Railway Adventures

It all started when I saw the Amtrak advertisement about kids riding for $5 this summer in NC.  I debated the practicality of doing a trip, either for a day or couple days, to somewhere in the state, and then decided not to do it because the overall cost of a trip wasn't part of our budget this summer.  But then, Bug started whining about not wanting to go to the week of camp I was going to sign them up for, and they have been begging for a couple years to go back to the children's museum in Greensboro.  It didn't take long to convince Bean to skip out on camp this year in exchange for a train ride and trip to the museum.

 

And that is how we ended up in Kannapolis at the train station at 7 a.m. ednesday morning. I figured this week was the perfect time for something like this since it is our week of fun and irresponsibility, and Daddy-o is out of town for a couple days, so distractions to keep certain boys from realizing how much they miss him are always good. Waking up so early wasn't really good, but luckily the excitement of the train ride was enough to keep everyone happy.

 

Until they announced, exactly 2 min. after we'd checked in at the station, that the train was going to be 2 hours late. Nevermind that I'd signed up for the text alerts so I'd be notified of any delays in time to NOT wake up the kids hours before they normally wake up. Sigh. So, we found a McDonald's for some hash browns to go with the breakfast snacks I'd packed for the train, ran a couple errands, including some back to school shopping, and then headed back to the station, where we still had to wait for another hour because they kept delaying the arrival time. Apparently, our plane travel luck carries over to trains.

A little after 10:30, we were finally on our way.  By now, the kids were eating the lunch I'd packed.  I'd brought along a ton of food because I didn't know what the offerings on the train would be like, and the museum only has vending machines, but they were inhaling the food pretty fast.  Luckily, as I expected, once we got into the museum, they had no interest in stopping to eat.

 

Other highlights of the ride up there--walking between the cars while the train was going, opening the doors between the cars over and over, getting to check out the café car, and climbing back and forth between the different seats.  Way more fun than an airplane.  Luckily, the train wasn't too full, so I don't think they annoyed anyone too much.  The couple people near us could have moved if they really wanted to.

Now, I'll get to the museum part of the day in a minute, but just to finish off the train story, when it came to our return trip, I got smart and didn't wait for a text (although one did end up coming later), and checked for updates and found that our train was once again going to be late (originally by 1 hour which eventually turned into over 2).  So we headed to the library for a little while, tried to find some fast food in the business district that was still open at 6:30 a night (without much luck), and then sat in a park watching some sort of outdoor fitness class that probably had over 100 people dancing to Vanilla Ice. 

 

When we made it back to the train station, we discovered that we still had another hour to kill, and the snackbar was closed (seriously?!). We finished off the little bit of food I had left and then tried to find something to do, which led to Bug collecting a time table for every area in the country, as well as the books on Amtrak vacations and the entire 2014 Amtrak schedule. It actually made me smile because I remember being about his age and collecting the brochures for every Hilton hotel our lobby had while we were on a Disney vacation. (And when I told the kids that, they were both so sad that I'd gotten rid of those at some point, about 15 years later.)

 

14 hours into our day, with still 2.5 hours before they'd be in bed, they were getting kind of tired. And silly. When we were walking back to the station, I'd made the comment that if the train was delayed again, I was going to cry.  So when the guy behind the counter told me that it was in fact coming even later than I'd thought, Bean asked me, sounding almost hopeful, "Are you really going to cry?" I didn't, but everyone alternated between near tears and hysterical laughter for the next hour. Bug and Peanut kept fighting for my lap, and Peanut pushed Bug off, claiming, "No! Only one person at a time!" I was kind of wishing for no people on my lap by then.

 

8:50 p.m., boarding the train for home! And so excited to find out that the café car was still open! Bean told me it was probably the strangest dinner we'd ever had between the location and the food (she was eating frozen pizza and a Danish), until I reminded her of the time we'd been stranded overnight in Memphis because of delayed planes, and ended up eating microwave popcorn in our hotel room at 10 p.m. because there was no better food available. We are not strangers to the odd meals while traveling. 

 

But, we survived.  Peanut fell asleep, sitting upright on my lap, about 5 minutes before we pulled into the station.  All 3 kids were dozing on the way home, and went to bed within 5 minutes of me pulling into the garage. 

 

And the museum was so fun.  These kids LOVE this place. I think out of the few museums we've been to of this genre, this is the best one.  It's just the right size, has a lot of big vehicles to play in, and a great garden and outside space. Here's just some of the fun they had in their 5 hours of frantic play:

 

 

How to Celebrate 38

I've seen posts and mentions of The Birthday Project kicking around Pinterest for a couple years now. People have taken the challenge to do random acts of kindness, one for each year they've been alive, on their birthday. Some stretch it out for the birthday month (I think when you start getting up there, it gets a lot harder to fit them in to one day), but the general idea is to spend the day doing things for others.

Well, since my birthday was on a Saturday this year, which meant I had the whole day with 4 partners in crime who had no choice but to join me (no, really, they were all pretty supportive), I decided this was how I wanted to celebrate 38. Because, honestly, birthdays as an adult aren't always that big of a deal, and this felt like it would be a big deal.  And it really was awesome. Bug pointed out about 1/2 way through the list, "This feels like a really special day. Not really a birthday, but special." Well, bud, special was what I was going for this year.

I did cheat a little and started on Friday, just because we had a couple things going on that day that fit with the service acts that wouldn't have worked for Saturday. And not all of the acts were random. Some were very deliberate because I wanted to be sure to thank certain people. One idea I saw when researching what types of things I could do was to think about the people or areas of life that make you feel blessed and find a way to serve them. The funny thing is, when I first started making a list of random acts, I wasn't sure how easy it would be to come up with 38 ideas, but as I targeted more specific people, it got very easy, and there are a lot more people or groups I wish I'd had time to do something for.

Some of the things we did were quick, and truly random, like leaving pennies by a couple fountains in Uptown with a note saying, "Make a wish!" and scattering change around a playground for kids to find (and as we know from experience, this can truly make their day!) We handed out cold waters and balloons and picked up trash.

Others took a lot more time and planning. I wrote a couple thank you notes to neighbors who have done something special lately. We made cookies for the fire department and nurses at the Children's Hospital, who all had helped us that day Peanut had all his seizures. I made up some "blessing bags" with snacks and hygiene products and we handed them out to some homeless men in Uptown. Daddy-o and I gave blood (maybe the kids favorite stop since they got to pig out on the cookies at the end.) We stopped by the farmer's market to pick up a few canary melons, which have been some our favorite fruits this summer, and then delivered them to the ladies that I'm assigned to visit from church.

Nothing cost all that much--biggest expense was the tip we left at dinner (and I was so happy that we got an awesome waitress that truly deserved a big tip for making our first visit to the restaurant a great experience.) Others were free--picking up dog poop on my morning walk (not just from my dog) only took a couple extra minutes.  One of the most appreciative responses--the pool crowd when we handed out cold watermelon.  Seriously, I want to bring a watermelon to the pool every weekend because it was such a simple thing to do and everyone was so excited and grateful for a cold treat.

And after a full, busy day, I have to say it was one of my favorite birthdays ever. Exhausting, but really rewarding. I hesitated to even blog about this because I didn't want to sound like I was trying to get recognition for what were largely secret services. I opted to write about it here instead of posting on Facebook because I know I have a smaller readership here, but really, I wanted to record this for our family's memories.  And in case anyone out there has thought of doing something like this, to let you know it really is worth it.

 None of these acts are going to change someone's life (well, except possibly the recipients of our blood donations). Finding a quarter won't help a kid go to college, and coming across an inspiring quote probably won't give someone a whole new outlook on life, but for the acts that we got to see the reaction, they did make people smile. I'm okay with just knowing that through small actions, I can make someone's day a little better. It feels good to make people smile. And yesterday, I got to make a lot of people smile. (And then we finished off the day with candles on cheesecake, which made ME smile.)

On Being Responsible

This is our 7th week of our Summer Responsibility charts and I'd have to say that they have largely been a success.  We are far from perfect at getting everything done (especially me) and I've still done more nagging than I'd hoped (but once again, that's me--I have a hard time just letting go and having the consequences come), but our house has never stayed cleaner during the summer, and we've accomplished a lot of productive things, as well as made time for the fun rewards.  And even though I haven't managed to completely stop nagging, there has been a lot more personal initiative taken this summer.  A certain first born son, who I have always had to prod to get much done, has actually done his chores before I've asked many days this summer, usually before the other kids are even awake.

Part of the success is that it's been evolving as we go.  I started interviewing the kids each Sunday to discuss what they liked about the last week and what they didn't.  This is actually kind of a huge thing that I'm so excited about and plan to keep going with during the school year--a scheduled talk to evaluate how life is going with each of them turns out to be a good thing.  We talk about chores they'd rather not do, things they'd like to do, and fun stuff they hope we get around to this summer.  So far, we've traded out some chores, added a wildcard chore option, and added a "Happiness" category to the chart, while combining some of the educational ones into one.

Happiness has been my favorite.  I've been reading a couple books about happiness lately and got inspired.  We work on a different skill or habit each week that research shows will make us happier.  So far, the kids have practiced meditating (I think they love that they can mark a square off after lying on the ground for a couple minutes thinking about their breathing), written thankful lists, and done a daily act of service for someone else.  I'm not sure if it's really helping or not--kind of hard to tell with the amount of family togetherness we have during the summer, but overall, I think it's been a good experience and I figure good habits can't hurt.

And the rewards have made the summer for me.  We always do lots of fun stuff, like $1 movies, concerts in the park, and pool time, but the rewards have forced us to do a little more one-on-one fun.  Both kids have requested ice cream dates, which Daddy-o and I split so we could both enjoy an evening out that week.  We've gone to the used bookstore to pick out a new book and had lots of extra bedtime snuggles.  The snuggles especially have been so good for ME because I'm usually in such a hurry to get everyone to bed so I can finish up the evening chores and then have me time, that I tend to rush this.  It's been really nice to slow down and spend 15 minutes whispering and snuggling with one of my kids.

However, when Daddy-o and I were talking about how all my charts for the summer have been going, my first thought was how much work this has been.  It takes a lot of time to keep updating the charts, and to make sure I remind the kids how many hours they have left before bedtime to finish things up (they do NOT like being told that bedtime is in 30 minutes and realizing they still have 1/2 hour of reading as well as nighttime pick-up and piano practice to finish.)  I end up having a hard time getting to my weekly to-do lists and goals because I'm helping the kids with theirs during so much of our free time.  \

So while I'd say this is totally worth it, next week, we will be having what I've named The Week of Irresponsibility.  I won't give anything away yet, but I have to say I am REALLY looking forward to it. 

Adventures in Babysitting

 

One of the things the kids have been looking forward to all summer is babysitting for our friends' guinea pigs.  And the whole experience got even better when they found out that the two females were both pregnant.

 

The first litter (of 2) was born a week before they came to stay at our house, so we went over to meet the new babies.

I used to raise guinea pigs and have always loved how cute the babies are right from the start.  No blind, bald babies here--they look just like adults, only tiny.  Although, after birthing 3 kids of my own, I have to admit I was struck by the size compared to the mom--they actually aren't all that small!  It'd be like me giving birth to Peanut as he is right now.  Glad I got the 7-8 lb. version of my kids.

The second group was born a few days ago, so we have 7 guinea pig guests now for the next couple weeks.  The kids have already picked out names for the 4 babies and I hear a lot of secret whispers about proving how they can take care of them.  I know their hope is that at least one of the babies will be staying here.  I'm not sure we're ready for that.

 

Sweetest moment--hearing Bug trying to get one of the mamas out of her cage, "Come on.  You're safe.  I won't hurt you," in a soft, gentle voice that we never hear.

 

 

Most fun--setting up mazes for the guinea pigs to maneuver.

 

 

Biggest news so far--Peanut exclaimed in complete glee to Daddy-o as soon as he walked in the door, "They pooped!"

Music in the Park

They built a new park in Uptown this last year and they have a summer Party in the Park Series with music every Wednesday night.

This week turned out to be the perfect week to try it out.  The weather couldn't have been better and the big band music was fun.  We brought a picnic dinner and met up with Daddy-o when he got off work (which worked out nicely since his car has been in the shop most of the week and we've had to get him at the bus stop--might as well just come meet him in the city instead.) 

The kids had a lot of fun with the music, running around, and visiting with dogs.  Peanut would not leave this dog alone.  I don't think the dog really minded, but it did start getting really hyper with Peanut running back and forth from us to it, and eventually the woman moved on.  We'll pretend it's just because she was done sitting, and not anything to do with Peanut getting her dog all crazy.

We got to enjoy the sunset that night.  We don't get particularly good sunsets in Charlotte because there are so many trees that the horizon isn't visible from many spots.  Not like the view from my deck growing up that looked across the bay to San Francisco, making for a beautiful sunset backdrop every night.

And almost as pretty as the actual sky at sunset that night was the pink reflection on the buildings.  Love the Charlotte skyline.

 

What a fabulous way to spend a summer evening!  Even thought I probably try to cram in too many fun summer events each year, there are just so many fun things to do that, ironically, also help us to slow down for a little while and enjoy the season.  This was definitely one of those. We can't wait to go back.

 

Biker Kids

 Couple incidences of bike ramming, two bags of dog poop, one crazed kicking of a front tire, and one hydrophobic dog who fell into the lake while getting a drink.  Just a typical bike ride to the neighboring lake. 

 

See, they love each other (although notice how Bean isn't actually touching Bug.  Full contact would have initiated a brawl at this point.)

Family Fun Day

Saturday was an awesome day. Perfect balance of work and play, and family togetherness. We started the morning at a service project at Latta Plantation. We hiked, we picked up some trash, we worked with church friends. And then we had a picnic out by the lake.

Most people left at that point, but we decided to knock one of our summer bucket list items off--renting a couple canoes for an hour.  The already fantastic $5 price was made even better when the credit card machine was down so it was actually free.

We had a small glitch in the happy family moments when one sailor wasn't sure he liked the experience and complained as vocally as only our 7 year old can.  But by the end he was enjoying it and promises us that next time he won't whine.

This girl didn't want to get out.  She was already making plans to return again this next weekend.

 

Then, after a stop at home for everyone to shower and gather supplies for the rest of our outings, we headed to a 3rd birthday party for a little friend, and then a going away picnic for an old San Diego friend and his family who are off on an amazing adventure with the State Department in India.

 

A full day outside, from morning to night, with my favorite people.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

 

Time Flies

Another week of summer is has flown by, with lots of going-ons. 

 

The Fun: 

The annual swim team banquet and award ceremony.  These two kids were both working with the head coach, Brian, this year, and in spite of their fears going in (Brian has a VERY loud voice and most of the younger kids are a little scared of him, even though he is seriously the nicest guy), they both ended up really liking working with him.

 

And Bug followed in his sister's footsteps and got a special award that night for being the high point scorer for the 8 & under boys (Bean won last year for the girls).  We're so proud of him and all the hard work he put into the swimming this year that led to this. 

(With the other two coaches, Anna and Ashley)

We're also so proud of Bean for being so excited for him and celebrating with him, even though this year didn't go quite so well for her.  She's really learning how to be a good sister and friend.

This little guy got to splurge and has some cake.  I think he liked it.  He pretty much dove right in.

 

 

Corvian Park Day

One of the moms from school has organized a few park days for whoever is free and wants to come play.  We got to check out a new playground today and the kids had a blast, even if it was really humid.

Working on his climbing.  This kid isn't much of a climber, which is why we can keep him in his crib, but I'm glad that he wanted to work on the skill.

The favorite attraction--I think you're supposed to run on top of the black circle, which spins, but the kids just had fun pushing each other around and around, and we only had a couple bad falls, so not bad for what was probably 1 1/2 hours of fun.

Tuesday was $1 movie day.  We picked up a couple friends and tried to see the Lego movie, but didn't get there in time and it was sold out with probably 100 people left in line.  So we settled for Free Birds, only Peanut decided about 5 minutes in that it was too scary and I didn't want a repeat of last weeks nightmares after seeing Despicable Me, 2, so he and I left to go wander around the outdoor shopping area until the older kids were done.

Then, we had lunch and made a stop at Barnes and Noble.  I'll admit to being a little apprehensive about this part of our trip because these 4 kids are not known for the quiet voices or calm play.  They've been friends for almost 6 years now, and they can be kind of crazy together.  But I had nothing to fear.  It was bizarre to see them like this--and a little sad because it's just one more sign of how much they've grown up lately.

We went to the bookstore so the kids could redeem their summer reading lists.  This is one of 3 reading programs we're doing this summer, and I'm glad we can cross this one off.  8 books read for each of 3 kids.  Done.

Other noteworthy happenings:

Raptor Center program at the library.  This was so fun.  The trainer brought 4 birds and told the kids all about them and how the center works to rehabilitate injured birds and how they determine when they are ready to return to the wild, or if they'll be kept in captivity indefinitely.  The kids really enjoyed this.

Well checks for the 2 older kids.  Both are healthy and well, and really tall (Bean is 75%, Bug is 93%).  Their doctor was surprised when she looked over their charts and realized that we hadn't even made a phone call to her in the last year.  I couldn't remember any urgent care visits either, so it's been a good year for those two.  (The other 3 of us are a whole different story. . .)

Piano lessons--Bean and Bug both started piano on Monday.  I've got a friend who is willing to come to the house to teach them, so I'm really happy about that.  Bean's excited to finally get regular lessons since her other teacher (a.k.a. Mom) hasn't been remotely consistent.   Bug told me he'd rather take guitar.  But since our guitar is too big for him at this point, and I don't have anyone to come to the house and teach him that, we're going to do this for now.  It will be a good musical basis, whatever instrument he ends up liking.

Parent Dates--One of the options for the kids' rewards for a good week on the responsibility charts is a date with one of their parents.  Both kids picked going for ice cream this week, so Daddy-o and I each got to hang out one-on-one with one of the kids to have a little treat.  It's amazing how great just one hour alone can feel.  I know we need to do this more regularly, but it really is hard to schedule.  This week, it meant that tonight is our only free night where no one is going anywhere.

And then there were the trips to the vet, Costco, Aldi, and Trader Joes, and we've had a FULL week.  I keep thinking that maybe we're doing too much, but then, the one day we just stayed home all day this week, the kids were fighting and seemed extra needy, so for my sanity, we have to keep going.

Pool Party!

Time for the annual neighborhood pool party!  This is one of those events that we look forward to each summer.  In general, our pool isn't very well used and there are only a few families there at the most, but this is the time that we can come see most of our neighbors and it's really fun.  Waterslides, bounce house, hot dogs and chips, lots of friends.  

 

And since I have a hard time taking pictures when I take the three kids to the pool by myself, I decided to play with the camera today.  Recently, I've been trying to take more pictures with my real camera and not just my phone.  I used to really enjoy it, and then things got busy with a new baby and I haven't taken pictures as often as I once did.  Which might be better for the memory on our computer, but there have been events and friends that I've been sad I hadn't taken any photos of.  One of my summer goals has been to do more with the camera and the photos I take.  Here's yesterday's highlights: