Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Spring Break 2012

It's been a while since I've been able to write anything. Baby goats, fencing, bottle feeding, toddlers, flu, RSV, the list goes on for why I haven't blogged or written anything down. But, I wanted to share that we got to go back to my childhood home town for Spring Break.
My parents have settled back there after 15 years on the Mission Field and are back in the same house where I grew up. It was a serious time warp being back again.
The kids spent a lot of time playing LEGOS, coloring, making up stories and plays with their cousins, and playing outside in the wet Springy weather.
Luke had to stay home due to work and once again, I am so thankful for a husband who is willing to send off his wife and kids for a week without him in order to connect with "the other side of the family."
For part-time work, my dad has been hauling grain to a hog lot. These are people I grew up with and it was surreal bouncing down the dirt road in the cab of the huge truck with my dad and another generation of children with faces plastered to the window--wide-eyed and delighted at the country-side passing them by.
I had these memories of being a kid sitting on the floor by my dad while he drove the big school bus to another choir or sports event or two week mission trip down south of the Border.
My boys were fascinated at the long arm that poured the grain from the truck to the silo and shot out a bazillion question of their own. We got to peek into some of the hog buildings and glimpse the HUGE sows that live their whole lives in one building. (It also made me not want to eat any more bacon).

That afternoon, mom and dad's "new neighbor, (she may have lived there several years now, but mom and dad have been gone 15 years) came over and gave us a lesson in how to cut apart seed potatoes and get them ready for growing your own. She is a Master Gardner and has written a book on Organic Gardening and ran her own CSA farm up North before buying the ramshackle little house across the street from my old house. Now she teaches gardening classes at the local library and shared her wealth of knowledge with my eager mother and sister-in-law. (I'm a bit jealous and I am frequently asking questions of my mother on gardening).

Mr. Smiles and his little cousin were practicing their Chinese Chef skills learned from Kung Fu Panda 2.

Meal Times with the cousins = a little bit of crazy and a whole lot of fun.

Poor Uncle Matthew tolerated the torment of younger nephews who hang on his every move and word and worship the ground he walks upon.

We girls also had a tea party of which I will post later because I'm the mom and a girl and I can devote a whole post to a tea party if I want.

It didn't seem to matter that it was wet and we had come from 80+ degree temps to 50 degree temps and I had not brought adequate clothing. They were happy outside on the collection of trikes and bikes my parents have collected for when the grand kids visit.

The empty lot past the neighbors house that was an empty lot when I was a child and I have no idea why no house has ever been built there but am secretly glad one never has, is a stage for young Directors and Actors who have stories to tell. Someone has rigged a rope swing and the children spent hours running around the lot and swinging in the tree.

Next to the lot is an empty house for sale with a little barn, 2 acres of pasture and a lone Shetland pony whom the kids named Star and spent more countless hours feeding it carrots and hay and brushing it with an old hairbrush.
Precious Jewel cried as much about leaving that sweet little pony as she did leaving her cousins and begged us to put it in the trunk of our van and bring it home. When I informed her that I could not take off with some one's pony and it could not ride in the trunk of our van, but we could take home a picture of it and ask her cousin to check in on it every so often, she consented to instead have her picture taken beside it.
Mr. Smiles decided he had to have a picture as well.
They are still working on Luke and I to buy the pony and haul the little thing back to our fair corner of the world and I'm a bit afraid of what we will do if we ever found out the owner would sell it!
The last teary goodbye was to the snake found in the front yard the morning of our departure.
You see, where we live, the kids have it drilled into them not to EVER EVER touch a snake unless it's brought to class by a teacher or declared safe by a parent. We live in the land of cotton mouths and water moccasins and I know there are garden and King snakes in our woods but I've seen as many of the poison kind as any of the "safe" ones. So when the boys discovered that I had grown up in a land where ALL the snakes were safe (unless you were chased by boys with snakes that had been unfortunate enough to get caught in the lawn mower) and you could pick them up, they were delighted!
Good Lookin' insisted on bringing home in a jar the dead snake he'd found and more than a few tears were shed again when I told him that under no circumstances was he bringing with him on a 9 hour car ride a dead snake in a jar. No matter of pleading and pouting and tears could move me on this one either. I know my son too well and his fascination with all living things. That thing would not stay in the jar and was surely beginning to stink anyway. My dad was no help and encouraged the poor kid. : S Goof!
After I loaded up the group of teary kids who didn't want to leave their grandparents, cousins, aunt and uncle and new live and dead pets, we began the 9 hour road trip home.
We got to drive through the little town where Luke and I lived our first year of marriage when we worked at the Children's Home. I pointed out to Precious Jewel the little house that we lived in and the first place she called home.

We made good time for the first 3 hours and then the bladder issues began. I swear this trip to the record for the most pee stops EVER!!! Even when i made the children who protested that they didn't have to go still get out and use the bathroom when the child who was causing the next stop to stop, we still stopped a whopping total of 14 times in 9 hours!! Can I just say RIDICULOUS!!!
On one of our pee breaks (where we had just passed a Rest Stop and no one had said "yes" when I asked them if they had to go) we pulled off onto a dirt road and in the yard of an old abandoned farm house to use the bathroom and I also decided this was as good as any place to eat lunch.

So, the boys sat on the top of the van and Precious Jewel inside and we imagined aloud what the family must of been like who lived in the old abandoned farm house. They came up with everything from smugglers and burglars to scenarios harking from Charlotte's Wed.
I have to say that I was so very glad to see the lights of our home and the faces of our over-sized puppies when I drove into the yard that night.
And we were all bouncing around a happy daddy after a week of being apart. Home is a happy place to be.

1 comment:

Wendy Thibault Kane said...

*sniff* How sweet! What wonderful memories your kids made. My mom still lives in the same house I grew up in. So I know the feeling when you see your kids doing the same things you used to do down there. :)