each did one extra chore for me this week as a gift.

This week was our last full week of school as we did schoolwork every day Monday through Friday. Next week we have two field trip days, and the same is true for Nadia and Ian two weeks from now. May 8 will be our last day of school. Paul got up at 4:30am on Wednesday morning and was on the road at 5:00am. He arrived at the airport in Indianapolis at 1:30pm. A couple of hours later someone from the Honda dealership picked him up. He left the dealership in our van at 4:30pm and arrived home at 1:30am. Paul drove 17.5 hours within 21 hours! We are thankful to have our van back. 

Indiana

Indiana is the state where my parents first met when my mom was a senior at Grace College and my dad was studying at the seminary. My mom got her master's degree from Indiana University. My eight cousins on my mom's side all attended college in Indiana, and my aunt, uncle, and five of my cousins currently live in Indiana. I lived in Indiana during the summer of 1993 when I was working on my master's degree. Several weeks ago I contacted my cousin who lives in Indianapolis to see if we could get together on April 15.  The only times I've seen her in the past 19 years have been at my mom's and my brother's funerals. I would have liked to have spent time with her and meet her two children, but it didn't end up happening.

We drove into Indiana bright and early on Friday morning. We planned to spend most of the day at Wilstem Wildlife Park. I had learned about the animal encounters available there, and the kids really wanted to do it. If it was up to me, we wouldn't have done it because of the cost, which was also true of our two days at Universal in Florida last year. Paul is far more willing to splurge than I am. Our first activity was to drive through the safari. We were each given a container to feed the animals. The emus were the most aggressive. In some sections of the safari we were told to keep our windows up because we weren't supposed to feed some of the animals. We were a little bit rushed because we hadn't arrived as early as they thought we would. I had intended to do the safari drive thru during our lunch break. We decided to wait until our lunch break to get a photo of our family with a grizzly bear. Our second activity was to spend one hour with two Asian elephants in their late 50's. We had to pay extra to feed them which I thought was ridiculous given how expensive the encounters were, but we splurged and purchased some slices of carrots and apples so we could feed the elephants. 

Petting a bearcat (binturong)

Our lunch break was next, so we decided to go back through the safari again as we still had a lot of animal feed, and we wanted to get a picture of our family with the grizzly bear. This proved to be a very, very expensive trip through the safari because Paul drove too fast, and a significant bump created a hole in the oil pan of our van. When we parked to get our picture with the grizzly bear, I pointed out to Paul that there was steam coming from the hood of the van. Upon inspection he discovered that the oil pan was damaged, and oil was pouring out onto the ground. My dad and Margie have paid for us to have a AAA membership for 5 years. Thankfully, we had never needed to use it prior to this. I've been paying for home insurance for 22 years and have never made one claim. Similarly, we've gone over 20 years without making a claim with our car insurance. We're also thankful we've never needed to make use of our life insurance policies. In December 2021 we switched from health insurance to Samaritan Ministries, a Christian health sharing program. So far, we haven't submitted anything to Samaritan for reimbursement because the bills have been too small and because they don't pay for mammograms. I handed Paul my phone (I wish I hadn't because I didn't get my phone back for 4.5 hours), and he began the process with AAA. We never got our picture taken with the bears because the kids and I had to walk back (where you are supposed to drive) to the kangaroo barn. We didn't see Paul for the next 4.5 hours, so he missed out on all the other animal encounters that I had purchased for each of us. Although we will be paying for the $1K oil pan and also the rental car, thanks to our AAA membership we didn't have to pay for our van to be towed to a Honda dealer in Indianapolis. 

The kids and I had a private tour of a variety of animals housed in a building they call the kangaroo barn. We were able to pet a bearcat and several kangaroos. By far my favorite part of the day was our time with a sloth named Luna. She was very friendly and loved to have the "palm" of one of her feet rubbed. I doubt I'll ever hold a sloth again, so it was a very memorable experience! Luna's caretaker did an excellent job of teaching us a lot about sloths. After that, the four of us spent an hour with two giraffes. We didn't have to pay extra to feed them. Our final animal encounter was with three Asian otters. We paid extra for that encounter, and I don't feel that it was worth what we paid because we didn't get to touch or hold the otters. We watched them play with toys, swim in a baby pool, and dry off on a towel, and we fed them pieces of fish using a wooden skewer. From the time Paul called AAA it took more than 2 hours until the tow truck arrived. While we were with the otters, the tow truck arrived. I had very little communication with Paul during those 4.5 hours because he had both of our cellphones, and I also was unable to take videos of our animal encounters. We explored the kangaroo barn and also spent more time with Luna while waiting for the tow truck to pick us up.

The plan had been to have an early dinner at a Bob Evans on the way to our hotel in Indianapolis. We ended up just eating crackers and such (which we usually have for "lunch" when we're on vacation) at almost 8pm, which is MUCH later than the kids and I usually eat dinner. We spent almost 3 hours in the tow truck because he had to stop twice - once for hydraulic fluid and the second time to pick up a second vehicle. Paul and I were in the front row of the cab with the tow truck driver, and the kids were in the back row of the cab. He dropped us off at our hotel along with some of our belongings that were in our van and then took our van to a Honda dealer. Paul had been told they would complete the repair on Monday so we discussed a wide variety of options - going home on Sunday night as planned, going to Ohio as planned but then returning to Indianapolis on Sunday evening and driving home on Monday, Paul coming back with his brother, Paul flying back, etc. We made the decision to stay in Indianapolis through Monday. I booked a rental car, I was about to make a hotel reservation two more nights in Indianapolis and try to cancel the one in Ohio, and Paul was about to take the hotel's free shuttle to the airport (to get the rental car) when we found out that they wouldn't be able to replace the oil pan until Wednesday because they didn't have the part. I was grateful at that moment that I hadn't altered our hotel reservations because at that point we decided it was better to just go home on Sunday night as planned in the rental car. I wish I hadn't already made the rental car reservation because the price was much higher for the days we added to our reservation. We hadn't rented a vehicle since we were in San Diego in 2018. Paul plans to drive back to Indianapolis tomorrow to return the rental car, and the Honda dealer will pick him up at the airport and bring him to the dealership. He then plans to drive home in our van. He'll be driving 16 hours in one day. Gulp. We didn't know what size vehicle we'd be renting, and also the tow truck driver was the one getting things out of our van so there were many things left behind that we've missed the last few days such as my sneakers, Paul's hoodie, two of my jackets, our garage door opener, etc. I did some laundry yesterday, but the rest of our dirty laundry is in a bag in our van in Indianapolis at the moment. Thankfully, Nadia wears the same size shoes as me, so I've been borrowing her sneakers when I walk Milo. Part of the reason we didn't extend our time in Indianapolis was we had filed our taxes before we left for our vacation, but we hadn't sent our checks to the state of PA or the IRS, and those needed to be postmarked by today. We needed to get home in time for Paul to write the checks and get them in the mail.  I had done almost all of the driving for the first week of our trip, but after we got the rental car Paul did all of the driving. 

I remember playing that game on an Apple 2 computer many years ago!

My plan had been for us to visit the Indianapolis Zoo on Saturday morning, but I decided on Friday evening that we'd skip those plans as I figured we needed time to get a rental car. Our first stop ended up being a guided tour of the Benjamin Harrison Presidential site. Then we visited the Children's Museum, which is the largest children's museum in the world. When our children were younger, we spent a lot more time at children's museums than we have the past several years. We had annual memberships at more than one children's museum in the past. Given my background of teaching in Early Childhood Education, I had been interested in visiting three famous children's museums for several years. We made it to two of them - the Strong Museum of Play (NY) and the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. This museum was very large on the inside but also had a large outdoor section. The kids didn't want to wait in line to race each other with pedal cars, but we did play 9 holes of miniature golf. Given that two of our kids are now teenagers, I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being the last time we took our kids to a children's museum. In addition to being the biggest, it also was definitely the most expensive of any children's museum we've ever visited. 

After we left the museum, we stopped at an Olive Garden for dinner on our way to Ohio. Several of us felt it was the best meal that we ate at a restaurant on our trip. Yes, the bill was similar to what we paid at IHOP, but we really enjoyed it. We all love the breadsticks! Instead of an entree, I always order the soup, salad, and breadsticks. Because it was a few days before my birthday, Paul told the waitress we were celebrating my birthday, and so she brought me a complimentary dessert which I shared with the kids and it was SO yummy! That helped make up for skipping dinner the night before. We have continued our tradition of looking for all the license plates. In 2021 we did find all 50 states (plus DC and several Canadian provinces). Last year we saw all of them except for North Dakota and Hawaii. So far this year we've seen 46 of the states' license plates. North Dakota isn't one of the remaining ones this year, but Hawaii is one of the states we're still looking for. Hopefully over the next eight months we'll find the other four states! 

Ohio

I lived in Ohio from the fall of 1990 to the spring of 1992 while I attended Cedarville University. On Saturday evening as we drove to our hotel, we were very close to Cedarville. My nephew, Andrew, plans to attend Cedarville starting in August. The hotel we stayed at that night didn't have a swimming pool, but there was a very large jacuzzi tub in our room. Oliver, Ian, and I donned our bathing suits and spent some time in the hot tub. Our first stop on Sunday morning was the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. Usually something is considered "old" here in our country if it's 200 years old, but these mounds are 2,000 years old! Nadia earned three Junior Ranger badges and one patch at this site! The park ranger was very generous and he gave me three badges and one patch for each of the kids (on the honor system) although the boys hadn't finished all of the booklets before we left. I'll make sure they complete them! As of today, Nadia has earned a grand total of 167 Junior Ranger badges or patches, Ian has 171, and Oliver has 164. Because they occasionally earn more than one at a site and they earned some through the mail or online, the grand total of National Park sites we have been to so far is smaller, but as of yesterday we've been to 107 National Park sites so far! 

Our second stop was the science museum in Columbus. I took students on a field trip to that museum when I was student teaching (albeit it was at a different location 30+ years ago). We got into the museum for free because of our ASTC membership, but we paid to visit a traveling exhibit about Tutankhamen. We didn't have time to listen to the entire audio guide (despite the fact we spent over an hour in the exhibit) or visit everything in the museum because we were trying to get home at a reasonable hour. Paul and I were lobbying for the kids to ride the unicycle on a tightwire. The boys were too scared to do it, and Nadia wasn't interested. Paul and I also wanted to see a free planetarium show, but that was also vetoed. We did enjoy a (free) traveling exhibit on animals from the American Museum of Natural History (NYC) and also a 15-minute presentation that featured two rats playing basketball. A video clip of that will be included in the vacation video I will be making hopefully sometime this week.

We had breakfast at the hotel and stopped at a Wendy's drive-thru for dinner on the way home. Everyone in our family aside from me loves bacon so they were thankful that this hotel breakfast included bacon as the others that had meat on our trip only had sausage. Thankfully none of the hotels were doing the "grab and go" breakfast which began in 2020. We brought an air mattress because the final hotel didn't have a sofa bed, but it did have a sofa so Nadia just slept on the sofa. We never used the air mattress on this trip. Most nights even if the couch was a sofa bed she just opted to sleep on the couch without opening it up. There were only two nights when the mattress was really uncomfortable for me for which I was thankful. We got home around 9:30pm and immediately went to retrieve Milo from our neighbor's house. He was SO excited to see us and be back in our home! 

Although I enjoy vacations, I find them to be somewhat exhausting, partially because I don't usually sleep well in a hotel room. I also find that there is always so much to do as soon as possible once we get home. I know tomorrow will be a more restful day. Today I was doing laundry, emptying the dishwasher from a load I did right as we left, homeschooling the kids, grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, etc. The grass was REALLY tall. Unfortunately, it was just getting close to needing to be mowed for the first time before we left, and it really grew a lot during the 11 days we were gone. I could tell that Milo got out of the habit of taking longer walks as he wasn't happy about walking 2 miles with me this morning like we do around 7am almost every day, but part way through our walk he adjusted to the notion. Because I mowed the lawn, he won't get as many walks with me today as usual. Because we had to leave before 2pm for co-op, I asked Nadia to make tuna noodle casserole while I was mowing. She finished her Geometry course on April 5 so she had time to do that today. The main things she still needs to accomplish over the next three weeks include finishing her biology course, writing a ten-page paper on sharks, and completing a literature unit on Pilgrim's Progress. She finished one on The Hobbit while we were on vacation. 

Most of the time we were driving we alternated between listing to music at least half of the time and listening to audiobooks. Nadia put on headphones and listened to music while the other four of us listened to an audiobook. We all listened to our church's worship service on Sunday as we drove home. We listened to The Perilous Road by William Steele and two books by Mark Batterson - Jack Staples and the Ring of Time and Jack Staples and the City of Shadows. This post is out of order as it details our final day whereas I haven't written about our two days in Indiana yet. All of the pictures in this post except for the one below were taken in Ohio yesterday. The one below is from our time in Indiana.

Missouri

We entered Missouri on Tuesday afternoon when we drove into Kansas City to visit Science City which is housed in Union Station. On Wednesday morning our first stop was the Kansas City Zoo which is a large zoo. Typically on this vacation I have been getting fewer steps than I usually do in a day, but Wednesday was an exception. We all got a LOT of steps in that day even though we "splurged" and paid to ride the sky ride to the Africa section. Originally, I had booked a factory tour at Roasterie, a coffee company, but they had called to cancel all tours for the month a couple of weeks ago. This enabled us to spend more time at the zoo. After we finished exploring the zoo, we drove back into the downtown area to visit the National WW1 Museum and Memorial. We went to the top of the tower, and the boys completed a booklet similar to a Junior Ranger booklet in the museum. Nadia mostly sat and looked at her cell phone. The regional Federal Reserve Bank is located within walking distance of the WW1 Museum, so we also spent a few minutes in the Money Museum before driving to the Mexican restaurant where we were having dinner. The kids each received a bag of shredded money. Paul was the only one who was able to lift the 27-pound gold bar with one hand. After dinner we drove about 3.5 hours toward the eastern side of Missouri. We spent the night at a hotel near the Meramac Caverns.

At 9:00am on Thursday we began our tour of the caverns, which were at one point a hideout for Jesse James. Our second stop was the site where Ulysses S. Grant met his wife, Julia. He and his wife lived in the home for 5.5 years. We saw the movie, went on a guided tour of the home, and the kids each earned a Junior Ranger badge. Our third stop of the day was our only industrial tour for this vacation at the Herbaria Soap factory. Originally, I had planned for us to spend 2-3 days in St. Louis. The first thing that was eliminated was Six Flags St. Louis because we shortened the length of the vacation. Later the Saint Louis Zoo and Saint Louis Science Center were eliminated (even though both have excellent reviews and we could have gone to both of them for free) because we decided to spend an extra day in Indiana. The thing that I viewed as the most important site to see in Saint Louis was the Gateway Arch. We watched the movie, explored the museum so the kids could earn a Junior Ranger badge, and rode a tram to the top of the Arch. On our way back to the parking garage, we picked up one large St. Louis style pizza. Their pizza is made without yeast, so the crust is very thin, and they use Provel cheese, which is a combination of cheddar, provolone, and Swiss cheese. The slices are cut into squares instead of wedges. One 16-inch pizza cost almost exactly the same as what we pay for two 16-inch pizzas at home, but still that was a much cheaper meal than going to a sit-down restaurant albeit we had to pay with a credit card whereas we almost always use gift cards at restaurants. We ate our pizza in our hotel room and then drove about two miles to the Fabulous Fox Theatre where we saw a touring Broadway performance of Wicked. It was the boys fourth time to see a Broadway show and Nadia's fifth because I took her to see Cinderella several years ago. The two main characters were particularly outstanding. We all enjoyed the show. The downside was the performance didn't end until 10:20pm, which means most of us were up past our usual bedtime. 

In the previous itinerary, we weren't leaving early on Friday morning because we were still going to be in St. Louis, but when we made the decision to spend Friday at Wilstem Wildlife Park that meant we had to leave St. Louis bright and early on Friday morning because we had to drive over 3.5 hours to get there. Part of Indiana is in Central Time Zone, but very close to the Wildlife Park we returned to Eastern Time. So that meant I got up at 5:15am and we left our room around 5:45am (Central Time) in order to get to Wilstem around 10:30 Eastern Time. All of the other days on this trip we've had a free breakfast at either Wendy's home or at a hotel, but the hotel where we stayed in St. Louis didn't offer a free breakfast, so we stopped at a McDonald's drive-thru on the way to Wilstem. The kids drove through part of Indiana in 2017 on our way to and from Chicago, but the first time they did something in the state was in 2020 when we walked over the pedestrian bridge from Louisville, Kentucky to Jeffersonville, Indiana and took a tour of Schimpff's Confectionery. In the earlier itinerary I thought we'd only spend one day in Indiana visiting the Indianapolis Zoo, Benjamin Harrison's Presidential Site, and the Children's Museum, and I thought we'd visit Indiana Dunes on our way to Chicago. In the end, it turns out that we didn't make it to the Indianapolis Zoo this morning or Indiana Dunes last week, but I do think we will visit the Presidential Site and Children's Museum today. Life is full of twists and turns. 

Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas

Monday morning we left Chicago. Our first stop was the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site in Iowa. In September 2021 we visited Iowa for the first time. Nadia never wanted to return to the state because first of all that is where I broke my ankle and secondly because when we went on that hike there were a LOT of mosquitoes. Thankfully, no one was injured or bit by a mosquito when we visited Herbert Hoover's birthplace. The kids each earned a Junior Ranger badge. We typically don't eat lunch when we are on vacation, but I had packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at Wendy's home for the three of us who eat them prior to leaving that morning. However, because we were planning on having what for us would be a late dinner, I decided we'd stop at Culver's for a treat in between our stop in Iowa and Omaha. We had never been to a Culver's before and wanted to try their cheese curds and frozen custard. We did enjoy the treat, but I was in a bit of sticker shock over how much it costs to stop and get ice cream for five people although it was less than 1/2 of what it would cost if we got ice cream in San Francisco. We didn't leave Chicago as promptly as I had hoped, and our first stop for gas took a bit longer than expected. Altogether we were a little over an hour behind schedule by the time we arrived at the zoo in Omaha. It's a large zoo. The primate building was closed due to repairs on the roof, but we really enjoyed the first building that we visited. The first animal we saw was a bat eared fox. I discovered that beavers are a lot bigger than I had imagined them to be. The zoo is technically open until 6pm, but it turns out that some parts close at 5pm, and since we didn't know that we didn't plan accordingly. We weren't able to see everything due to the fact that we were there from 4:15-6:00, but we still had a good visit. Originally, I had planned for us to walk across a pedestrian bridge in Omaha, but that had been scratched from the plans somewhere along the way. We had dinner at Applebee's and spent the night at a hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska. Paul and Oliver spent an hour swimming in the indoor pool. I usually have trouble sleeping in other beds due to my back, but I was spoiled in Chicago because Drayton let Paul and I sleep in his bed which has a memory foam mattress. The mattress at the hotel in Lincoln was particularly awful for my back. 

Tuesday morning we got up early because we thought we were going to explore the Homestead National Park in Beatrice, Nebraska when it first opened. Unfortunately, when we arrived we were informed that local law enforcement had put them under lockdown. We explored the outside area a little bit and then waited in our van for a little while in the hopes that the lockdown would be lifted in the very near future. At one point we decided to abandon our hope of entering the building and started our drive to Topeka. The park ranger called us a little before 10am to inform us the lockdown had been lifted, but we were already en route to Kansas. She felt badly that we had come all the way from Pennsylvania and weren't able to enter the buildings, so she said she'd mail us our junior ranger booklets, badges, and such. We have been collecting magnets for our refrigerator and wanted to have at least one per state. We didn't buy one at the Omaha Zoo because we planned to get it at the National Park instead so we won't have a magnet for our refrigerator from Nebraska, but we will have a photo from the state to use for our large map that is on the wall of our family room. I looked online this morning, and it turned out the "tip" that law enforcement had been given was bogus. Our one other unpleasant experience in Nebraska happened at the gas station in Beatrice. We discovered that they charged an extra 60 cents per gallon if you pay with a credit card. I've had to pay a little more a few other times (ex. on Long Island) but never anywhere near 60 cents per gallon!!! I wish we had been able to wait until we were in Kansas to get gas. We don't carry around enough cash to use cash to pay for our gas. 

Because we arrived in Topeka earlier than planned, we added in a visit to the Topeka Zoo. Because we have an AZA membership, we get in 50% off at most zoos and get in free at some zoos. The Omaha Zoo only gave us 50% off on three members of our family. They allow two adults and 6 kids to get in for 50% off, but they define kids as ages 12 and under. So, we had to pay full price for Nadia and Ian, which I wasn't expecting. The Topeka Zoo is much smaller than the one in Omaha, and they allowed all five of us to enter completely free with our membership. Although it took only an hour to walk through that whole zoo, it was still much bigger than the zoo in Delaware where we are members. We also visited the Brown v. Board of Education National Park in Topeka that is housed in what used to be the Monroe School before the schools were desegregated. The kids each earned a Junior Ranger badge - Nadia's second on the trip and the boys' third.

We were in three states yesterday because we ended our day in Kansas City, Missouri. We spent about two hours at Science City located in Union Station, had dinner at IHOP, and spent the night at a Holiday Inn which had much better mattress than where we stayed the previous night. Unfortunately, the indoor pool was closed. Our meal at Applebee's cost what we are accustomed to spending for a sit-down meal, but that was NOT the case at IHOP. I had extra IHOP gift cards because we planned to eat at one in California in September. I'll have to get more for that stay, and I think IHOP will be removed from the list of places where we eat dinner because it was just way too expensive. We're willing to pay a little more at Olive Garden but not for pancakes and eggs. To put it in perspective, our bill last night for the five of us was similar to what we paid for seven people to eat at Texas Roadhouse last month. It seems steaks should cost more than pancakes and eggs not the other way around!

The weather for the first six days of our trip has been excellent. We haven't seen a drop of rain, and the temperatures have been lovely. We were wearing shorts yesterday and were a bit chilly when we were walking around Homestead, but we were very comfortable the rest of the day as the temperatures got into the high 70's. Looking at the forecast, it seems that probably the only time we might encounter rain will be the last two days of our trip when we're in Indianapolis and Columbus. Our neighbor is supposed to be picking Milo up from the kennel today. I miss Milo and have been praying for him every day. We won't be leaving Missouri until Friday morning. As of yesterday, the kids have now spent time in 44 states (plus DC). Thankfully, COVID hasn't had any impact on this trip (no mask or vaccine requirements) aside from the fact that Drayton couldn't take us to his office at Google because our kids didn't have the COVID vaccine. Ironically, Google just dropped that requirement yesterday. If we were in Chicago this week, we could have had a free meal and played games at Google (pool, ping pong, air hockey, foosball, etc.).  

No one had to get up early this morning because our hotel is less than 10 minutes away from the Kansas City Zoo where we are starting our day at 9:30. We're also planning to visit the Federal Reserve's Money Museum and the National WW1 Museum and Memorial which are also located in Kansas City. We aren't visiting any forts or battlefields on this trip. The WW1 Museum is our only military history stop in our itinerary. It's been normal for us for several years to visit National Park sites and science museums on our vacations, but we only started including more zoos and aquariums last year when Nadia told us that she wants to major in zoology. 

Windy City

 

On Thursday we drove to Chicago. I chose to title the blog post with a kinder nickname than the unfortunately accurate label of "murder capital" of the USA. The first time I visited Chicago was when I was in college in Ohio in the early 90's. Paul's first visit was when the two of us spent a couple of days here at the end of 2001. I returned again by myself to speak at a couple of professional conferences when I was a professor. The kids first visit to Chicago was in 2017. The kids and I had planned to return in the spring of 2020, but those plans were cancelled due to COVID. In 2021 Paul and the kids visited Chicago for their second time when the five of us spent a little time with my sister and her family during our lengthy road trip. During all of our previous visits, we never drove straight out here from our home. In 2017 we went to a museum in Cleveland, spent the night with one of my cousins, and then stopped at a science museum in Toledo on our route to Chicago. Now that the kids are older, I figured they could handle driving a longer stretch without stopping, but I still had planned for us to stop at Indiana Dunes National Park. When I found out that our neighbor couldn't watch Milo at the beginning of this vacation, we changed our plans because I had planned on us leaving our house around 6am to allow time to explore Indiana Dunes before arriving at my sister's home. The earliest we could drop Milo off was 7:30am, and all three kids lobbied that they would rather have more time with their cousins than stop at Indiana Dunes National Park. Including two tops (one at a rest stop just to use the bathroom and another at a gas station for gas and a bathroom break), it took us 9.5 hours to get from the kennel to their home in Chicago, and since they are in the Central time zone, by the clock it seemed like it took us 8.5 hours. Thankfully traffic wasn't an issue, and we got here safely. I drove the whole way. My back was fine for the first four hours, and after that I had a headache and backache. Nadia and Ian have been in a car that long without stopping when they've traveled with the Bible quizzing team, but as a family this was definitely a new record. Even with our big road trip in 2021 we didn't ever drive anywhere near 9.5 hours straight. I believe our previous record was 6 hours.

When we arrived here, I asked if anyone was up for a walk because I knew that would help my back recover from all those hours in the driver's seat. Thankfully, Paul, Wendy, and Adam were up for a walk before we had dinner. After dinner, Wendy worked on a challenging puzzle that some in her family have been working on while Paul, Ian, Adam, Drayton, and I played a game of Samurai Sword. Drayton and Adam were the only two who had ever played that game before. On Sunday evening Nadia also joined us for a second round of Samurai Sword. Ian, Nadia, and I were on the winning Ninja team that night. Other games that were played during our time at their home included Stratego (Adam beat Ian), chess (Paul beat Adam), Pandemic (Rachel, Wendy, and Nadia), and Spontuneous (Rachel won). We talked about playing Boggle and Code Names but didn't get around to playing either of them. Other activities included attending church on Friday night and Sunday morning, four kids went bouldering, going on a few hikes with Adam, and attending Grace's 10th birthday party at an indoor trampoline park. 

The two people I saw the least of during our time in Chicago were Nadia and Rachel. They were off by themselves the vast majority of our time. They baked lemon cupcakes for Grace's birthday party and also continued their tradition of creating a mystery dessert with unusual ingredients. This time it included a graham cracker crust, apples, Apple Jacks cereal (crushed up), golden Oreos (crushed up), and Cool Whip. We aren't allowed to know the ingredients until after we've eaten some of the dessert. This was their fourth time making a mystery dessert. They had a sleepover one night which translated to them going to bed around 2am and getting up before 6am to continue watching Enola Holmes on Netflix. 

Oliver primarily played with Grace with the exception of Saturday when she was at gymnastics for a couple of hours. While she was at gymnastics, Adam, Wendy, Ian, Oliver, Paul, and I went to one of the two National Park Service sites in Illinois - Pullman Memorial. Ian and Oliver earned a Junior Ranger badge and patch. We attended a guided tour of the site. We arrived in Chicago around 4:30pm on Thursday and left around 7:20am on Monday. My next post will be about our time in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. Milo has been at the kennel since Thursday morning. Our neighbor is planning to pick him up tomorrow morning (Wednesday). We miss him, and we hope he's okay. 

A new co-op

The weather varies greatly in Pennsylvania in April. Today, April 1, started out as a very rainy day, but the rain cleared, and the temperature soared up into the 70's! After taking Milo on many walks the last few months during which I was wearing a ski jacket, scarf, hat, and gloves, it was heavenly to not need a coat of any kind. Milo won't walk if it's raining so I didn't get my usual 2 miles in at 7am, but after I took Oliver to two Easter egg hunts I was able to take Milo for a nice long walk. Now that the weather has been nicer, I've been trying to get my average closer to 6-7 miles a day. Nadia and Ian were at church for 6+ hours today with their Bible quizzing team. After taking Oliver to his third egg hunt (at which he won a prize of a 1/2 lb. chocolate bunny), I watched the last hour of the quizzing. Three boys and ten girls competed, and the team that consisted of the three boys won! Ian has improved SO much over the last year. I think if he puts in more time studying over the next almost 3 months that he will do well at the Nationals in Indiana at the end of June. He was also one of the top performers in the individual competitions. Usually, I take the kids to Easter egg hunts on the two Saturdays before Easter. This is the first year that Ian is too old to participate. Oliver will be able to participate for two more years, which will be my 16th year of taking at least one child to an egg hunt as Nadia’s first was in 2010. I'm planning to take Oliver to one tomorrow afternoon, and that will be his last one for this year as we'll be in Chicago next Saturday. We're also planning to see the movie "His Only Son" (about Abraham/Isaac) at the theater tomorrow afternoon. 

On Tuesday our friend hosted a game day at her home. The number of kids attending continues to grow. Most of the kids are between the ages of 10-15. I decided to see if some of these families might be interested in forming a new co-op, and there are about eight families who are interested! We have scheduled a meeting for April 18 to discuss ideas regarding what day/time to meet, what classes to offer, etc. The man who is the kids' Bible quizzing coach offered to teach a Bible or history class and/or lead a chess club. Although Nadia's first choice would be to attend the Christian school at our church (MCS) next year, all three kids are excited about seeing their friends more regularly through this co-op. I have scheduled two field trips that many of these families are planning to attend next month - one is a guided tour of Eckley Miner's Village and the other is a VERY local guided tour of a historic church, home, and cemetery that is less than 4 miles from our home. As I have the last two years, I've given Nadia the choice of attending drama (and possibly art) at MCS as she did in 2019 or the CHEF co-op. She's chosen the CHEF co-op the last two years, but I think she's leaning towards choosing MCS for the 2023-24 school year. If so, I will sign both Nadia and Ian up to be in the chorus at MCS, which would mean that they could both perform in that school's spring musical next year. Speaking of musicals, Nadia is attending a performance this evening of Beauty and the Beast with her friends Macey and Christopher and also Macey's parents.

Highlights from the past three weeks would include:

1. Nadia and I saw a performance of Guys and Dolls that some of her friends were in.
2. Our whole family saw a performance of Julius Caesar.
3. Ian had four teeth extracted at the dentist at the request of the orthodontist.
4. Oliver, Nadia, and I attended a Matthew West concert at our church.
5. We saw a passion play with my niece Jenna and her boyfriend, and we all had dinner together at Texas Roadhouse. 
6. The five of us attended an anniversary party for a couple in our church.
7. Ian and Oliver attended a game day for homeschoolers. Oliver and I didn't attend because Oliver was under the weather. 

In like a lion

Although we've had some really cold spells this winter where the temperatures have been close to zero degrees, in general this winter has been very mild. Considering I'm not a fan of cold weather, I've been thankful that the temperatures have often been a little warmer than usual. We also haven't had much snow this winter. Yesterday morning I awoke to discover a winter wonderland outside. I typically walk five miles every day, and I've been enjoying seeing and hearing more birds lately during my walks. During my first walk yesterday, the sun was still coming up, and the sky was incredibly gorgeous. The evergreen trees weren't completely covered in snow, but every other tree and plant was completely coated in snow. It was so incredibly beautiful! I wish I had used my camera to take some photos at the start of my walk, but at least I snapped a couple of pictures with my phone in the middle of my walk after the sky had turned blue. 

Our school district had a two-hour delay yesterday, but we didn't have a delay in our home because I had invited nine other children to come to our home to play board games from 1-4pm. Another mom hosted a game day for eight children on February 24. That time the kids played Azul, Ticket to Ride, Sequence, and Chess. I liked the idea so much that I decided to do the same. She had divided the kids into two groups of four. I opted to divide the kids into two groups of six. I put some games on each table that six people could play, and I also put one game for two people (Mastermind and Hnefatafl) and one for four people at each table if the groups wanted to split into smaller groups. I also had all twelve kids play Guesstures together (similar to charades). One mom sent a bag of chips and a bag of homemade cookies. Despite the fact that all the kids had eaten lunch prior to game day, they consumed those plus the two bags of pretzels that I provided. At the game day last month Nadia was the only girl; yesterday there were four girls and eight boys in attendance ranging in age from nine (Isaiah) to fifteen (Ben). One mom stayed during game day, and we were able to chat a little bit. Two of the moms mentioned that they will host a game day at their home in the near future. 

We began our fourth quarter of school last week. Ian is studying Python (coding) instead of science this quarter. Last week we finished the fourth and final Life of Fred grammar book. Tomorrow Ian and Nadia will finish the Life of Fred Beginning Algebra book. Because Nadia had almost reached the goal that I had set for her for the school year in Spanish on Duolingo, she has switched to working on French every day. She is trying to get to the same point in the French course that she is in Spanish. In Biology Nadia will be doing her first dissection this week - an earthworm. We're currently listening to Henry V during the time we usually study history. Speaking of Shakespeare, we have tickets to see a performance of Julius Caesar on Sunday night. 

On March 3, two men installed a new range in our kitchen. We had to hire a contractor for the task because they needed to cut the countertop and cabinets some to make room for the oven. I was not at all impressed with the quality of their work. I don't ever plan to hire them again, but all of the burners work on my new oven, which wasn't the case with my old one for the past nine months or so. I wasn't able to get a white one so it doesn't exactly "match" the dishwasher, microwave, and refrigerator, but it has some features my 24-year-old oven didn't have such as a griddle that can be put on the range, the oven can be split into two different ovens which I anticipate using when I need to bake/cook things at two different temperatures at the same time, the oven can be used as an air fryer (something I've never used before), the oven can be controlled by an app on a phone (I can turn the oven on to start cooking something while I'm at church on a Sunday morning), etc. We also got an estimate on replacing our sliding glass door in the kitchen, but that's not going to happen because it was for a little over $6K! I would never have dreamt one door could cost that much! We'll just keep using the one we have. I'm thankful that we were able to replace the oven because it was definitely challenging at times to cook when I only had one large burner I could use. My new range has five burners, and they all work!