Feed the birds

Today we took our annual trip to Reptiland, which is a small zoo located 3 miles from our home. In previous years, I've only paid for my admission because all three kids got in for free with our PBS membership. Last year the kids joined Tab and her family, so I didn't go last year. This year was the first year that I had to pay for Nadia's admission, and today was the last time that Ian can get in for free. The price for an adult admission has gone up significantly over the years, which probably means Oliver will be the only child I take to Reptiland next year. Reptiland consists of a building that contains reptiles (what a surprise!), a greenhouse for the budgies, a newer, smaller building that houses a Komodo dragon and some large tortoises, outdoor exhibits that feature tortoises, animatronic dinosaurs, an owl, and emus. In addition to seeing the animals in the indoor and outdoor exhibits, we attended a 30-minute show about snakes and lizards, fed some budgies, and attended two animal encounters. The first was with two hissing cockroaches, and the second was with a baby alligator. Usually, I buy each of the kids a feed stick, but in light of the fact that I had to pay for two adult admissions, I only bought one feed stick, which meant we didn't spend as much time in that enclosure as usual. The birds were very interested in our shoes. As we were feeding the birds I was thinking of the song from Mary Poppins because Nadia will be in two performances of Mary Poppins next week. Her rehearsals are scheduled to last 7.5 hours each on Monday and Tuesday, 11.5 hours on Wednesday (seriously!), and the rehearsal + performance will last at least 10 hours each on Thursday and Friday. 

Many schools take students on field trips to Reptiland at this time of year, so I usually try to arrive in the afternoon after the school groups have left. We arrived earlier than usual because Nadia had a job interview at 12:00. After helping her fill out the application, the boys and I entered the zoo. The manager said that she doesn't typically hire individuals who are younger than sixteen, but we figured it was worth a try since at the moment Nadia's plan is to major in zoology at Liberty University. The manager said she'll call in the early part of next week to let Nadia know if they will hire her or not. At the minimum, Nadia gained the experience of her first job interview. If she isn't offered a job this year, I imagine she'll reapply there next year and apply elsewhere for a job this summer. We shall see what the manager says next week! If I need to start chauffeuring Nadia to and from work there, I'll appreciate the short commute. 

Memory Lane

I moved to Pennsylvania in 1996. I can't recall if I went to Knoebels that summer, but I do recall going there in 1997. Although I enjoyed riding the Phoenix (an awesome wooden roller coaster), my enjoyment at the park rose exponentially when I was able to start taking my children there. I think Nadia might have been there in 2009, but the first visit that stands out to me with her was in 2010. In those early days, we naturally spent our time helping the kids off and on the kiddie rides. Some of their favorites were the Kiddie Whip, ball pit, big slide, and the fire engines. Then as they got older and grew tall enough to ride bigger rides, we were splitting our time between the kiddie rides and the bigger rides, like the Phoenix and the flume. The kiddie rides are now a thing of the past for our family. The favorite rides include the scrambler, flume, Phoenix, Twister (another wooden rollercoaster), Impulse (metal roller coaster that includes loops), bumper cars, downdraft, and the swings.

This past Sunday was WVIA Day at Knoebels, which meant we would receive six free wristbands because of our PBS membership. We usually attend the first worship service together and then attend classes during the second service, but this past Sunday Paul and I attended the first worship service while the kids went to their classes during the first service. After that we left with five children as Xandir and Faith were joining us at Knoebels. We came home to change clothes, get some food to eat for lunch in the van, and get Milo. Their mom and stepdad joined us along with their large dog, Gunner later at the park. Paul and the five kids each received a free wristband. We were at the park for six hours. I didn't get as many pictures as usual because at one point it started to sprinkle so I put the camera back in the van. Thankfully it only sprinkled for a very few minutes. The park was more crowded than it was on WVIA Day last year, but the lines weren't ridiculous. The kids rode quite a few rides in the first hour when the lines were particularly short. Ian rode the Impulse for the first time, and he enjoyed it. He's come a long way! Oliver rode the Phoenix nine times! He also rode the flume quite a few times. Paul rode the Phoenix twice and the bumper cars once. Since his wristband was free it's not like we wasted any money, but I'm thinking next year we'll invite three kids to join us and Paul can use some ride tickets as a kid will get a lot more use out of a wristband than he did. Milo had a great time. Because we had Milo, we opted to get one large pizza in the park. It would be cheaper to get one at a restaurant outside the park, but we needed to eat outdoors since we had Milo with us. We spent a little less than $30 on snacks and dinner, and aside from the gas to get there and back, that was our only cost for the day. When the kids were younger, we used to give our extra handstamps to Paul's mom or dad and/or our nephew, Shawn. The kids like the idea of inviting three friends to join us next year. 

This year we will spend fewer days at amusement parks than we usually do. At the moment our only plans for the year for amusement parks are: one day at Knoebels in May (free passes), one day at Montage Mountain water park in June (free passes), the boys will spend one day at Delgrosso's in July (passes are 50% off), three days at Six Flags Darien Lake during a music festival, and one day at Kennywood in August. The only park that will be a new one for us this year will be Kennywood, if we actually go there in August. Those plans are somewhat up in the air depending on when the Benners travel to Maryland this summer. The kids have been to twenty-six different amusement parks (including outdoor water parks) so far. I'm hoping that list will grow to at least thirty within the next three years. In addition to adding Kennywood to the list this year, we're planning to add Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and King's Dominion to the list next year. 

Today we were part of a group tour of Eckley Miners' Village, which was a coal mining patch town and was the location for the filming of the movie Molly Maguires in 1970. We watched a movie, the kids did a scavenger hunt in the museum, and then we had a guided tour of the village that included entering a couple of the homes and two of the churches (Catholic and Episcopal). I have scheduled two more group field trips over the next month - the Historic Warrior Run Church and Curtin Village (Eagle Ironworks). 

Nadia dissected the frog and took her final exam for Biology. We read about Idi Amin today. Tomorrow we'll read about Fidel Castro, and on Thursday we'll finish up with Hosni Mubarak. Nadia is getting near the end of her 1,500-word report on sharks and her Pilgrim's Progress literature guide. Oliver is chipping away at his missed word spelling list, and the boys are continuing to work towards the completion of their math courses. Ian and Nadia are headed to Indiana for a Bible quizzing competition on Friday.

Almost done

According to my log, we reached our 180th day of school on April 30. In Pennsylvania, homeschoolers are required to log at least 180 days, but there is no guidance given as to what constitutes a day so truly, I think the 180-day requirement is meaningless. For me, a day is one in which either we do all our usual subjects at home OR a day in which we spend multiple hours at museums, zoos, National Parks, or the like. Tomorrow will be our 183rd day. We're taking Thursday and Friday off because Nadia and Ian will be doing an Outdoor Adventure Skills class at Camp Susque that will include sleeping in tents, hiking, kayaking, mountain biking, etc. I have invited one of Oliver's friends from church to spend about 26 hours at our home during the time Nadia and Ian are camping. May 8th will be our 184th and final day of the 2022-23 school year although we have other educational field trips planned for the month of May. Nadia will spend about 50 hours in drama rehearsals/performances the week of May 15. Ian and Oliver will continue to do math lessons for at least part of the month of May. I expect all three kids to read almost every day. Oliver will also continue to work on his missed word spelling list which is currently extremely long. Nadia and Ian will hopefully put more time into preparing for the Bible quizzing competition, and I'm hoping Ian will practice the piano more. Between now and May 8th Nadia needs to dissect a frog, finish her 1,500-word research paper on sharks, take two Biology tests, and finish her literature unit on Pilgrim's Progress. 

As of July 1, my kids will be in grades 5, 8, and 10. We are planning to start a new homeschool co-op. I gave my kids the choice of also taking classes next year at the co-op we've been at the last two years OR attending some classes at Meadowbrook Christian, and they have chosen Meadowbrook. I'm not sure yet what courses they'll take there, but at the minimum Nadia and Ian will take chorus which means they can participate in the school's spring musical. We're hoping to visit Ecuador and also go on a short-term mission trip to Guatemala in 2024 so hopefully, we will make good progress in Spanish over the coming eight months. All three kids will have Renaissance History, Bible, Spanish, and English.

• Nadia will also take Marine Biology and Algebra 2. She will also be taking 12-15 credits of college classes through either Boyce College, Grand Canyon University, or Bluefield University. The plan is that she will take 15 credits online through Liberty during her junior year of high school and then 3 credits (Calculus) through Liberty when she's a high school senior. She will hopefully enter college having already earned 30-33 credits, which should enable her to finish college in three years. Yvonne had this idea and has already implemented it with her son, Andrew, who will be starting at Cedarville this fall. College is expensive and reducing the time spent there by a year seems like a wise course of action! I'm planning to do the same with Ian. The reason I have Nadia completing more credits during her sophomore and junior years is so that she can attend Meadowbrook Christian School during her senior year of high school if she would like. 
• Ian will finish his Python text, finish General Science, and take Algebra 2.
• Oliver will finish the Land Animals book and 4th-grade math and study Anatomy & Physiology and 5th-grade math.

Maryland, day three

On Sunday the weather was similar to what it was on Friday - cooler and rainy. When we got home we found out that it rained the entire weekend up here, so we are very thankful that we didn't see any rain on Saturday and actually saw the sun for part of the day that day. On Friday night we stayed in a room at a hotel in Ocean City, Maryland, but due to the rain we never ventured out to the beach. That night our room had a sofa bed, and unlike the vast majority of hotels, this Best Western actually provided bedding for the sofa bed! The complimentary breakfast was very nice at that hotel. On Saturday night we stayed at Red Roof Plus. Nadia had to use our air mattress that night, and they didn't provide any complimentary breakfast, so we used a gift card to get breakfast at McDonald's instead. I wasn't even allowed into the lobby to check in or check out at that motel. I think that was a first. After eating breakfast, we drove to Oxon Cove Farm. We've been to 113 NPS sites so far, and I think this one was the least impressive to me. I left there wondering why it was made a National Park. However, despite the rain, the kids were able to feed some chickens and earn a Junior Ranger badge while we were there. 

Our second stop was Fort Washington. We watched the ancient movie (I'm guessing it was made in the '60s), had a private tour with a Ranger, and the kids each earned a Junior Ranger badge. Our final stop was at Thomas Stone National Historic Site. Stone was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He stepped out of politics shortly after that because he was caring for his wife for eleven years after she became an invalid as a result of her smallpox vaccination. He died shortly after his wife died. There wasn't a lot to do at the Visitor Center. I thought we'd be attending a talk at 1pm and taking the house tour at 3pm, but we showed up at 1:01 and the other four guests who were at the site at that time all preferred to have a house tour at 1pm so the talk was canceled. We joined the tour a few minutes late because we had to walk from the Visitor Center to the house. The Ranger had MANY Junior Ranger booklets available. Many of the ones he had on display were ones that either our kids had already earned OR were ones that don't result in the child being given a badge or patch. The boys each earned three badges (the extra ones were for Junior Paleontologist and George Washington's Birthplace), and Nadia earned four because she hadn't done the Eclipse one which the boys had done previously. So at this point, Oliver has earned 172 badges, Nadia has earned 176, and Ian has earned 179. The kids know that when they earn their 200th badge I will give them $50. I think they can achieve that goal sometime in 2023, but if not, they definitely can in 2024. 

We had dinner at Denny's on Friday night. In general, I've noticed that restaurant prices have gone up on average by about 20%. Thankfully the prices at Denny's were not nearly as high as they were at the IHOP we went to in Kansas City earlier in April. On Saturday night we had dinner at Panera Bread. That is a place where we can still get dinner plus a few cookies for a $50 gift card. At other places, I usually have to pay a little part plus the tip as a $50 gift card doesn't cover three adult entrees, one soda, and two kids' meals. I love their strawberry poppyseed salad. Unfortunately, Paul didn't like the flatbread pizza he ordered.  On Sunday evening we tried a new restaurant - Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen. The prices were similar to Denny's, and most of us really liked the complimentary croissants that they serve with the meal, just like we enjoy the breadsticks at Olive Garden and the rolls at Texas Roadhouse. I imagine it won't be the last time we eat at Cheddar's. 

Thomas Stone's home

The last time we were away, Milo had to spend the first six days of the trip at the kennel. This time we asked a girl in our neighborhood who is one year older than Nadia to watch Milo so that if our other neighbors aren't able to care for him during an entire vacation, between the two neighbors, he can avoid the kennel. Madeline charges $30/day which is more than we pay our other neighbor, but most of the time that would likely be less than what we'd pay the kennel because she's more flexible with the definition of what constitutes a day. Also, Milo was able to sleep with her, which definitely doesn't happen at a kennel. A dog is expensive to own, but I sure do love our dog. The next "getaway" is scheduled for the end of May into early June with Yvonne's family at Great Wolf Lodge. Paul won't be joining us for that trip so although we might need a little help from a neighbor with Milo, Paul will be able to at least partially care for him. 

Assateague and Annapolis

Yesterday it rained most of the day. Thankfully today we didn't see any rain, and the sun even came out partway through the day. It was also a little warmer out. After eating the complimentary breakfast, we drove to Assateague National Park and picked up Junior Ranger booklets for the kids. Soon after we drove onto the island, we saw six wild horses. We assumed we'd see more throughout the day, but those ended up being the only ones we spotted. While we were kayaking, we saw a few different species of birds and also a horseshoe crab. From 2017-2021 we went to the beach on Long Island every summer. Last summer we went to the beach in Delaware, Georgia, and Florida. We kayaked on the bay side and walked along the ocean side. In September we will see the beach in San Francisco, but I don't think we'll be swimming at a beach this summer. 

Our second stop was at the Naval Academy. The first entrance we tried wasn't one we could use. We took a wrong turn trying to find the correct entrance and ended up driving through a very crowded part of Annapolis because of an arts festival. Eventually, we found the correct entrance, found a place to park, and went through the screening to walk onto the Naval Academy property. Unfortunately, by the time we walked across the campus to the Museum, there was very little time left before it closed. I don't think the kids were exactly brokenhearted that we couldn't spend oodles of time in the museum. The chapel was closed for a wedding, so we weren't able to see the crypt of John Paul Jones. I had seen it more than once in the past but wanted to take the kids inside the chapel. I taught in Annapolis from 1994-1996 and had been to Annapolis many other times during the time I lived in Maryland. We had dinner at Panera in Annapolis and then drove to our motel, which is located very close to the first of three National Park sites we plan to visit here in Maryland tomorrow before we drive home. 

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!