Aedan: 25 Months, Week 4
In returning from vacation, our goal was to get our pictures and decorations hung up on the walls. Ben and I worked together to decide what we wanted where, and then Ben did a great job of doing the math to figure out where to put nails so that everything hung evenly and was spaced how we want it. I couldn't help but look around the house and smile as I saw all our normal pictures and decorations go up. It was feeling more and more like home without having bare walls.
Now that we are more settled in our house and don't have huge projects to work on, I was able to look around for events and activities going on around town. On Wednesday morning, I decided to take the kids to the library for the first time. We brought a bag along as well as proof of our address so that we could get a library card and check out some new books and movies. They also have story time at 10:00 a.m., so we figured we'd check that out as well. When we arrived at the library, the kids played for a little while and checked out the surroundings. Then instead of having story time, they had a special event. An instructor was there for kid's Zumba so we went into a special room where there was plenty of room for the kids to dance. Samantha was excited to get involved right away, not acting shy at all around the new environment or new kids. Aedan, on the other hand, just stood back and took it all in, preferring to watch the kids dance rather than join in himself. Samantha thought it was neat that she learned some Zumba moves since she knew I took a Zumba class when we lived in Oxford.
Aedan was willing to join Samantha when it was time to sit in the circle. They were cute together.
On Wednesday nights in the summer in Sault Ste. Marie, they have a free downtown concert so we decided to check it out. They also have a farmer's market on Wednesday evenings, but it wasn't too big of a deal so we decided to walk around the locks park and stop and get some ice cream before going to the concert.
The concert in the park is a different group every week, and this week it was an orchestra. We brought chairs to sit on while we listened, and Aedan was very adamant about carrying his own chair. However, when you enter the park, all your bags have to be checked by the officers, and Aedan was very unhappy when we made him give his chair away to be checked. I think that he thought we were taking it from him and that he wouldn't get it back. Aedan ran away from us and cried, and the officer thought it was pretty funny that he got so upset. The kids enjoyed the concert, but after a few songs they started to lose interest and began digging in the dirt instead. It was a fun experience, and we will definitely have to come back again. It's great to just get out and experience new things in our new town.
Since Ben was still at home to help out around the house, I took advantage of our time at home to begin painting the two downstairs rooms, our bedroom and our office. It took awhile to move the furniture, remove the outlet covers, and get all the taping done. The walls were a cream color and all the trim was just wood, so we decided to paint all the trim white first before painting the walls. It's amazing to me how long it took to paint all the trim around the room. It definitely made me understand what my friend Stephanie was going through when she painted all the trim in their new house. While I was busy painting downstairs pretty much during every free moment I had, Ben was holding down the fort with the kids and making all the meals. It would have been much easier and the work would have gone faster if both of us could be working on it, but with two young kids underfoot, that just wasn't going to happen, so painting the rooms became my weekend project. I did the first coat of white on the trim on Friday, the second coat on Saturday, the first coat of green and grey on Sunday, and the second coat on Monday, finally finishing my project, feeling tired of painting but happy with getting a big job accomplished.
Even though I was busy painting, we made sure to carve out time for Engineer's Day on Friday, which is a really big deal in Sault Ste. Marie. Thousands of visitors come every year to get behind the gates of the locks, see the freighters up close, and participate in some great, free family activities. It was a nice, warm, sunny day, perfect weather for a day out together. Here are some pictures from our time at Engineer's Day.
After we were done looking at the locks, we started walking to other areas where they had special activities, but first Samantha climbed up this fun inflatable with a slide on the other side.
From the Coast Guard area, we were debating what to do because it was getting close to lunchtime, and we didn't know if we should get Aedan back for nap time or not. We still wanted to visit the Cloverland Hydroelectric Plant, and they also had a water rescue demonstration scheduled for 2:00 that we thought would be fun to see as well. The morning had gone well, the kids were in good moods, and we decided to just all stick together rather than me taking Aedan back for a nap. Instead, we walked to Subway for lunch, which the kids eat really well, and then took a trolley over to the the plant.
After briefly walking through the hydroelectric plant, we walked over to where the water rescue demonstration was taking place. It was pretty interesting to see how close the helicopter got to the boat and the precision involved in a maneuver like that. The kids were amazed at how close the helicopter was and how loud it sounded that close to the water.
At that point it was already mid-afternoon and we had walked over five miles that day. We were so surprised that Samantha was able to do so much walking with really no complaining at all. Aedan was getting tired, so we decided to do one last activity before heading back home.
They had an arts and crafts fair set up with a large section of inflatables and bounce houses. We paid for a few tickets for the kids, and let them each choose three things. Samantha had a fun time bouncing and going through some of the larger obstacles courses with slides. Aedan fluttered around a lot more, going from one thing to the other, but the people in charge didn't seem to mind if he went in and out.
It was a pretty warm afternoon with the sun beating down on us in the middle of that field, so we were glad to get back to our air-conditioned car and get back home. Engineer's Day was definitely a fun experience and is something we will definitely be sure to do again next year.
As I said earlier, I spent most of the rest of the weekend painting the two rooms in the basement. On Saturday morning the kids were able to finally meet our neighbor kids, Calla and Shea, who area 9 and 7, respectively. We have heard and seen them playing outside, but never had a chance to officially meet them. Samantha was so excited to meet some kids to play with, and it's nice that they live just two houses down from us so we will see them around a lot. In Oxford Samantha really enjoyed playing with Tessa and Ella, our neighbor kids, so it's really nice that we have neighbor kids here as well. In fact, all the kids spent most of the rest of the morning playing together outside in our backyard. I think Aedan enjoyed tagging along with the big kids as well. Samantha is such a social little girl, so I think this interaction with other children was really good for her.
Another weekend at home meant another chance to try out some churches. We decided to try the E-Free church on Saturday night and go from there. We had high hopes for it because it was affiliated with a larger E-Free church in Gaylord, MI where we know several people from Taylor have attended. However, when we entered the church we felt very out of place. Even though we were very clearly visitors, since we had no idea where to put our kids, no one really introduced themselves, reached out to us, or asked anything about us. We are looking for a church with good children's programs where the kids can learn about Jesus and be challenged with strong teaching. We are also looking for a church where we can meet other parents/families, particularly through a small group because we know that's the best way to make close friends and feel connected in a church. Aedan was in the nursery room which served babies all the way to three year olds, and it was only him and one other kid. Samantha was in an elementary room with all ages mixed together, and even then there were only a handful of kids there. Ben and I sat awkwardly in our pew where no one reached out to welcome us at all, and it was a small enough church that I would imagine people would recognize us as being new. The worship was decent, and the sermon was actually a recorded video of the pastor of the main church down in Gaylord. They have a campus pastor that did the introductions and prayers in between. Apparently this church is pretty new, as it was a church by a different name and was not doing well, so the E-Free church decided to take it over and help it out. It was not a bad church, but it was just not the right church for us.
Since we didn't feel like Saturday night helped us out in our church search, we decided to visit another church on Sunday morning. It was the First Church of Christ, and again it looked somewhat promising from what we read on the website. However, we had a similar experience there as we had on Saturday night. We walked into the church, had no idea where to go to drop the kids off, and there really was no one there to welcome us or help us. Eventually a man stopped to point us in the right direction, and later we discovered he was the senior pastor, but he gave no indication of that when we met him, and he did not find out our names or anything else about us. When we dropped the kids off at their classrooms, the adults that were leading in their rooms really seemed to have no clue what was going on, who was in charge, or even what happened during other services. We were not impressed, to say the least, but we wanted to be a part of the service and give the church a chance. Just like the rest of the church, there were not many people filling the sanctuary. The music was pretty good, but there was not much life in the congregation as far as singing and participating. The sermon was interesting and well put together, but the whole experience gave us a weird feeling about the church. We left the First Church of Christ that morning not knowing what to think, feeling like we had questions about the church that no one could answer for us, and feeling pretty discouraged about the kind of church we could find in Sault Ste. Marie. Ben looked pretty thoroughly at various websites for all kinds of churches around Sault Ste. Marie, and there really were only about five that we were interested in visiting. We don't want to go to a place that is too small, and we want to make sure there is a place where we can be involved in the community and a place where we can serve in the church as well. It was hard for Ben and me to feel like no church we visited felt like home yet, but we decided that next week we would try the Wesleyan Church again to see how we felt about it and pay more attention to the children's programs and attendance levels. Then, we will go from there. My prayer is that we will find a good church to be a part of, that we will be part of a community, and that we will start to meet people around town. I know that God will be faithful to provide a place like that for us to grow and to give.
The rest of the weekend went by quickly with getting the rooms painted. Ben lovingly agreed to stay home again on Monday so that I could do the last coats of paint and be finished with our project. He even took the kids grocery shopping in the morning so that we could get that task taken care of as well. He is a great husband, and I think we work pretty well together as a team. It felt kind of weird being sequestered to the basement for most of the weekend, and really not interacting with the kids as much, but that's what has to be done when trying to accomplish a big job like this. Ben and I had been sleeping in the guest room upstairs since our bedroom downstairs was a mess and smelled like paint, so we were also ready to get back down into our own bed. I finished the painting on Monday afternoon and couldn't wait to take the painter's tape off and see how it all turned out. There were a few places that were awkward to reach around door frames or in corners, so I hoped there weren't too many touch-ups I'd have to do afterwards. There was also this strange area where the paint just sagged on the wall, and I made the mistake of going back and trying to fix it which I think just made it look worse. The second coat helped to disguise the saggy paint spot, but I was hoping it would turn out okay and be not as noticeable. I didn't think it was worth it to sand the paint off and repaint that spot because who knows if that would have helped it look any better. I'm still not sure what caused that to happen. The only thing I can think of is that part way through painting I opened up a window in the office to let some air in, but it was pretty hot and humid out that day, so maybe the humidity coming into the basement made the paint sag at that particular spot. Who knows, but all I knew was that I was glad to be out of the basement, away from the paint, and able to sit down and relax on Monday evening with my family. I will post pictures of our house with all the painting done and the decorations up in my next post. It's coming along, and we are feeling proud about how everything looks.
(Blog about June 21-27, 2016)
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