Road Trip: St Louis (Part 1)

The question of where to head in the summer is one that always trips me up.  There are so many places we could go.  There are places to revisit, new places to explore, family to see.  There are options of a “keep moving” kind of trek or a “settle in” kind of retreat.  There are trips where you fly to get somewhere fast, and trips that you load up and settle in for the long haul. 

We’ve done all of these before.  This year, we decided to make a big loop to explore states the girls had yet to see, visit family we hadn’t hung out with for awhile, and to experience new things.  We contacted the family we wanted to connect with and chose our dates to fit their schedule, found an Air BnB that had availability, and then even extended the trip by two days before it was all said and done!

Sunday, June 11 we left by 7:30am.  It was early, but not too early.  We all had time to grab some breakfast and pack up last minute things.  Pepper even got a short walk in that morning.  (My parents and niece, Lilli, worked at caring for Pepper and the house while we were gone.  It was helpful to have him in good hands!) And we were off!

      

We drove through some fog and some heavy rain, but the traffic was relatively light. 

    

We got into St. Louis around 4. 

We made plans to meet with Nick and Blair, friends from Westerville who are now living near St. Louis.  We met them and their kids (ages 11, 9, and 8 months) at Chipotle for supper.  It was good to reconnect with them and hear where they were at in life. Side note: Jeremy initiated this contact.  I told him that he is good at this – getting in touch with friends when he travels.  It was my one regret from our trip that we couldn’t stop to see all the people we knew along the way.  We were near more of my extended family in Enid, Oklahoma, my roommate from my first year out of college (Kendra and her family) in Oxford, Mississippi, and a college friend of Jeremy outside of Nashville, Tennessee.  Some of them were within 30 minutes of our route and others a couple hours.  But the truth is that the time spent with them adds another half to whole day to the trip.  So, maybe next time we will add new people oriented stops!

After the meal, we played a game of Incoherent in the hotel room before settling in for the night.

The next morning, we had made to order omelets along with some other tasty things. 

    

We enjoyed our breakfast so much that we almost missed our assigned documentary viewing at the Arch!  It was a scramble to get there, but we made it just in the nick of time! 

    

It was a great documentary that showed footage of the Arch being constructed.  The safety protocols for construction workers in the 1960s were pretty much nonexistent as far as we could tell.  Those guys pretty much walked around like they were securely fastened to something, all the while not strapped to anything – no safety rope.  Nothing.

From there we looked around the museum.

Finally, we got in line to take the tram to the top of the Arch.  Ellie had a lot of anxiety about this.  She knew it would be a small space.  She doesn’t love elevators in general, but we kept telling her that it wasn’t an elevator – it is a tram.  She bravely went along with it. 

    

I, on the other hand, completely flipped out as we sat in the tiny tram waiting for the door to close.  The pod is all white, has five seats, and is small. We sat there waiting for everyone to load, and I kept thinking, “If this door closes, and I can’t see out of here.  I will not make it the 4 minutes it takes to get to the top.”  So, I jumped out of there before the door closed. Jeremy and the girls (and the poor woman with us) all looked at me like I had lost my mind.  (And I kinda had!).  Ellie followed me out after a moment’s hesitation.  I hollered up to the tour guides, “When the doors close, is there a window?”  They assured me there was.  So, I climbed back on. 

 

And off we went.  The window provided a view of stairs, mechanical stuff, work areas.  It was perfect.  We unloaded at the top among a throng of school children waiting to go back down.  A little congested to say the least.  Madison didn’t enjoy the stairs that take you the final assent to the viewing area, but she made it. 

    

It was all worth it in the end.  The view that morning was spectacular.  You only get about 10 minutes up there, but that’s really all the time you need.  It was certainly hard to quit taking pictures! 

   

Looking west over the city

   

Looking east the over the Mississippi river

Looking straight down

We felt much more confident – seasoned pros! – going down. 

Before leaving, we took time to soak up the view outside as well (kinda missed it in our rush that morning!)

    

We were back at our hotel around 1pm, loaded our bags up, and took off for Kansas City.  We had a game to get to!

Poor Little Bug

Back in February, our church had a talent show.  A loose term for a chance for people to get up and do something.  I don’t know that I am loaded with talents, but they have had this the last few years, and I keep thinking I should participate.  Last year, we brainstormed some ideas as a family.  The girls did not forget about that conversation.  So, this year, we signed up as a family.  We performed a song I remember singing at Camp Mennoscah as a little girl in Kansas – Poor Little Bug on the Wall. 

The fun part of the song is you get to sing it differently each verse.  So, each of us took a verse.  I sang Opera style.  Ellie sang granny style.  Madison did cheerleader style. Jeremy did reluctant participant style. 

It was a lot of fun.  I think we even “won” 2nd place.  It was a memory I wanted to log on here.  I included the video for your entertainment!

Summer Begins!!

It is always nice to be done with school – even when you enjoy school.  There is something about a break, a shift in routine, a release of responsibility, a throwback to childhood.  The girls were able to start right away.  They had a camp out in the neighbor’s backyard on a beautiful night. 

We had Luke, Steph, and Lilli over that same night for a cook-out and time on the patio.  It was low-key and so relaxing to just sit and enjoy conversation and food. 

Jeremy took us on a surprise adventure on the first Sunday afternoon out of school.  We drove up to Medina to eat some shave ice at a little food truck, Hokuleia.  It was as close to Hawaiian shave ice as you are going to get in Ohio.  It was delicious and refreshing.  And while I wouldn’t drive there every weekend, it was worth the trek. 

   

The girls headed to volleyball camp for three days at the high school the first week out.  They enjoyed their time and always had something new they learned or something exciting to share. 

That same four-day week, I had four days of professional development to get my Orton-Gillingham training (a phonics program).  It was every day from 10-6:30pm with exactly 65 minutes of breaks during that time.  It was all virtual via Zoom platform – 1 instructor (Terrie Vincent, who was pretty good) and 43 participants from around the United States.  It was long, intense, and a lot.  And I wonder how much I will actually use it.  The follow-up class on morphology and vocabulary sounds a little more up my alley, but I wasn’t the one choosing my PD for the summer.  So, you do as you are told and make the best of it.  I learned how to pronounce all my letters as we worked through the kindergarten curriculum.  I learned how about some spelling rules and syllabication as we moved through the first, second, and third grade curriculum. 

While I was there and Jeremy worked from home, the girls held down the fort and had Grandma 4-H camp.  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, Grandma Yoh came and worked with Madison on her laundry project, and Grandma Ediger came wot work with Ellie on her Healthy Living project.  They got a lot done!  I was so happy with the way they worked hard with the grandmas. 

On top of that they were responsible for cooking dinner each night.  Ellie made chili meatloaf casserole on Tuesday.  Madison made Tex-Mex Corn Chowder on Wednesday. Thursday Madison made sesame noodles.  And Friday they worked together to make pizza, and we invited the grandparents as a thank you to eat with us.  I could not believe what they could do unsupervised – cooking, clean up, everything!  I am so proud of the way they just stepped up and had fun doing it! (The only meal I managed to take a picture of… but they were all delicious!)

My favorite thing in the past month has been our patio.  The weather (since Camp Wanake) has been surprisingly dry, which is not good for this long.  However, it has been comfortable  - warmer days, cool nights and mornings.  I love just sitting and relaxing out there.  We have eaten many suppers out there and then just stay and talk.  There aren’t obligations to run off to or things to do.  I feel like when I am out there time slows and life just eases.  I can just sit and relax in shade and breeze.  Bring on summer.

End of School Wrap Up

Here it is… all the last month of school stuff (or at least what I photographed and remember).

Madison participated in track this year.  She did high jump, 100 m hurdles, and tried the 400 m.  She enjoyed the season – the running was more fun than she imagined, hanging out with friends at practice and meets was fun, the season was short.  She learned what various events were and grew in confidence.  She cleared 4’6” on the first track meet (that was 3 bar raises), which I thought was pretty cool! 

                                           

She got over the hurdles without tripping over them, which I don’t think I can do.  She made it around the track in the 400m.  I think if she had time to work on the pacing for this one, she could have improved, but she only tried it once.  I have only videos.  Not even a picture of her in her track shirt.  Not sure where my brain was.  Here’s to track!

There are concerts at the end of the year.  We started with band concerts.  It was Ellie’s first band concert ever.  So, she was very excited and a little nervous.  They sounded like they had learned a lot. Madison’s group sounded a little more polished – and they should have!  Also, a nice concert.

    

Then, we had choir concerts.  These are always fun to hear what songs they have been working on.  Ellie’s group did a nice job singing.  In 7th grade, Mrs. Carr has them add some movement to at least one song.  So, they had a dance they did while they sang Footloose.  It was a lot of fun to watch.  Then, we stay for the 8th grade musical.  This year it was Newsies, Jr., and the kids did a fabulous job! 

    

We wrapped up the year with field trips and field days.  The 7th grade went to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  They have a well-run field trip program.  We ended there with some play time in the dome. 

The 5th graders go to the Akron Rubberducks baseball game.  Jeremy went along as a chaperone this year.   They had great weather and a lot of fun there too.

Both grades had fun field days and park days before the end of school.  I have zero last day of school pictures.  So, no comparison this year.  We will save that for the first day of next year compared to the first day of last year.  It will be fun.  And I won’t forget!

Camp Wanake

It was my first year going.  I thought it sounded like fun.  Then, I thought it sounded miserable.  Then, I realized it was following our Camp Friedenswald weekend, and I thought it would be torture. 

I met with Laura, the teacher I was replacing, a few days before we left for Friedenswald to learn about what she did.  She came prepared with a nice script/outline of what she said, did, and key points.  It was so well done, so well laid out, and so incredibly overwhelming to me.  She was born for this kind of thing – the STEAM teacher, the greenhouse runner, the science lady.  I knew nothing.  She was fully confident in me.  I wasn’t.  I had entertain SIXTH graders for 2 1-1/2 hour sessions.  Yeah.  It would have been a little intimidating for anyone.

Thankfully, I had some time on Thursday and Friday to get a little creative with what she gave me.  Write it out myself.  Make it my own.  I created a food chain relay game with pictures.  Found pictures of the plants we could identify and talk about and (here’s the key) eat! (guaranteed to keep the kids attention!) 

Thankfully, I have amazing coworkers (shout out to Kendra and Christi) who gave up some time to help me laminate and cut out all those materials! 

Thankfully, I have a family who was willing to traipse through Camp Wanake trails even after a big weekend 6 hours away from home. 

Monday morning, I headed out to camp with all my stuff in tow, unloaded it in my room, and headed to the barn to hear the welcome talk.

Then, it began.  For 3 sessions I trekked through steady rain and mud talking to the kids about trees and plants, vertebrates and invertebrates, and other random science wisdom.  They tasted any plant I gave them permission to, caught a variety of tiny insects, annelids, and amphibians, and splashed through puddles.  The first group hung up pipe cleaners in the trees for the other groups to try and find.  It should have been miserable.  But it wasn’t.  It was fun!  I was dry (thanks, Steph, for the rain pants!) and warm (thanks to my muck boots!).  It was an answer to my prayers and others who were praying, not just for me, but for the campers.  I did these sessions through Wednesday morning.

    

In the evening,  I hiked up a muddy, steep hill to get to an octagonal building protected from rain, but not the chill of the wind.  I had two sessions of group/cooperative games and activities. We did this bull ring and ball activity, played Have you ever… musical chairs, made bracelets (which were a big hit, especially with the boys!), and competed in some relays.  It worked out, and I tweaked this time as the week went on. 

    

On Wednesday afternoon, my job shifted and thankfully, so did the weather. 

Instead of hiking, I met the kids down by the pond. 

We talked about animals they may find around/in the pond, what they ate and how they interacted with each other. Then, I put them in teams, had them run to a central location to retrieve a picture of a pond organism, and then create a food chain.  And I bribed them with jolly ranchers :) 

The next hour of the session, I sent them out with nets and buckets to capture any creatures from the pond edges as they could.  It was really cool to see what they found.  I also had them share those out.  Before they left, they could use the microscopes to look at the water and plants up close (thanks, Jeremy, for that idea!).  They also worked in two groups to put together facts, pictures, and names of the plants we had talked about on our nature hike days prior.  They impressed themselves with what they remembered!  The cloud cover was nice.  The lack of rain was blessing.

The week ended.  I returned home. I slept in some to recover.  But overall, felt pretty good.  I even got to hang with my nephew, Landen, a bit… and some other fun kids from church!

Friedenswald Work Weekend

We went again this year, but this time Jeremy came, and the girls brought friends!  It is a haul to get to Camp Friedenswald – almost 5 hours when all said and done – and it is only for a short weekend.  It hardly feels worth it.  But it does feel like you have gotten away for a bit.  And the past two years, the weather hasn’t been bad – some rain, but not at the most important times. 

This year, we took Kya (Ellie’s friend) and Jaida (Madison’s friend) who happen to be sisters.  They were a lot of fun to have along.  We had a great van ride up, stopping once at Wal-mart to pick up a few snacks and once for dinner.

When we got there, we unloaded the van, and the girls took off exploring a bit before joining everyone at the campfire, and then retiring to giggle in the cabin for awhile.

The next day, we have a work day from about 9-3pm.  The work is always a bit different from year to year.  Last year, we scraped, cleaned and painted the drinking fountain well.  This year, the girls and I headed out to a newly acquired field to protect some saplings.  The camp had planted 9000 trees and were finding the deer liked to eat one kind in particular, so they were trying to protect them with a net tube.  Our job was to put these around as many little trees as we could.  It was a beautiful day to be out working.  Jeremy worked alongside others to weed and mulch the flower beds.  Then, moved to chopping wood.

    

After lunch, we got new jobs.  Madison and Jaida went off to work with some others on making picnic tables (and I have no pictures…).  I worked with Kya and Ellie on making snickerdoodles for the upcoming outdoor ed campers.  It was so much fun!  We doubled a batch that was already massive.  We added something like 18 eggs, 32 cups of flour, 24 cups of sugar.  Literally.  It was crazy.  We dug out the dry goods from rolling bins and measured them 8 cups at a time.  Then, we used the biggest mixer ever… and the amount of dough it mixed seemed to push its limits! 

         

Then, I scooped 1/4 cups out, which the girls rolled around in cinnamon sugar and placed on sheets for baking. 

The results not only looked perfect, they tasted like heaven! 

After that, the rain started and people took refuge inside playing carpet ball, ping-pong, chatting, etc.  My college roommate, Rachel, came up from Goshen to chat for a couple hours.  It was so good to see her again.  It is nice to have a friend that you can just pick up wherever you left off the last time. 

After supper, the skies cleared and we went for a tractor-trailer ride to learn about what they are doing at camp and see a few trails in the woods. 

A campfire later, my bed was calling. 

We left before the church service on Sunday.  It was my compromise with the girls.  I had been tapped to go to Camp Wanake in place of a teacher who had retired this year.  I was feeling more than a little overwhelmed by both the teaching I was going to have to do there and the fact I was going to be gone and camping in a cabin for another week.  So, I said I needed a little time to just be at home. 

We ended up going straight  to Camp Wanake on our way home, so I could walk the trail I was going to take the students on the next day.  I am so glad we did because I couldn't even find the trailhead when we got there that night!  Thankfully, the camp director was there and set us on the right path.  Then, we came home, unpacked, repacked (me), and collapsed in bed.

A Mish Mash

Yep, it has been an eternity since I blogged.  Somehow May slips by so quickly…. activities, wrapping up the school year, paperwork, nicer weather, etc.  My goal is to get these next 5 blogs typed up before we leave for an epic vacation.  Because, when we return, that will be another undertaking. 

A few fun things…

Face Masks with designs on them! I didn’t even know that was a thing.  It looks so interesting on their faces.  They love these little beauty moments, especially when they are both in the mood to do it together.

    

Mother’s Day came and went in May.  I often buy myself a dress for Easter and one for Mother’s Day.  I am not sure why I don’t for Christmas.  Maybe there is too much going on to go find a new outfit.  It’s fine.  Madison and Ellie helped me find my dresses this year.  Madison chose the floral print at Easter.  It was a dress that I really liked, but I don’t know that I would have even tried on without her encouragement.  Ellie chose this one for Mother’s Day.  I love the bold print!  It is a little more mesmerizing when I see it in a picture than I realized, but it was very flattering.