Saturday, August 31st, 2013- Ice Cream break!

This afternoon, we walked around the waterfront at Sandusky and even though I took a lot of great pictures, this is my favorite one of the day.

We stopped at this ice cream place that was mentioned in one of our books. It was called "Golly Gee Ice Cream" and it was a 50's style restaurant where you ordered through a window and sat outside to eat.  It was a great way to cool down and experience an "off the wall" establishment!

Our campground!

I wrote yesterday how our campground is "not like the others." Today as Matt and I were walking around, it was almost comical as we looked at the piles of junk here and there, bad playground equipment, abandoned buses in the neighboring fields, and just odd things. We almost think it is comical! Here are some pictures:

1.  Exhibit A- Mobile home (or whatever it is on left) and our camper on right. The mobile home is on wood blocks, there are wheels underneath it, and it has a nice musty smell. Mmm, I love the smell of BBQ and must!  Matt and I can't quite figure out what is going on there either. There are cars parked on the other side of the house, but we don't know the full story. Honestly, I think the owners of the campground live there. I don't know why they put us next to the lovely blue house!

 

2.  Exhibit B- Piles of junk. As you can see there is a camper to the left in this picture. Now, I don't know if it's a seasonal camper or somebody just spending the night, but if this junk was behind my campsite, I would be a little upset. I think that looks like an old slide perhaps and some other junk? And this is not the only pile of junk we saw!

 

 

3. Exhibit C-  The playground equipment was NOT safe at all! There is Christian up on the bridge with huge gaps where he could fall through, that is not the worst though! You see towards the bottom, there are some yellow metal pieces (another pile of junk) and a metal rod sticking out into the play area! Very dangerous!

 

 

4. Exhibit D- Not only was the playground equipment not safe, but the ground was not either. Matt noticed this one- there is no fall-resistance "stuff" on the ground. Most playgrounds have wood chips, tire chips, etc, something that if a child falls, he won't hit the hard ground. Not here! Here if you fall, you get to land on good old dirt! We played here for about five minutes and we will not go back tomorrow! 

 

 

Ok, so those are my gripes about the campground, but there are some nice things. The trees here are wonderful! There are many of them and there is lots of shade! They are so pretty.

 

I feel very safe here.  There are 100 campsite and 200 cottages at this campground and most of them are full.  This means there are people everywhere.  It is the usual camping crowd, so I don't feel threatened or out of place. 

 

The people who run the front desk are very nice and have helped us with everything we have asked of them.  They worked with us yesterday when our circuits kept blowing and today they mailed some postcards for me.  They were great when I went there to ask for rolls of quarters to do laundry and I see them driving around and they are always friendly. I even saw one picking up trash today!

 

All employees here have shirts that say, "Camp Sandosky, where memories are made!" I am sure making some memories of my own here at this campground! 







Reminders of Home :)

We saw these two things on our way to Sandusky yesterday and they reminded me of home.

It is a township named after my dad!! It even has his name spelled correctly!!

 

It is a sign for "Fremont."  We spend a lot of time at the Fremont State Lakes over the summer and we are in Fremont, Nebraska, so I thought it was funny that there was a Fremont, Ohio!

Saurday, August 31st, 2013- Not surprised at campground reviews.

Yesterday we travelled from Elkhart, Indiana to Sandusky, Ohio. We stopped at a place called Menno-Hof before we left Indiana. It told the story of the Mennonite and Amish in the area- I found it very interesting! Why don't the Amish use electricity? How do they wash and dry clothes in the winter? How do they stay cool in the summer?? Are buggies really safer than cars?  I wish it would've answered more of these questions, but the museum told more of their history (which I enjoyed!)

After four hours of travelling again, we were at our new destination at Sandusky, Ohio.

We found our campground and got checked in. We had reservations for this one before we left home because of Labor Day Weekend.  We found very bad reviews online and some very good ones, so we reserved it and hoped for the best. Honestly, I couldn't find any other sites in the area.

I don't know which way I am leaning yet, but let's say I am not so impressed.

 1. The campers are within 5 feet of each other.  Matt wants us to keep our shades shut, but I can't do that!  Last night our neighbors were sitting right next to our camper!  He doesn't even think we have ever been this tight in a campground before. It was a little bit of a challenge to get our camper into our spot last night. (This is what a lot of the complaints were about.)
2.  Within a half hour of plugging in, the campground's fuse blew three times, so we ended up plugging into another site's outlet, don't worry, people from the office told us to.
3.  We had to go get our own picnic table, which was a challenge too.  With the campers being so tight and trees everywhere, it was tricky getting a table to where we wanted it.
4.  We are right next to a mobile home that is sort-of permanently in place. You can see the wheels underneath it, but it seems to be put in place with a wooden structure.  There is also junk just sitting around the back (we had to move the junk to get our picnic table to our spot.)  It also has a nice musty smell.
5.  The place isn't as nice as our other places. The pads are grass and it rained last night! It is muddy out there this morning!  It doesn't seem to be as nicely mowed and taken care of as some of the other ones we have been at this week.

I will say though that the bathhouses are fine.  The countertops look like they are fancy marble, but then the walls are yellow with cobwebs in the corners.  At least they smelled clean. :)

Another nice thing is that they put us right by the pool. The girls went swimming last night at 8 pm and the pool was full! They had to play along the side until a bunch of people left.  There was one pool that was heated and the other was not. Can you guess where all the kids were??

There is a huge children's play section, but it's across the campground.  I think we are going to walk over there soon, but the kids probably won't be able to play since it is so wet outside. 

I also made reservations here because it was by the islands of Lake Erie.  Now that we are here and are looking for things to do today and tomorrow, I found that it will cost $106 just to get to the islands! If we want to take our car, it would be another $30!! Yikes! And there are a lot of activities going on at that island that would be neat to see. They are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie from the War of 1812 this weekend. They have all sorts of ships in the harbor and historical activities on the island, but after looking at other ferry services in the area and talking about it, I think we are not going to go to the islands.  We would rather save our money for the east coast. :)  I think we may see some little museums here in the area and see some state parks. I also need to get laundry done and get groceries sometime.  Don't forget the pool and playground either. I think we will stay busy.  The children can just play in the camper too!

We are here until Monday and then we are off to Niagara Falls!!!

Pictures Posted on previous posts

After I found my camera tonight and got all my pictures downloaded from the last couple of days, I went back and posted some pictures on some previous posts.  I know I added some to Tuesday and Wednesday and I wrote up and added them to today's entry. Enjoy!

Thursday, August 29th, 2013- RV Tour Day

Today was the day that we had planned before we even left Omaha. I had a tour scheduled for 10 am at the Forest River Recreational Vehicle Factory in Goshen, Indiana.

We have known about this for a couple of weeks, but do you think we made it there on time?? NOPE! We were 30 minutes late! And we were all to blame.

1. The children.  They just can't seem to settle down at night (it's 10:21 right now and they are still awake) and they are just tired and hard to get going in the morning.  Let's blame the time change!

2. Myself- I am tired too! I did not want to get up! I was also messing with my contacts this morning and that didn't help us any!

3. Matt- He was in a phone meeting with his co-workers when it was time to leave. Can men do two things at once? I think not! (Sorry Matt) He also missed a turn while driving and listening to a meeting on his phone!

4.  Our map.  We didn't know where we were going and we were already late, so I looked up Forest River on my phone and put in the first address I found. We were supposed to arrive at 10:17 am.  But then I was looking at some notes I had written down about the tour and saw that I had written down a different address and it was in a different town!  I called the operator at Forest River again (I had already called to tell them we would be late) and asked them for the address. It was the second one I wrote down. New ETA- 10:30! Yikes!  We eventually got there about 10:35!

We were going on a tour with another family and they were there at 10, we were very apologetic and thankfully they were not upset with us.

We headed over to the factory and this tour was amazing! They showed us step by step how they made Forest River campers.  They make 35 everyday in this plant and today they were making a camper that was similiar to ours, but it had the bunks in the back and master bedroom up front. There was also an outside kitchen in the one they made today.

There are 48 different stations and about 2-3 people at each station. At each station, they add one or two things to the camper. They moved the campers to the next station every 15 minutes. It was so neat to see the campers go from a single frame to a complete camper! Except if you weren't careful, you would get hit. These workers did not mess around!

 

Here is the start of the assembly. See the camper frame behind the people? The camper frame enters the building and comes to this position.  See the tires are on a roller? The wheels on the roller are perpindicular to the wheels on the camper, so it will actually move to the left in this picture.  From here, it will go through the 48 different stations and by the end, it will be a complete camper. The guy in the white was our tour guide.

Next step was putting the floor on the frame. From here, everything was added.

 A few stops down the assembly line and you have some cupboards and a bunch of wire.  The tall shelf is the entertainment center and the middle part is the kitchen. Wow, it looks so familiar! My kitchen is set up the same way and my woodwork is exactly like this! The place where there is yellow on the side, that is where the fridge will go. Notice there are no walls on the camper yet, those came later.

We continued on the tour all the way through until the campers were completed. I could post a dozen more pictures, but Matt doesn't want me using all the bandwidth, but trust me, it was very interesting ot see and makes me appreicate my camper.  I found it that everything was done by hand too. There were quite a few Amish people working in the factory, so it was nice that we could ask the tour guide questions about their way of life.  It was neat that Forest River also has a little barn behind the factory so they can park their horses and buggies when they come to work.  Our tour guide said that most of them have been riding their bicycles lately though.

After we got done at the factory, we headed to Das Essenhaus (http://www.essenhaus.com) and then went to an RV Museum here in Elkhart this afternoon.  This was a huge room full of RV's from the past, the kids had a lot of fun climbing into them and finding the beds, bathrooms, kitchens, etc.  They also loved pretending to drive the mobile homes. Recreational vehicles have really changed a lot in the last 50 years!

When Christian saw this one, he said, "Look mom, it's just my size!"

After our RV museum, we were exhausted and headed back to the campground. After some "quiet time," we headed to the pool for a swim and then ended the day with supper and some "America's Got Talent."

We are going to make one more stop tomorrow to learn more about the Amish people and then we are off to Ohio!

Almost panic time...

I asked Matt to download my pictures for me and he said, "Well, get me the camera."

I looked in all the normal places I have put it this trip and no camera. I looked in the bag we took to the pool tonight and no camera. I looked in the truck twice and still no camera. I dug everything out of my purse at least 3 times and no camera.  I looked by all our electronics stuff and still nothing.

Did I leave it at the RV museum this afternoon??  What happened to it?

Then I started to retrace my steps.  I thought I had taken it to the pool when we went swimming this evening, I had already put the swimming bag away and had looked in it once and didn't find it, but let's look again. Sure enough, the camera was in that bag!

I was not at panic mode, but I was getting close.  I am so glad I found it!!

Tuesday, August 28th, 2013. We STILL didn't get to swim in Lake Michigan!

Since we didn't go swimming yesterday because of the heat and our plans fell through last night because of supper, we decided we would go swimming this morning.  We really wanted to swim in Lake Michigan before left!

Again, plans don't always work out the way you want! A lovely cold front came through this morning and instead of swimming in Lake Michigan, we dipped our toes in and chased the sea gulls!  We were at the lake for about a half an hour before we headed home. Nobody was swimming at all! The winds were pretty strong, which made the waves pretty strong.  There were only a handful of people at the beach, so the kids had plenty of places to run.  All the kids chased the seas gulls, Courtney chased after Matt with water, and Megan and Courtney collected more rocks.

I remember taking this picture of Courtney. She was saying, "I'm going to get you daddy!" I laughed again when I saw the picture after we downloaded them all!

Here she is chasing Matt with her water! She did eventually get him, I got that caught on video!

When we were done at the beach, we headed back to the camper for lunch.  We had lunch and then we packed everything up.  Off we were to our next adventure!

We pulled out of Indiana Dunes State park about 1:15 an our GPS said we were to arrive in Elkhart about 3:45.  I didn't think that was so bad. We got going and the kids were listening to "Adventures in Odyssey" and everybody was happy. 

Soon we started to come upon South Bend, Indiana. As I was looking at my map, I saw that Elkhart was next to it on the map. Then I looked at the clock and it was only about 2:30! Then I remembered the time change!  Matt and I knew that somewhere in Indiana we were going to move ahead an hour, but we didn't quite know where. We know now! I think it is funny that our GPS even knew about the time change. 

As we were coming up to South Bend, Matt had the idea of driving by Notre Dame University.  We made quick changes in the GPS and we detoured our route.  We made a circle around campus because we were hauling the camper and didn't want to get stuck anywhere. We spotted the football stadium and took a few pictures, but that was about it. Then we were on our way to Elkhart!

About 15 minutes later, we arrived! That was super-quick! 

As we were pulling into our spot, my phone rang and it was one of Courtney's friends! They had been playing phone tag for three days and it was great that they finally connected! I heard lots of giggles coming out of Courtney!

We got full hook-ups this time and the campground was a little bit more than we usually pay, but it's ok. Once we got the camper set up and everything hooked up, it was time to make supper.  It was so nice out tonight so we grilled out and then took the girls swimming until we got kicked out of the pool about 8:30  (Come on, it's only 7:30!)

After more showers and seeing a praying mantis in the shower house, the kids are in bed, but obviously not tired! It has been taking them awhile to settle down lately.

Tomorrow we have our tour of the Forest River RV factory at 10 am and then we are going to visit the RV museum here in town.  There is also a nice riverwalk here, so maybe we can do that tomorrow evening and of course more swimming!

Hopefully I can have Matt help me download pictures tomorrow!

Friday we are off to Sandusky on Lake Erie for the Labor Day weekend!

Tuesday, August 27th, 2013- Crashing a homeschool field trip :)

Today was a day to lay low and to not drive anywhere. :)

We were so excited that we didn't have to get up and go anywhere that we actually made a nice breakfast- sausages and hash browns.  (This is the only thing I can eat on my diet!)  I was getting tired of cereal anyway!

Then Matt and I debated and debated about what to do today.  We threw around the idea of going to Chicago, which is only an hour away, but everything we would do there was pretty expensive. I want to save the expensive tourist destinations for the east coast. We also knew that it was supposed to be about 100 degrees and I didn't want to spend all afternoon at the beach getting burned. We needed something inside, but yet fun.

We decided to stay around the campgrounds and explore some things in the morning and then take it from there.  There is a nature center here at the state park and we went over there. Our intentions were to walk through the  nature center and then go on a short hike before lunch and before the heat hit.

Life is sure funny sometimes because this is not what happened!

When we got out of car at the nature center, another mom was there with her two kids and she asked us, " Are you with the homeschooling group?"  I kind of had to think twice. :)  I said, "no" and proceeded inside.  Soon, more families and kids were showing up, something was definitely going on! 

We were getting ready to head out the door when a mom kind of eyed me and asked me again if I was with the homeschooling group.  Again I responded "no," but then she proceeded to tell me that there was a group meeting there and they were having a nature presentation and going for a hike to look for animals.  She then invited us along!  She also told us it was $1 per person.  This definitely peeked my interested!

Matt was in the bathroom with Christian, so when he was done, I asked him if he wanted to join the group and he said sure, so we did! 

We went into a little classroom and the nature guide did a short presentation and the kids got to pet a turtle and learn about water, drylands, and marshlands.  Towards the end, she really focused on marshlands and discussed what kind of animals (invertebrates) were in the marshlands at the state park.  It was really interesting!

(Side Note: The best part of this short presentation was at the beginning when the leader said, "So, I see that everybody is from the Chicago area. Is everybody here from Chicago?? Anybody here from anywhere else?"  We raised our hands and said we were from Nebraska and everybody laughed.  I said, "And we also homeschool!' They were probably wondering where we came from!)

The leader then proceeded to tell us about the hike that we were going to go on.  We were going to go on a short hike and then end up in  marshy area.  She was going to give kids nets and they were to get down on their bellies and scoop up some water from the bridge we were going to be on.  They were then supposed to go through the weeds and mud and see what animals they could find. Once they found an animals, they could get the leaders and they would help identify it and put it in a container for everybody to see.

Here we are on our small hike with the homeschooling group, Matt is on the left hand side with Christian on his shoulders.

At the bridge. Megan is in the pink shirt and Courtney is in the blue shirt on the left side. Megan and Courtney were getting on their bellies to reach down into the water with their net.

After they pulled their net up, they had to throw the vegetation back in and look for invertebrates.

Wow, what a great experience! My girls pulled up tadpoles, right-handed snails, a mussel, and Matt even caught a frog!  It was super-fun!  Some other kids pulled up fish, leeches, stick bugs, beetles, another right handed snail, etc..  The leaders had magnifying glasses there so you could see the animals better. 

Once it started to get hot, we packed everything up and headed back to the nature center.  After we were done there, we headed back to the camper to get some lunch and wash our hands!  It was almost 1 pm!

We didn't do much the rest of the day.  We cooled off in the camper until about 3 and then headed to the visitor's center and a local town for groceries. By the time we got back, it was supper time and the sun started going down.  The girls and Matt then decided to have a campfire, so they are outside making smores, Christian is in bed, and I am enjoying time to myself!

We are definitely going swimming tomorrow morning in Lake Michigan before we leave for Goshen. On Thursday we have a tour set up to go through the Forest River Recreational Plant in Goshen, Indiana.  Our camper was made in that plant, so I am anxious to go on the tour.  We are going to be there for two nights before heading to Sandusky by Lake Erie for the Labor Day Weekend.

Today's plans.

We are starting to run out of things and have to head to Wal.mart today.  This will probably be our first trip of many, but we've made it about five days, so that is pretty good.

We found the nearest walmart is about 9 miles away and have the fun of travelling is going into different stores and exploring other cities.  I wonder what we will discover today.

Matt and I are also going to take the kids and head back to the beach sometime today, it's supposed to be super-hot, so I don't want to be out there all afternoon.  We are also going to explore Indiana Dunes National Park.  They have a nature program the girls can participate in and there is a nature center we can visit.  There are many trails too, but it is soooo hot out!

It is nice that we don't have to drive anywhere today, except for places locally!

Tooth Fairy

Does the tooth fairy visit little children on vacation??

Megan lost a tooth the other day and we're not quite sure what to do with it. :)

She has lost four teeth these last couple of weeks. At this rate, she will be toothless by the time we arrive home!

Monday, August 26th, 2013

Today we woke up to a beautiful morning in East Moline, Illinois! It was so nice out and it was so peaceful at our campground- I would definitely stay there again! Christian thought it was great because there were "diggers" that were working at the campground!

By about 9 am, we had a plan for the day.  We were going to visit the John Deere Pavillion in East Moline and then be on our way to Indiana.  I called them and made sure we could bring our camper over and we could, so we packed everything up, hooked up the truck, and drove across town.

Just to set the record straight- we are NOT John Deere people! Christian calls them "bad tractors," so I think it was hard for him to understand why we were going to see "bad tractors."  I kept trying to tell them that they are still tractors and he will be able to climb on them and pretend to drive. I felt like such a traitor being there today! If they had a Case IH building full of  "good tractors," we would have definitely went there instead!

Here is where we went: http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_US/corporate/our_company/fans_visitors/tours_attractions/pavilion.page?

Christian did think it was pretty neat and I think the girls enjoyed themselves too!

Among many pictures, I decided not to post green. :)  Christian LOVES construction vehicles, so here he is by a loader.  He's so little compared to the huge loader!

After about an hour, we were done looking at "bad tractors," so we asked at the front desk if there was anything else nearby.  She guided us to the visitor's center at Arsenal Island where you can see firsthand a lock and dam.  We headed over there with the truck and camper and found the museum.  We saw a lock, but there were no boats coming up or down river, so we didn't get to see how it worked, but we did watch a movie explaining the history of the Mississippi River and why the lock and dam system is so important. Matt and I both found it very interesting!

After we got done there, we all climbed back in the truck and headed to Indiana Dunes State Park in Indiana.  This was about 200 miles and by the time we got there, we had driven for 4 hours. (That is 12 hours in the car in 2 days!)

We found the park, got a campsite, met a lady and her son from Boston at the playground, made supper, and headed over to Lake Michigan via a walking path from our campground.

We ended the evening with lovely pictures from the lakehore. And yes, we all took off our shoes and went in the water. 

 

Megan and Courtney collected some rocks and we headed back to our camper for the night.  We plan to stay here two nights, but I'm not sure what we will be doing tomorrow. It is supposed to be heat indexes of over 100, so we might try to do something inside during the day and maybe come back and enjoy the beach some more tomorrow night. 

Sunday, August 25th, 2013

Today was the day that we left on our adventure east.  We had been at Mahoney State Park for two nights and it was time to get going. :) 



 

We wanted to get all the way to Davenport, IA today, so we got the kids up by 8 am and were ready to go by 9 am.  Since we were camping with my parents, we went over to tell them good-bye and I had my mom take this picture of us five before we left.

 





By 9:45, we were on the road!  We didn't forget anything too major at home, so we decided to just get on the interstate and head to Iowa.  By about 10:10, we were driving past our church.  It then dawned on me that it was Sunday! The thought crossed my mind that we should stop, put on church clothes, go to church, and then be on our way, but Matt didn't think we should delay things.  We knew it would be a long day of driving.

We got out of Nebraska and into Iowa.  The kids were entertaining themselves quite nicely and everybody was doing well. About an hour into the trip, they watched "Mr. Popper's Penguins," so that filled the time until we stopped for lunch.  We found a state park by Altoona, IA for lunch (Mitchell something.) It was great driving by Adventureland and remembering the fun we had there in June!

After about an hour break for lunch, we were back on the road.  We had gone about 150 miles and we had about 150 to go!

For the afternoon, we got the joy of listening to many episodes of "Adventures in Odyssey" and doing some more activities in the car.  I was very impressed by how the kids did in the car all day! Even the 3 year old!!

The following game is how Megan passed much of her time.  This is a "License plate game" where you flipped the block over once you saw a license plate from that state.  She saw a license plate from every state except for 19 of them! Wow! (If the block says the state name and capital, she did not see a license plate from that state.)

About 5:30, we crossed the Mighty Mississippi and we were in East Moline, Illinois.  We decided to stay the night at a US Corps of Enginner campground called "Fisherman's Corner." It is right along the Mississippi, so once we got settled in, we went out on a Mississippi river dam and did some exploring. :)

We put the kids to bed at a decent time tonight because we want to get the kids up early again tomorrow.  Courtney was not happy when we said we were not going to make a fire and have smores.
We are going to do some tourist things here in East Moline in the morning and then head out about noon to Indiana.  We are going to be at the Indiana Dunes State Park the next two nights.

Packing was a chore!!

We finally pulled out last night about 6 pm.  About 4 pm, the neighbors said to us, "Hey, I thought you guys were leaving today." WE ARE!!

It took the ENTIRE day to pack. Have I ever said how much I really don't like packing?? But of course, I was packing for a month and it took a lot of thought and organization of how to put everything we would need for a month from our house into the camper.

This is what I said to the children when they asked me what clothes they should bring along.
"Bring everything you wear on a regular basis. I don't want to hear, I don't have anything to wear on this trip!" I had them grab all their underwear, shorts, capris, dresses, skirts, shirts, and jeans that were in their drawers! I told them, "Even if you don't like to wear it, bring it anyway!"  We will have to do laundry along the way, but I will not know where, so I had them bring enough clothes that they shouldn't run out for awhile.  Of course to do this, I had to get all the clothes clean, which meant that we were doing laundry until about an hour before we pulled out.

I followed the same concept for myself and Christian.  I have no idea what Matt packed. :)

I brought tennis shoes, church shoes, flip-flops, and sandals for everyone.  We have a basket of shoes in our bedroom along with jackets for everyone.

I brought so much food that our pantry is over-flowing onto the benches for the dining room table.  We will eventually eat it all!

After packing all day, we still had to stop at Target (pick up my contacts) and Walmart (good smelling stuff for our camper toilet) last night on our way to Mahoney and we have already starting a "things we forgot" list! I'm not kidding!!  This is kind of the reason we don't mind staying at Mahoney for a couple of days, it's not too far from home and if we forgot something, we can always swing by the house before we head out of town.

We pulled into Mahoney around 7:15 last night and my parents were AWESOME and made supper for us!! We were all starving and exhausted! (We are camping this weekend with my parents and my older brother's family.)

Why the big trip??

Many people are probably wondering- what are we doing?? Loading up a 34 foot camper, going halfway across the country with 3 kids, being gone for a month, sounds crazy!!

I agree!! 

But why are we doing it??

This trip has been in the works for years. Matt has always wanted to make a big trip with the family.  When he was younger, his family took two trips to Florida.  They drove both times.  Matt has always said that those were the best memories of his childhood and he wants to do the same for his kids.

Three things played into our decision to go this year.

1.  Pets. We had always wanted to go, but we didn't want to take our dog along and we didn't really want to take her to a kennel, so we never went.  Unfortunately, we had to put our dog down in April, so we don't have a pet to worry about anymore (well, except for Courtney's fish!)

2.  Matt's job.  Matt has always worked in an office until this year.  For the past six months, he has worked from home and I think he is going to continue to work from home the next six months.  Because of this, he is able to work from the road.  He purchased a hot spot and is going to work about 20 hours a week from the camper.  Again, we would not be able to be gone so long if worked at an office.

3.  School.  As many of you know, we homeschool and absolutely love it!!  One of the many things we love about it is the flexibility we have when it comes to scheduling.  Who says we need to follow the public school calendar?? The law states that my children need to go to school 1032 hours between July 1st and June 31st of the following year.  With this being said, we did two weeks of school in July and August and we will pick it back up when we get home.  I think we will be going to school until June 31st of next year!

All three of these things lined up and Matt and I decided to jump on this great opportunity to take a trip.

But why the east coast? We threw around many ideas.  East Coast, Florida, Grand Canyon, etc. We decided to go big and stay on the road awhile.  We finally decided on the east coast because of what we are studying in American History with Megan's curriculum.  Last year we studied American history from the Native Americans until 1850( this year we will be covering 1850 until modern times.)  We learned all about the colonies, Jamestown, Pilgrims, Puritans, Boston Tea Party and the Revolutionary War. We then learned about how they wrote the Constitution in Philadelphia and how it rules our country.  When we ended our study last year, we were learning about the homesteaders and the great migration across the country.

Because of all this, we decided to head to the east coast and check out all these sites. Another reason we are heading there is for me. :)  It has been my dream since about 3rd grade to see the Statue of Liberty, we are finally going there!!! I told Matt that if that is all we do in New York City, then I will be happy.  Matt's wants to go to the east coast to see the ocean- he says the ocean is absolutely beautiful! We have studied a lot about animals, so I think it will be awesome to walk along the seashore and find animals and study them.  We may even bring a few home, who knows!

And of course, we will be learning about geography, math, English, and everything else along the way.

As somebody said, this will be an "education vacation!"

Labor Day Weekend

I wanted to post this on my blog so I could find it again when we need it next weekend.

http://www.millerferry.com/

We have campsites reserved at Camp Sadusky, right west of Cleveland, OH.

We are going to camp here Labor Day weekend and then head up to Niagara Falls on Monday- right after the crowd leaves from the weekend!

Everything but the kitchen sink!

I got to thinking, we are going to be gone longer than the usual 3-4 days camping. We're going to be gone maybe 3-4 weeks.  I then thought about all the cheap kitchen utensils I keep in the camper. You know, the Dollar Tree stuff you buy when you first get a camper.  It's just stuff there in case I need it.

Well, I figured if I actually have to be doing some cooking in there, I am not using my cheap kitchen utensils from the Dollar Tree! I moved all of those into the house and replaced them with everything that I use on a daily basis from my kitchen. My good pots and pans are going, pyrex bowls, my good strainers, measuring cups and bowls, and all the utensils (can opener, spatulas, etc.)   Seriously, I think I am taking everything but the kitchen sink!!

On a side note, I already packed a lot of other stuff from my kitchen. I have already been through my pantry and packed everything that I would like to take along.  We have cereal to last us days, my spices for cooking, noodles, canned goods, marshmallows, graham crackers,etc.

I am making spaghetti tonight as our last meal at home and I had to go out to the camper to get my spices! Now I remember why I don't pack until the last minute! I am saving the fridge until tomorrow!

It's Thursday already!

The countdown has begun. We leave tomorrow! Yikes!

Yesterday I felt like I couldn't do any packing. The camper was not here, we were still wearing all the clothes we need to take along, we were still using everything in the kitchen, etc. I just didn't feel I could get things ready to go yet.

Today is a different story! Matt went and got the camper last night and I put things out there that I could (sheets, towels, rugs, etc.)  Today we are getting into gear with more stuff we don't necessarily need tomorrow yet!

My girls were supposed to have swimming lessons this morning, but their teacher got sick, so I have more time than I thought. This afternoon we will be out doing errands, so I just have this morning and this evening.

Tomorrow we will be full force ahead on packing!!

I don't know what Matt's goal is to leave, but I am saying around 3 pm.

Do you think I can get the whole camper packed, plus the house put in order to be gone for a month??
I guess we will see!

Nature galore!

Right now, our backyard is quite the happening place.  So much so that we can't even play back there.

Every year at the end of July, we welcome the big yellow jackets to our yard.  They are also known as cicada killers.  We may see up to five of these flying around at one time! Matt is even scared to mow the lawn back there and there is no way we can play on the swing set.  They will be here about a month.  They fly crazy and even slam into our back windows!

Even though the yellow jackets are huge and take up our backyard, they are quite interesting to watch.  They fly into the trees and paralyze the cicadas.  Then they fly the paralyzed cicadas back to their nest in the ground (we have seen this happen a couple of times) and they lay their eggs in their bodies.  I think they then eat the bodies, I'm not for sure there. They are impossible to kill, so we have learned the best thing to do is just leave them alone.

The other day Matt was working on his truck in the garage and a yellow jacket paid him a visit. Let's say that the yellow jacket is now a part of Courtney's bug collection. :)  Matt said it was half dead when he flew into the garage in the first place. Matt just finished him off with some bug spray which  usually doesn't work on the yellow jackets in the backyard.

We also have baby birds in our backyard. Quite a few years ago, Matt and the girls had bought me a bird house for mother's day.  It has hung in a tree and no bird has ever made a home in it until this summer.  About a month ago, we noticed there was a nest inside the bird house.  We were out back yesterday talking to our roofers and you could little birds tweeting from inside the birdhouse! Sure enough, when we looked in, there were three tiny birds in there!! We would love to know what kind they are, but we don't want to get too close either!

In addition to our friendly rabbits and other bugs, it is quite the nature center!

Lots going on!

We leave in two days. Yes, two days before we are gone for about a month.

Do I have anything packed?? Nope!
Is the truck ready to go?? Nope!
Is the camper even in our driveway yet? Nope!

Do I have a million thoughts going on in my head right now? Absolutely!!
Do we have the first week planned out? Yes, at least 95% of it!
Have I spent a lot of time online looking at places and finding campgrounds? Yes!

I woke up at 6 am this morning and knew I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep.

You know what my thought was?
We should get some binoculars! We have Amazon Prime now, so if I ordered them off Amazon early this morning, maybe we could get them by Friday with two day shipping. :)

Things I have gotten done this week:

1.  We got a new roof yesterday. The entire mess is cleaned up and hopefully it won't leak while we are gone. Luckily we have people watching our house and they are going to walk through it and check it out.

2.  I visited a root canal specialist about my root canal that has an abcess. He said that I can wait until we get back to get another root canal done and I should just continue to take antibiotics while I am gone.

3.  I ordered contacts and hopefully they will be in by Friday.

4.  I got new glasses.

5.  I have taught my girls some geography. We talked about the world and the seven continents and the four oceans, then we moved to North and South America, and I want to talk about the United States yet before we leave. Then we are going to talk about each state as we travel though them.

6.  I got Courtney's 7 year pictures taken yesterday and they turned out super-cute! Now to help her write thank-you's.

7.  I got the house cleaned up from her birthday party on Sunday.

8.  I found a stroller at Wal.mart on Tuesday for Christian. I am tempted to get him a backpack leash yet. I really don't like those, but it might really help in situations where I cannot take a stroller.

9.  I have new tennis shoes for all our children and pants for Megan and Christian. (Courtney still has some that fit her.)

10.  I have a Forest River Recreational vehicle factory tour scheduled in Goshen, Indiana next Thursday morning.  This is where our camper was made and we area anxious to go on a tour and see how it was made!  Maybe we can get some parts while we are there. :)

11. I have it worked out in my head how we are going to organize the children's clothing in the camper.  Now to go shopping and find some containers.

12.  I also have it worked out how we are going to bring toys and stuff to do. Again, back to the store for containers.

13.  Scheduled two playdates today because people want to see us one last time before we leave.


Anyway, instead of thinking about what I have gotten done, I should start to focus on what NEEDS to be done. Can you tell I work better with a deadline? And I tend to not do things until I get closer to the deadline? The deadline is Friday by 3 pm, so I have a couple days yet. :)

new roof!

Nothing like getting woke up at 6:50 AM by somebody walking all over your roof!!!

Today we are getting a new roof, so it will be noisy the ENTIRE day!!

Good-bye woodshake shingles, I will miss you, but not the silverfish that you let lay eggs in your wood.  I will not miss them crawling down my walls and in my house.

Yes, I am sentimental, even about my shingles. I am kind of sad to see them go.

Hello really fancy asphalt shingles.

I think it's amazing that I have lived in Omaha for 13 years and this is the first time I need to replace my roof.

(Actually the night we moved from our old house, the roof got totaled, but we had already sold it, so we didn't replace it.)

Our insurance loves us this year, first they payed out to replace our camper from the hail storm and now they are paying out to replace a roof!! Yikes!

I kind just want to sit outside and watch them pull our old roof off....

So that is what is wrong!

Courtney was having quite the time last night.

She was outside riding her scooter, she tripped over the sidewalk, and fell on her chest and face on the sidewalk right into a puddle of water.  Poor thing was wet! It was time to take a shower, so lucky for her, she got out of it!

She decided instead to go to bed. She was complaining that an area beside her nose and an area beside her eye hurt. I gave her some ice, but really didn't notice anything, but she kept complaining like it hurt,I didn't think it was a big deal.

I read her some books and tucked her in, but soon after that, she decided she had to go potty. Once she came back to her room, she said, "Mom, it feels like I still have to go, what if I pee in my bed?"  Oh Courtney! I told her that if she needs to go again, then get up and go and if she doesn't make it, there is a water-proof mattress on her bed. (Honestly, I didn't think this was a big deal either.)

Matt read her some more books and eventually she went to sleep.

Fast forward to 6:30 this morning and Courtney arrives in my room! (She is NEVER up at 6:30 am!)  Now she was telling me that whenever she swallowed, "it" doesn't go down.  I had to ask her a few questions to figure out what she was telling me, but in the end, Matt and I thought she just had a slight sore throat.  She then went back to bed.

8:00 am I wake up again and see Matt bringing this very sad and crying Courtney into my room.  I ask her what is wrong and I finally I know what is causing all these ailments. She said, "Mom, I don't want to go to Sunday School by myself!!" sob, sob sob!!!

Ah, the truth has been told!  Now that we homeschool, she does about everything with her sister or her friends. It is very hard for her to go to something by herself and I totally forgot that she had to go today by herself. It is "move-up" Sunday at our church, so everybody moves up a grade level and they will have new classrooms. Once she does something by herself for awhile, she is fine, it's just the initial adjustment. I told her about all her friends that will be there and that didn't seem to help any!

Hopefully there won't be too many tears when she goes to her classroom today!

Dentist Visit

I ended up going in to the dentist yesterday to get my root canal evaluated.  They took an xray and sure enough, there was an abcess on the root of my root canal that was done 2 1/2 years ago!

They referred me to a root canal specialist and hopefully I can get in before we leave.  They also gave me a prescription for antibiotics.  I then asked them why they didn't pick this up last November when I was in (I had the xray done at the orthodontist about the same time.)  They showed me my xrays from that time and you can see those teeth, but you cannot see the root of the root canal. The picture is cut off right when my roots start! If only!!!

So now to call the specialist, which I didn't get done yesterday because I was too busy giving a birthday party to Courtney!!

Tooth troubles!!

I tell you, if it's not one thing, it's another!

Maybe you don't remember, but way back in February 2010, I cracked a molar.  I was pregnant with Christian at the time, so I couldn't get it fixed until my 3rd trimester. April 2010, my dentist put a crown on my tooth.

Soon after that, I developed an abcess on the same tooth and ended up having a root canal in November 2010.

Around this time, I started to have TMJ pain in my jaw.

Fast forward to summer and fall of 2012, I visited three orthodontists and all three said I would need my jaw broken for my TMJ pain to go away.  (One said to break my top jaw, one said to break my bottom jaw, and one said to break them both). 

After 9 months, I was ready to visit an oral surgeon and talk about surgery.  Today I visited one who has a great reputation and is known for honesty and integrity.  This is the same one that pulled my wisdom teeth out when I was a sophomore in college.

Guess what he told me?

1.  That tooth with a root canal and crown from 2010, well, it appears from an xray taken 9 MONTHS AGO that there is ANOTHER abcess on the root of that tooth!!!!

2.  Even if I had jaw surgery, this oral surgeon would not guarantee that my pain would go away.  He said that I do need my top AND bottom jaws broken, but there are many, many risks (like blindness and nerves everywhere), thousands and thousands of dollars in costs, 2 1/2 -3 years in braces, 8-9 hour surgery, bones not healing properly, and not chewing for 6 weeks, etc, etc.  He made it sound like the risks are too high and the results would not necessarily be the ones I wanted.  

He said I should 1. get my abcess taken care of  2.  get on muscle relaxers (which I already take every night)  3. Lower my stress so I don't clench as hard at night 4.  Get a splint to wear at night.

He said that there is definitely degeneration in my jaw joint and I have osteo-arthritis there, but the damage is already done. My bite is terrible and that is causing all my pain. He said that he sees this quite often and I fit the profile, but he said to try all these conservative efforts first and come and see him again if I have to in the future. He said most of the pain is muscle tension and the key is lower the tension. So pretty much, keep doing what I have been doing!

As I was leaving, the nurse said she would get ahold of my dentist and tell him everything that we discussed.  If I hadn't heard from him by the end of the week, I was supposed to give him a call.  I thought differently. I gave my dentist the call about an hour after I left the surgeon's office and set up an appointment to get my abcess evaluated.  The receptionist got me in tomorrow! I told her that that tooth had been bothering me this last week or so and I was ready to call in anyway!

We are going on a trip in a week and a half and I would really like this taken care of before then. 

Starting school...

Everywhere I look, people are talking about starting school next week. If my girls were to go back to their school, they would be starting on Monday.  Yesterday at the zoo, we ran into one of Megan's old classmates and of course her mom asked, "Are you ready to start school?" They had no idea that we homeschooled! This girl was in Megan's class for the two years!  (This is one of the reason we pulled our kids out- too many kids in one class!)

It just made me realize how thankful we are that we homeschool our kids.  I remember the first year that I did not send Megan back. I was very nervous about not being a part of the first day of school activities and I almost felt like we were being left out. A part of me just wanted to go up to the school on the first day and hang out anyway!  Two years later, stuff like that doesn't bother me anymore.

I like that I can buy school supplies whenever I want and I can start whenever I want. I totally love being in control!!  When I was at Walmart the other day, the school isles were just packed with parents and their kids.  Do you know how much shopping for school supplies bothered me? I hated it that you bought everything and then you took it to school and put it in a community pile.  Megan didn't get to keep anything we bought! Now, we buy it and I know she is using it!

I also keep hearing, "I can't wait for my kids to go back to school." Ugh, another huge pet peeve of mine!  Why don't you enjoy the time you have with your kids? Cherish the time with them before they go to school for 8 hours a day!  I love it when parents actually say, "I sure will miss my kids when they go back to school." It sounds so much better! I sure missed Megan and looked forward to when she was home on breaks!  But honestly, it was quite an adjustment having her home our first year of homeschooling! It was an adjustment for everyone because I was used to sending her back to school every fall. Now I can't imagine sending her off for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week! (Honestly, I don't think I will get her to go back, ever!)

I feel bad though that we will not be having school for awhile around here.  I always feel obliged to follow the public school schedule, but we don't necessarily have to follow their schedule. As long as we fulfill the hours (or in my case, get 36 weeks of school done) we are following the law.  People out in public just expect kids to be back in school and if I took the kids out in public next week during regular school hours, I might get some stares.  If they ask, I will politely say that we homeschool our children.   

Off to more camping. I am so glad I don't have to worry about school on Monday. :)

Crazy Life!

I realized that other day that life is getting a lot busier lately. Busy life means that we are not doing school for the moment.

We are going on a trip at the end of August (don't worry, somebody is watching our house!) and life is planned out until then.

We have 2 weeks of school done. I was hoping for 5 done before we left. It doesn't look like that is going to happen!  But I am ok with that, I can only do so much and the nice thing about homeschooling is that we can always make it up. 

We are not going to take school along on our trip, so we will probably be going to school at our house into June next year. The law states that you need to fulfill your 1032 hours between July 1st and June 30th of a year and I think we can do it.  (There was actually a case that went to court about this last year, so even if I don't exactly follow the public school calendar and am able to get my hours in, I am following the law!)

We did finish some school up yesterday morning (we finished week 2 work), but today we are going to the zoo and tomorrow we are going camping again until Sunday. We still have a bunch of reading to do, so may try to finish some of that up this morning, but I hate to start all new stuff (week 3 work) and then not have school for 4 days.

Next week is Courtney's birthday.  We are having a party with her homeschool friends for her on Wednesday, which will take some preparation as in getting items ready for the party and cleaning the house! We are then going to have another family party (I know, call me crazy!) on Sunday, so I get to do it all over again.  We may be able to get some school work done next week.

The following weekend, we are camping at Mahoney State Park on Friday and then heading east on vacation on Sunday.  This week will be busy getting things ready for our trip. I already have a list of things I need to purchase or find (fall clothes, umbrella stroller, ponchos, umbrellas for everyone, tennis shoes, etc.)  Again, we may be able to get some work done.

If we get 3 weeks worth done, it is still something! I have noticed lately when my kids do have free time, Megan will sit in one place and read a book (or two) and Courtney and Christian will sit on the floor and play legos.  This is what they enjoy doing!  But when we were having school, I could tell we were in a good routine.  Since we have not had school this week, the kids have not been doing their chores and they have been sleeping until 9 am!  There is just not as much structure, which is also fine for the time being.

I am also trying to get over a cold that is going on a second week, so I am still coughing and blowing my nose all the time, it does not work so well for me to read at the moment.  Another bonus about homeschooling- when I need a sick day, I just take one!
   

Ballet Shoes, part 2

Those brand new ballet shoes I bought last week, they are already coming apart!

Can hardly believe it myself! I guess those are going back to the store!!