Trip Update

I haven’t posted because we left last Friday to go to Ohio to visit my family. Thankfully the drive was pretty uneventful, although I did see 5 deer in the woods. My mind works in strange ways, and after spotting the 2nd deer, I began to wonder why God allowed me to see the deer and not anyone else in the car (the kids were too enthralled with a DVD and TJ was driving). That thought lead to this next thought: how many other “things” (events, circumstances, people, animals, etc.) has the Lord allowed me to see that perhaps others did not? I know, pretty deep thinking for no apparent reason. But, it made me appreciate seeing the deer as more than just a simple glance out the window, especially since some of them were pretty deep in the woods and not near the highway.

The trip has been nice, although we are all running short on sleep. My kids do not sleep well when not in their beds, and this results in TJ and me missing out on sleep. Ta has a tendency to wake up at night and throw a tantrum whenever we are away from home. I don’t know why, but it happens every time we are away. Thankfully it happened at my mom’s house and not in a hotel, as my family is more forgiving than strangers in a hotel for being woken up in the middle of the night by a screaming child. The bad side to the situation, though, is that we are all in the same room, so when one child wakes, they all do. It makes for a stressful time period but TJ and I get through it with lots of prayers and even more patience.

We left my mom’s this morning and headed to my dad’s. They live about 2 hours apart, so we arrived here in the early afternoon. Ta took a nap while TJ did some schoolwork and T.G. played. I took my dad and Th to the grocery store to pick up a few things. We had a snack when we got back and then headed to the pool. It was cold! The temp is cooler here than in SC so the kids only swam for about an hour. We are headed over to my cousin’s house in the morning and will spend the day there. The boys are ecstatic, Th especially. He has been waiting for such a long time to go visit his favorite cousin, Austin. Austin is almost 14 and Th just adores him. Th and Austin have exchanged letters over the past year since we visited them last. Austin is really into Lego’s, and builds robots out of them. He and Th work on them together, and then they test them out for us grownups. Austin also plays the guitar, so Th thinks that is really neat, too. The ironic thing is, Austin’s dad was my favorite cousin growing up. I loved spending time at my aunt’s house because Darrin was there. He is quite a bit older than me but he always took time out of his day to be with me. They lived on a farm when I was younger, so I loved to go see the animals in the barn and help him do his chores. I think Austin inherited Darrin’s patience gene, and it makes me happy that Th and Austin have the same relationship that I had with Darrin.

Wednesday afternoon we are headed to my other aunt’s house to visit. My grandma, who will be 94 in a couple of weeks, lives in a nursing home near my aunt’s. My aunt has a pool, and she lives on a small farm, as well. I haven’t been to my aunt’s house in many, many years (at least 15) so I am interested to see how it’s changed and to watch the kids’ reaction to everything. We’ll spend some time with other cousins and their kids, so it will be fun for my kids.

If I don’t post in a few days, it’s because I have limited access to a computer and a lack of time. Until next time. . .