Schooling as we go....

Well… it's been quite a while since I last posted here, and much has changed. 

While staying in Virginia, we started to do some serious soul-searching, and ultimately decided that it was time to head for home… for good this time.  There are a lot of reasons, and it was a bittersweet decision.  We were sad to end our time on the road, but happy to be returning home. 

We've been home for several weeks now, and are still settling in and unpacking.   I've gone back to work at the hospital that I worked at before we started traveling.  We also got our dog back from the friends we had given her to…  they had not bonded with her, and when they found out we were staying home, they asked us to take her back.  We even got our old phone number back!  (Unheard of, according to the guy at the phone company!)  Now we just have to sell the truck & trailer!!

So, now we begin a new season… with a teenager, and three more to follow! (EEK!)  It will be exciting to see God's plan for our family as it unfolds. 

We learned a lot while we were on the road, and now we get to see how well we can apply what we've learned.  I'll share more about those life-lessons in later days… 

Well… I got out of taking David to his first appointment with the dentist (Mike took him, then the dentist called me and talked to me about what he was going to need done!)  But, I was not going to get out of it so easily when he had to go back to have the tooth pulled. 

Friday morning, we headed in to see the dentist.  In the pre-op area, they gave David some medication, which he took like a trooper, and then we sat and watched.  The medication they gave him, is one I've seen used before, on my patients.  It's great, in that it makes the patient completely forget what happened to them.  Well, they gave it about 20 minutes to work, then took him back to take out the tooth.  He was getting a little unsteady, but still moving under his own power, at this point. 

We sat in the waiting room with our laptops, and worked on whatever projects we happened to be researching at the moment.  (For me, the current thing is beginning to map out Jr. High & High School for my oldest son, and my daughter, who though  2-1/2 years younger, is so competitive, she's right behind him in all of her schoolwork, so it's likely I was searching out information on homeschooling curriculum…. (a favorite pastime for most of us homeschooling moms!)  For Mike, the current passion is backpacking…. more on that later.) 

They had told us to expect it to take 4 hours, but they came to get us in about 45 minutes.  He had done great, and was in recovery.  The tooth came out without a problem, and we could come back and sit with him while he went through the recovery period.  The dentist's only concern, was that the antibiotic she had put him on, hadn't seemed to help much with the swelling, and they'd had to make an incision to drain the abscess (ick).  So, a change in the antibiotics, not a big deal.

We met up with David in recovery, and he was so funny.  He was still under the effects of the medication they had given him, and he was sitting on a sofa, or trying to.  He kept losing his balance and tipping over.  We waited in the recovery room with him for about another hour, as we waited for the medicine to start to wear off.  He had never before experienced the numbing of his lip and mouth that goes along with dental work, and didn't seem to like that very much.  He tried to show me that he was ready to go home, that he could walk.  He got up and was trying to walk around the recovery room, but he kept running into things, and walking sideways.  It was hysterical!  I laughed so hard.  He also kept asking me if there were two children in the other chair.  There was one woman, and the woman who had come to give her a ride home, but he was determined that he saw two children.  I was concerned that he might be hallucinating from the medication, but after the woman was escorted out to her car, he dropped it, so he must have thought that she was a child.  

As the medicine began to wear off, he started to cry.  This child is one tough little boy, and unless he's overtired, it takes a LOT to make him cry.  He cried, and cried.  I carried him out to the van, and he cried.  I sat with him in the backseat, and he cried, and I cried.  He cried all the way back to my parent's home (about a 30 minute drive). 

We got him settled on the sofa, and gave him his Tylenol with Codeine, and still he cried.  He would only stop crying if I was sitting with him.  So I sat on the couch with him, so he'd stop crying.  At one point he looked at me and asked “why am I seeing two of everything?”  I could only assume that all the tears and the double vision were from the medication he had been given to prevent him from remembering the procedure.  He finally fell asleep, and slept for nearly 6 hours.

When he woke up, he was a little sore, but not at all weepy, and had no memory of any of the day's events!  I was VERY impressed with that!  I was pretty agressive with the pain medicine for the first 24 hours or so, then at that point he said it didn't hurt anymore, so now he's just on the remainder of the course of antibiotics. 

Of course, the tooth they removed wasn't supposed to come out for another 5 years, so when we get settled in the next place, we'll have to find a dentist who will make a spacer for him to wear to maintain the gap, so his 12-year molar will have a place to come in!  At this point, I'm just thankful that we had a tax return that was big enough to cover all these unexpected expenses!  I just have to keep reminding myself that God wasn't surprised by this, and probably timed our tax return so that we'd have it to cover this! 

We've decided that we are going to go home to Michigan for a while.  We haven't been in over a year and a half, and we can wait for the next job there, as easily as we can here.  It's been nice to visit with my parents, but it's time for us to move on.  We'll be leaving here at the end of the week, so I'll update again, when I can, but it probably won't be until we are back home.

Ahhh…  We're back now from our camping trip.  It was a bit more eventful than we'd planned, but still a pleasant trip, nonetheless. 

We drove up to Big Meadows Campground on Skyline Drive on Monday.  Spent the afternoon setting up camp and getting settled.  Our campsite was literally a few feet from the Appalachian Trail.  At 2160 miles, it is the longest foot path in the US.  It starts in Georgia and following the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains, continues all the way to Maine!  We met several “through-hikers” who were making the trek.  They had left Georgia with their backpacks in February, and were hoping to arrive in Maine sometime in July!

As we were setting up our camp, we were amazed to watch the deer walk through the campground, not at all afraid.  The kids watched them for about 10 minutes before they wandered off.  We built a nice little campfire.  Hot Dogs & Hot Cocoa for dinner, then clean up (in the dark… we really need to learn to do dinner earlier when we are camping!) 

We've made a few wardrobe and sleeping adjustments (ie hooded sweatshirts, hats and extra blankets) from our previous tenting adventure{!} and we were all quite comfortable, in spite of the chilly temperatures.  We woke Tuesday morning to the sounds of the birds, and a gorgeous sunrise over the mountains.  At this point, we're thinking, weather permitting, we'll hang out for a week or so.  However, there have been thundershowers in the forecast, but they seem to come and go…   It's okay to tent camp in the rain, but thunder and lightning mean it's time for this mom to head home!

A leisurely breakfast, and cleaning up the dishes, straightening up the tent, then we were ready for our adventures for the day.  Our plans included a visit to the visitors center, in time to attend an educational program led by one of the park rangers.  He led us into the meadow, and was showing us the different plants that grew there, and how they used prescribed burns to burn off the dead underbrush in 1/3 of the meadow early each spring, in order to help prevent wildfires.  It was fascinating, listening to him talk about the whole process.  Ever prepared, my kids had their water bottles and snacks.  David was munching on trail mix, and said “oh, my tooth hurts.”  Sometimes you bite down on something like a raisin, that has a high concentration of sweetness, and it does give you a momentary toothache, so I really didn't think much of it at the moment. 

We stopped at the lodge, and checked messages on the cell-phone, since the ranger told us it was the only place in the park our cell phones would work well.  The kids enjoyed the playground at the lodge, and we got some great pictures.  Off in the distance, we could see fires burning on a distant mountain.  (Different mountains from where we were camped.  We were never in any danger from those fires!) 

Off and on throughout the evening, David continued to complain of his tooth hurting, so we gave him some pain medicine, which seemed to help.  I figured we'd have to find a dentist, when we were finished with our camping trip, and get him checked out.  The last time he was at the dentist, they told us he had a small cavity, but it was too small to fill, and nothing to do, just keep an eye on it. 

So, another campfire, a yummy dinner of Taco Soup (one of our family favorites, and it's as easy to make in a Dutch Oven as it is in the crockpot at home!), and we're off to bed for the second night.  Only, this night isn't as comfy and cozy.  David begins moaning and crying, and proceeded to moan and cry all night.  It rapidly became apparent that there wasn't going to be any putting off the trip to the dentist until we were done with our camping trip. 

We were up with the sun on Wednesday morning, David's cheek is swollen up like a little chimpmunk.  So, we headed back for my parent's.  Thankfully, they live right in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, so we were less than an hour away.  The plan for the day was to find a dentist who would see him on an emergent basis, fill the cavity, so we could head back up to our campsite.  We were back to my parent's and on the phone by 10 am.  Thankfully, there was a pediatric dentist, who agreed to squeeze him into the schedule at 2:30 in the afternoon.  The dentist saw him, and said “Oh no, he doesn't just have a cavity, he has a HUGE abscess, and his cheek is so swollen that we can't take the tooth out today.  He'll have to be on antibiotics, for a couple of days, then come back in on Friday, and we'll sedate him and take the tooth out.” 

Now, I have this totally irrational fear of dentists, and practically have anxiety attacks, when I have to take my kids in, even just for check ups.  Forget what I'm like when I have to go to the dentist…  So, now my 8 year old has to have this MAJOR dental thing.  What kind of a mother am I?  How could I let it get this bad??  The dentist was very reassuring, that as crowded as his teeth are in his little mouth, there was really no way to prevent what had happened, and no way for us to know it would happen when it did.  That made me feel only slightly less terrible a mom. 

We headed BACK up to our campsite, at about 6:00 that night.  We threw together a quick dinner of Chicken Quesadillas, and were they yummy!  By the time we cleaned up, we just wanted to go to bed, so no campfire that night.  David now has Tylenol with Codeine, so he's a happy camper.  AND he slept!  Between the medicine, and not sleeping the night before, he slept soundly, so we all slept better that night. 

Since he had to arrive for his dental appointment early Friday morning, we decided we'd do better to cut our camping trip short, and break camp on Thursday.  We were very disappointed.  Camping is a lot of fun, but it's also quite a bit of work to set up camp.  I love it when we can go for a week or more, but all that work of packing and setting up, when we can only stay for a few days, hardly seems worth it.  The other kids, though disappointed, were good sports about the whole thing, and helped us to break camp on Thursday morning, after breakfast.  We did promise ourselves that we would take the kids camping again at the very next possible chance.  We really enjoy it, and were disappointed to have our trip end so abruptly. 

I'll come back and add pictures when I can download them from the camera, so check back!

Okay, I'm all caught up now, and this is my first “real-time” entry:

We have our tents set up in my parent's yard, trying to get our camping gear all together, in preparation for a camping trip. The kids begged for us to sleep in the tents last night, so we agreed. After reading 8 chapters of The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, and a cup of hot cocoa, we all settled into our sleeping bags.

Pretty soon, Daniel has to go potty. Katie was going to take him into the trailer, but he stood in the door of the tent and “watered the grass” (boys ) So, everybody settles back down, and goes to sleep. Then I wake up to Daniel and Katie, again, up to the bathroom. (Too much hot cocoa before bed!) I also notice that it's awfully chilly.

Pretty soon, Katie has to go to the bathroom. I told her to check the clock while she's in the trailer, so I have some idea how much longer this night is going to last… 2 am… sigh. At this point, Daniel has said “IT'S COLD, I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP OUT HERE ANYMORE!” So, Katie is zipping her sleeping bag together with Daniel's, and she snuggles him in, with her, which will help them keep warm. So, I'm WIDE AWAKE… I came in the house to find hats. Unfortunately, they are all packed away. So, in a moment of desperation, I grabbed four pair of David & Daniel's pajama pants, tied the legs together in a knot, and went out and stuck them on the kids heads, telling them “a hat will help keep you warm.” David figures out pretty quick what I've done, and tosses his “hat” but the others are all asleep. They'll hate me in the morning.

I lay there freezing for another hour or so (realize that I'm sleeping layered in silky long johns & sweats, tucked inside a sleeping bag that is rated for 40 degrees) Oh, and the one thing I've failed to mention, is that living in the mountains in Virginia, there is no such thing as a flat spot, so my parent's yard is very sloped, and our tent is set up on a hill. Mike figured it would be okay, since our heads were higher than our feet. NOT! My back and neck are aching from the constant battle to keep from sliding down the hill. I've finally decided that I have a nice warm trailer 30 feet away. So, now I'm inside, wrapped in my comforter, sipping a cup of tea, with the heat on, while my family is sleeping out in the cold. (Oh, by they way, the official weather channel temperature for our location is 42 degrees right now.) Of course,our bed is buried with all the junk that was in the closet in front of the camping gear, so I can't sleep on the bed, so I'll “rough it” on the sofa the rest of the night!

When the contract in Texas was up in February, Mike & I were headed for a week-long conference in West Virginia.  While we were there, my mom was going to keep the kids.  Because of our traveling, my parent's hadn't seen the kids in nearly 18 months, and weren't  very happy about that situation!  So, when we finished up in Texas, it was time to pack up the trailer again, and head east. 

My parent's moved to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia last fall.  So, they were in a new home, and a new neighborhood.  They invited us to park in their driveway, while Mike & I went to the conference in West Virginia, and to stay and visit a couple of weeks after…  

When we arrived, I pulled into the driveway in the van, looked at the driveway and the yard and said “There is NO WAY we are going to be able to get the RV in here!”  But, between Mike, my dad and my brother-in-law (and maybe some bacon grease and a shoe horn) they actually did manage to get us parked in my parent's driveway.  We take up the ENTIRE driveway, but there's lots of street parking available.  Good thing.

Mike & I went to our conference in West Virginia, while the kids stayed here with Grandma & Grandpa.  We ALL had a wonderful time.  Mike & I learned a lot, and the kids enjoyed spending time with their grandparents.  I left schoolwork for them to do, but came home to find that, although my mom had them DO their schoolwork, she hadn't bothered to look it over, or correct it.  Oh well! 

We find ourselves in another of those lulls in my specialty, and our couple of weeks has stretched into a couple of months.  I've been able to help my mom, by helping take care of my grandmother, who is now living with my parents.  Mike has been helping with a list of projects that needed to be done in the “new” house.  (Okay, new to them, it's an old farmhouse, which has LOTS of work, so we've been helping rip out carpet, clean up the yard, etc.  We know there will be another job, but the waiting gets to us after awhile.  Thank goodness we got our tax return back! 

One thing that has been fun, was we are close enough to visit some friend in North Carolina.  We drove down and spent a long weekend with them.  While we were there, we attended a Revolutionary War Reenactment, the Battle at Guilford Courthouse. 

Now, the guys in red are NOT British soldiers.  Apparently the musicians wore the opposite colors of the soldiers, so they could be found easily in the camp by the commanders, since they were the primary means of communication with the troops.

It was great fun, and the kids enjoyed walking through the camps after the battle was over, and visiting with the reenactors. 

Our friends have kids the same ages as each of ours, and the kids had a ball.  Hopefully we'll get to make another trip down to see them before we leave the area.  Right now, we are thinking about taking a “vacation” and going camping with the kids for a few days, maybe we'll be able to go camping near our friends, and get to visit with them again!.