Week 2 of Our Tour of the Midwest

Samantha: 110 Months, Week 4

Aedan: 77 Months, Week 2

Owen: 34 Months, Week 4

Sunday, August 9th we were still in Oxford, Ohio for one more day, and we had fun plans that afternoon, but the morning was spent just hanging out at the Chagdes' house, talking, and watching the kids play with each other. Aedan discovered some of Isaac's costumes that day, so here are Aedan and Owen dressed up as Batman and Superman together. They are so cute! The two of them love to dress up and pretend to be super heroes together.

However, this Darth Vader costume was by far Aedan's favorite (even though it was a bit small for him). Aedan has been pretty obsessed with Star Wars for awhile, so he was pretty excited about wearing this around the house for awhile.

That morning we ended up doing a telehealth appointment for Aedan because he had a rash that seemed to be spreading, or popping up, in more and more places on his body. After sending in the following pictures and talking to the nurse, they decided that it looked like poison ivy. The kids were out in the woods behind our house before we left on our trip, so he must have gotten into something then. She said it wasn't contagious just from his rash, but just if he still had something that had the poison ivy oil on it and someone touched it. So after we heard that, I made sure we washed the shoes he wore while in the woods in case that was how it was spreading. She also prescribed him a steroid cream and told us to give him Zyrtecto help with the itching so he doesn't keep scratching at it.

After spending the morning hanging out at the house, we ate an early lunch so we could get ready to go to the Oxford Community Pool with the Chagdes family and a few other families we knew from Oxford Bible Fellowship. This pool was not in Oxford when we lived here, but I had seen pictures of it online, and it looked like a lot of fun. The kids hadn't been to a swimming pool in awhile, so they were super excited about this. It was nice, warm, sunny day, and Owen was glad to be skipping his nap. They had this really awesome green slide that up to four people could go down, and the kids went down this slide over and over again together. They had a great time going down the slide with their friends!

This was definitely Owen's favorite area. He loved going down the slide with me, and we would just go over and over and over again. He was having such a blast, and I loved watching him have so much fun.

Our afternoon at the pool was so wonderful. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm. The kids had a blast going down the slides and going around and around the lazy river, which was definitely Aedan's favorite part. Samantha even made a couple new friends. We stayed there for over three hours, and almost until the pool closed for the evening. The kids had so much playing with Isaac and Anna, and new friends they met from our old church, OBF. It was such a great time, and again, it made my heart sad that we haven't been able to give them friends and community like this where we live. Oxford was the first place I really could have stayed living forever, so while I'm glad to be back visiting, part of me wished Ben's job at Miami would have been long-term so we could have stayed in the Midwest, where we were connected, and where we were so much closer to family.

All the kids were super tired that night from spending the day outside in the sun and water, so we showered everyone when we got to the house, got pajamas on, and then had pizza for dinner. We decided to let the three big kids share Isaac's room, moving Owen into the room we had been sleeping in, and we moved our air mattress down to the living room. We thought Isaac might like being back in his own bed, but it turned out to be too hard for him to sleep with different people in the room with him, so he ended up going back to sleep in his mom's and dad's room. Nevertheless, we finally got all the kids tucked into bed and settled down, and then the adults were able to talk. We had a great conversation about dealing with anxiety in ourselves and with our kids. I loved that we were able to all share so freely and honestly about our struggles in our past and with parenting. I seriously love the Chagdes family. I have always felt like Stephanie and I became fast friends and could be lifelong friends. We can relate to each other easily and it's just so easy to talk to her. I enjoyed staying at their house tremendously, and we are so grateful that they let the five of us invade their space for three nights. We will definitely have to make the trip to Oxford more often to see them when we are in the Midwest seeing family.

Monday morning they picked up donuts for breakfast, which the kids were excited about, and Ben and I got busy getting the van packed back up again while the kids had one last morning to play together. They played outside and with Legos, and no one was happy when it was time for us to leave. However, we were able to convince all the kids to sit on the couch together so we could take a picture. They are such cute, silly kids! The faces they make are hilarious!

We left mid-morning and arrived in Upland around lunchtime where we planned to spend the rest of the week. The kids were pretty tired, but Alaina was there to visit for the week too, so they jumped right into playing again. We were also reunited with Izzy, who was super excited to see everybody. We got all our laundry washed that day and just enjoyed our time hanging out.

Ben and I planned on getting away for our anniversary when this trip was originally scheduled for the middle to end of July. However, we planned on still getting away for a couple nights without kids. We felt like we needed a break after five months of quarantine and largely having no break from our kids. We love them and all, but breaks are definitely needed. Ben and I ate breakfast and made sure everyone was situated on Tuesday morning before we left to head down to Indianapolis. Here is Ema and Papa's description of their time with our kids while Ben and I had a getaway to Indianapolis:

"We were delighted to have all four of our grandchildren in our care during the two days that Ben and Jenny were gone. Alaina had decided to spend the week with us so she could have some time with her cousins. While they were here they spent quite a bit of the time outside. When they were outside, they would ride bikes, ride scooters, or just explore. They found a couple of toads when they explored and built a temporary home for them. When they left, one of the toads made it back to Pennsylvania."

"In the house the girls would often play with dolls and occasionally the boys would join with super heroes. Aedan and Samantha pull out the Lincoln Logs when they come. Aedan built a couple buildings with them and wanted the picture taken. The buildings can't be very big since this set of logs is about 40 years old and some of the pieces are missing or broken."

"It was in the middle of vegetable harvest when they were here so I had Aedan and Owen help get some sweet corn ready for dinner. They did a great job of husking corn."

"We had a pirate treasure hunt where all four participated to read clues to find the next clue and eventually dig up the buried treasure chest. There were around 10 clues going from one section of the yard to another. The three older children got into this very well and worked together to understand the clues. Owen, on the other hand, just decided to follow the crowd and enjoy the walk in the yard. The buried treasure was a box Bill had buried in the yard earlier in the day with some foreign coins in it. We also had small trinkets, that would appeal to each child, in the box."

"Samantha spent much time writing a play to surprise Ben and Jenny when they returned. She is an excellent and creative writer. Each cast member had a copy of the script with lines carefully written to tell the story. They had some costumes planned for the play but because of the fact that they needed to put the play on quickly, not all the costumes got worn. It was fun to see them act out the play and insert their own personalities into the acting."

And now I will describe my time away with Ben in Indianapolis. Indy wouldn't be our first choice of a place to go on an anniversary getaway, but when we have to drop our kids off with grandparents in Upland, we don't have too many choices to drive to from there. Anyways, we were glad to getaway. We were looking forward to eating good food where we didn't have to serve or help someone else eat, and we were looking forward to sleeping for as long as wanted. Those were really two of our main goals for our trip. (Can you tell we are feeling tired?)

On our way down to Indianapolis, we stopped at a Kohl's because we were in the market for a new vacuum and were able to get Kohl's cash and a coupon from Ben's mom to put towards the price. However, even though the store said they had them in stock, they did not, so that was frustrating. This is why we just do almost all of our shopping online, because going to stores isn't usually helpful at all. After that, we stopped at a healthy place for lunch where we could get smoothie bowls. I had been craving one for awhile, and we had plans to eat a big dinner that night, so we wanted to have a lighter lunch.

After eating lunch we finished our drive down to Indy, found our parking lot, and walked to our hotel to check in. We didn't really have anything much to do, which was perfectly okay, so we just hung out for awhile in our hotel room before getting ready to go out for dinner. I don't usually do too much to make myself look fancy or dressed-up, especially these days as a stay at home mom. But I did a little more that evening with my make-up and straightening my hair. I don't take very many pictures of myself, but I wanted to on that night before our date.

We decided to go to the Melting Pot for our anniversary dinner because we love having a relaxing fondue meal. It was a little different this time because normally we are seated in a more private booth area, but this time our seat was kind of in the middle of a busy walkway from the back to the front of the restaurant, so it wasn't quite as private. Nevertheless, we had a great time eating our cheese fondue, meat course, and chocolate fondue. We were able to just sit and talk with each other, reflect on the year that has gone by and the rest of the year to come. It was a wonderful night out with my best friend eating delicious food, celebrating our anniversary, and we left feeling absolutely stuffed.

Our plans for Wednesday were to sleep in as long as we wanted, and I think it was after 8:30 when I finally got up, and it felt wonderful. We got ourselves showered and dressed, and then went to a breakfast restaurant called Cafe Patachou where we were able to eat a nice, relaxing breakfast and coffee at their outside dining area. After breakfast we walked down by the canal because we planned to rent paddle boats to ride up and down the canal through downtown Indianapolis. It was something I always thought looked fun, and we were looking for something active to do outside, so this was the perfect thing. Here are some pictures of our time down at the canal and on the water.

I remembered to take some pictures of the two of us together! We were having a blast paddling and talking. We had a great time.

It was amazing to us how shut down Indianapolis was. Most indoor places were closed or any place that would have drawn larger crowds, leaving us with few options of things to do that we would normally do in a city. However, that really was okay with us because we weren't looking to do a lot, but mostly just to relax and spend time together. After our paddle boat right, we decided to walk around for a little while. We ended up going across the river next to the zoo and back, around the White River Gardens. It was a little humid and cloudy, but we didn't mind. We were happy to be spending time together and getting away from our normal lives of taking care of four kids.

After walking back to Monument Circle and getting some coffee at Starbucks, we decided to go back to our hotel for the afternoon, read, relax, and shower again before going out to dinner at Giordano's. Again, Indy was so dead that no one was really around. There was only one other family in the whole restaurant, so we felt like we were being pretty safe and careful.

It did feel strange being on our own sometimes and not having all of our typical responsibilities, but we felt like the time was going by so quickly and we weren't quite ready to get back to our normal every day life. On Thursday morning, we slept in very late again, got ready and checked out of our hotel room, got a simpler, faster breakfast, and then went to a local park where we could go on a hike. We had great weather again, and it was fun to explore a new area and walk as far into the woods as we wanted before we decided to turn around and find our way back.

After going on a hike, we started driving back to Upland, but first stopping for lunch at Chuy's. We were hitting up some of our favorite places to eat. Chuy's was one of the busiest places we were on our trip, and it made us a little uncomfortable, even though they were technically following COVID protocol. The food was good, but I think at that point we were just done eating at restaurants and wanted some real, home-cooked food.

We got back home late afternoon on Thursday, and the kids were excited to see us again. We got a good report from Ema and Papa, and they couldn't wait to put on their play that Samantha wrote called "Mixed-Up Beauty and the Beast." They had costumes put together and everything. Samantha wrote out a script for everyone, and she was so proud of what they put together. Here are some pictures and videos of their performance that afternoon.

I love Aedan's costume, and that Ema helped him print out a beast face for his mask, as well as giving him an old red t-shirt that they tore up to help him look even more his part.

These kids are so creative, and I love to see Samantha using her mind to write, produce, and practice something so detailed. This girl of ours is truly talented in this way, and has even talked about wanting to be an author some day. It's amazing what they can come up with to do when they have free time to be creative and aren't just glued to a screen. They can be so imaginative, and Ben and I loved watching their performance. Aedan is always a willing actor as well. He will do anything for Samantha. Owen was supposed to have a part as well, but he decided at the last minute that he didn't want to do it.

The rest of Thursday we enjoyed spending our last night in Upland, and spending good time with Ema, Papa, and Alaina. We had a great trip away from home, visiting friends and family, and I know that I for one was not ready for it to end. However, we had already been gone for two weeks, and it was time to get back home.

Friday morning was a sad day because we had to get our stuff packed up and head on our long drive back home. The kids are always sad to leave Upland, and the drive home isn't quite as exciting as the drive out. However, we were excited to get back and pick up our little peanut from Grace and hear how her time went taking care of her for us.

We got a package in the mail from Ben's college friend, Tim Lofton, and the kids were excited to open it when we got home that evening. He sent them a Star Wars Lego set to build together, and they were all pretty excited to open it up.

 

Saturday was basically a day of catch up around the house, putting away all of our stuff from our trip, doing laundry, mowing the lawn, and going grocery shopping for food. The kids enjoyed being back in their own beds and around their own toys.

That afternoon I put Owen down for his nap, and after a couple weeks or irregular naps and not sitting and rocking him until he fell asleep, I decided to try sitting with him on Saturday and hold him until he fell asleep. He was kind of resistant to it, after not doing this for so long, but to be honest, I basically wanted to have the experience of holding him while he fell asleep for at least one more time, in case it never happened again. It makes me sad to think of these "lasts" with Owen and never having this wonderful opportunity of cuddling with him and watching him sleep. Sometimes I wish he would stay little for just a little longer. He is looking like such a big boy lately. The pictures were too cute for me to pick just a few. I love this cuddly little boy of mine.

And here is our yummy dinner for that night, angel hair pasta with shrimp, steamed mixed veggies, and apples. Aedan and Samantha love to eat shrimp, so we are trying to have it every once in awhile for him to enjoy.

(Blog about August 9-15, 2020)