Creation Museum

I missed posting yesterday, but the main event was the drive from Huntersville to Cincinnati. We were driving two cars since Mom and Dad are obviously not continuing on with us. I started out in the Civic with Mom and Donia and Dad took the kids. We had a really good time talking and driving in the morning and the time flew by. The adults switched cars after lunch, and we didn’t have quite as much talking since we were dealing a little with the kids. But the kids were generally really good, and we got into Cincinnati (Florence, KY to be real technical about it) without any stress. We ate dinner last night at Dixie Chili so we could get some Cincinnati style chili. I don’t think any of us were head over heels about the chili, but we liked it well enough and it was fun to do.

Today we went to the Creation Museum, which has been something Dad has been wanting to do with us for a long time. It was fairly nice, although I think we should have swapped the order of our day. We started with all the shows they had, then did the walking tour.  The shows were good, especially the planetarium, and the walking tour was OK, but everyone was starting to get worn down. It also seemed like it got busier in the afternoon, so there was a mass of humanity trying to get through the tour. After the tour, we were pretty much done with everything there, so we came back to the hotel to swim and had Chinese takeout for dinner.

And tomorrow we head back. I am terrified for many reasons. Life was not all sunshine and roses before we left (if you couldn’t tell), and I am scared that things will not change much. I am pretty determined to try to change it, but not at all confident in my success. I did check e-mail last night and so at least I know that there are no big nasty surprises waiting for me on Monday. Still, something needs to change. The simplest thing to point to and the most difficult thing to actually change is my attitude. My mind wants to go to other options, some which make sense and some which don’t. Obviously, I will think about this heavily for the first few days we’re back.

And of course I’m slightly terrified for a 12-hour drive tomorrow with everyone having frayed nerves. That should be interesting.

All good things…

Vacation sort of ends tonight. We drive to Cincinnati tomorrow, see the Creation Museum on Saturday, then finish the drive on Sunday. I am dreading being back. It has been exceedingly nice to take a break from life for a week. I have lots of thoughts running around my head, but it would probably be safest to let them marinate until the middle of next week.

It was a nice last day. We went to the pool in the morning and had the place to ourselves since it was cloudy and eventually rainy. Dad came home around lunchtime, and we all just hung out around the house in the afternoon. Donia and I took a quick trip up to Davidson for some horribly overpriced ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s, then we all went to Kabuto for dinner. The last night stinks. There’s a couple more days before complete re-entry, but this is the beginning of the end, and it’s rotten. But I suppose that means it’s been a good trip.

Punting

Today started off with some shopping in Concord which turned into a fairly long expedition at the mall. I had it in my head that we were going to try to get back for naps/quiet times, then go to the pool, so I was starting to get fairly anxious about squeezing all that in. Then somehow, without a great deal of discussion, we changed the whole plan. Swimming was out, the Japanese steakhouse was out, and there was nothing left that absolutely had to get accomplished. It was a very “vacation” thing to do, but probably something that I should try to do more often back home also. The feeling of relaxation didn’t completely translate to everyone. Quinn and Paige still got fairly cranky around dinner, and it took some silvery speech to get them into bed for the night. But it was still nice to slow down and take it easy, and now we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

In the thick of vacation

The last couple days have been pure, straightforward vacation. No real big events. Today we went to the Lazy 5 Ranch, where the kids got to feed all manner of animal from a wagon ride. Kate had an antelope nearly swallow her whole hand, but other than that there were no incidents. The animals kept their side of the bargain today. I spent the whole time trying to regulate my breathing since the horses pulling the wagon were driving my allergies nuts. Then we came back and hit the pool. We’ve been there the past two days, and Kate has had me racing her, which has given me a whole new appreciation for swimmers. The hard swimming has put me into a trance-like state for the rest of the day. Donia and I tried to have a date last night and I was like a zombie the whole time. I think tomorrow is relatively free except for some shopping, but I don’t know if I can do another day at the pool.

Goodbye. Hello.

The day started with taking Gabe and Meg to the airport to pick up their rental car for the drive back to NY. I was fairly bummed to see them go. I knew it was going to be a short visit with them, but I had harbored some hope of having a chance to go out with them or something. Things just got too busy. Even though we had lots of good conversation, I felt like I could have used a lot more. Still, it was great to see them. We’ll have to make the next visit a longer one.

In the afternoon/evening, we went over to a friend’s house. We had gone to high school together, but she hadn’t made it to the great reunion of twenty-ought-five, so we hadn’t seen each other in like 14 years. Didn’t matter. All the years of slogging through Northside together along with the fact that we were both right in the middle of kid-rearing made it easy to talk. A few other friends came over for dinner shortly after we got there, and we had a grand old time. It was very, very nice (helped tremendously by the fact that the kids were on their best behavior). I got a little melancholy thinking that these times of getting together with old friends seem few and far between, but I think a little of that is the vacation talking. If we were right in town, we might tend to get busy just like we do back home. Still…I might not mind giving it a shot.

Fourth of July

Yesterday was a very nice day. We started off with a big breakfast, then went over to Birkdale Village for the celebration they were having. The big event was supposed to be the parade (mostly kids riding their bikes), but we didn’t quite understand the route they were taking, so we missed out on most of it. They still had facepainting and a moonwalk and other stuff going on, so the kids had a good time and we got out of there before everyone got too crazy. Mom and Dad had about 20 people over for dinner. The weather was perfect, which is kind of surprising for July in NC. All the kids ran around outside, we had dinner, then we did water guns and water balloons. They didn’t have the fireworks show close by, so we just set off some small ones on the sidewalk. That seemed to work just as well. It was good to see some old friends, and it was nice that no one got overly cranky (until the end of the day – Paige and Quinn both started wearing down a little).

Arriving

I’m a day late on this post, but there wasn’t time last night to get to it.

We had decided to hit the Air Force Museum in Dayton before continuing on, and I think that worked out pretty well. There was a ton to see, and since we were in a hurry, we weren’t trying to pull the kids over to read every sign or get full explanations of everything. We just moved through and saw the planes. We ended up leaving around 11:00 and started barreling down the road again. It was another nice day for a drive – very cloudy but no rain. We went through the mountains in West Virginia and Virginia, which was peaceful and scary at the same time. (Scary due to the locals – we had lunch at a McDonald’s on the border and got to see a little of the culture). We popped in our only movie of the trip after lunch, and other than Donia getting carsick from me racing around the curves, the rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. We got in around 7:30, so the kids had a chance to be wild before bed.

It’s good to be here. We stayed up talking last night and it made me sad that we’ll all only be together for a day. But we at least have this day, so I’m off to enjoy it.

Driving to Dayton

Day one of vacation is in the books. We had about as good a drive as we could hope for. There were a few moments when the kids got cranky and a few when people started getting stir crazy (Paige sang a slightly improvised version of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” for about half an hour straight leaving Indianapolis). But all in all people were well behaved. I was probably the biggest grump over the course of the day. I’m not sure why – maybe I’m just not a very good traveler. It feels like I get very particular when I travel, and of course that’s the absolute wrong way to be.

A few highlights from the trip:

• We saw some huge fountain thing in the river as we drove into Dayton. From a distance, I had thought it was a building covered by a cloud. It was enormous and pretty cool.
• Driving through Indy, I mentioned to the kids that we had been there before. Quinn (who was like 2 when we were there) says “Oh yeah, I remember this place. But didn’t we come a different way?”
• We looked for license plates and found them from about 30 states and 3 provinces. Quite a few on semis, which kind of feels like it doesn’t count. Should start to pick up some more southern states tomorrow.
• We didn’t kill each other.

Tomorrow, we’re hitting the Air Force museum, then on to Huntersville. Movies might figure prominently into the day’s activities.

And away we go

We leave tomorrow. I’m not sure if we’re ready or not. I feel somewhat unprepared, but I can’t think of anything specific that we’re missing. The kids are excited, and I’m mixed – excited to be leaving but worried that the travel will be a little much. Not sure how Donia is feeling about it. Hopefully we have a good time in the car, and then a good visit while we’re there. The first couple days will be kind of hectic, then it should slow down a bit.

I was thinking about saying something about this being my last post for a while, but I think I would like to try to squeeze some in while we’re gone. I suppose it’s silly to complain about having too many escapist things on my plate, but I’m not getting to the blog as much as I’d like. I think it does help to write a little and get some thoughts out. So maybe I’ll give an update tomorrow night from Dayton.

Home stretch

We are rapidly approaching vacation. It feels like there is a lot left to do and little time to do it, and at the same time I wish it would hurry up and get here. Thankfully this is a pretty calm weekend. We should be able to get some stuff done and also rest up a bit. Maybe the kids can rest up too – they have been fairly rotten over the past week or two. It’s got me a little anxious about the 18 hour drive, but maybe they’re just getting it out of their system now.

Yeah right…