Strike!

Strike!

We are still trav­el­ing, but I wanted to share a quick video of Faith bowl­ing. This is how she bowls every. sin­gle. frame. She is just a happy lit­tle girl.

Wouldn’t you love to approach life with such joy­ful aban­don? She inspires me to bub­ble over with thank­ful­ness and joy. Which reminds me: through­out our trip I believe she has uttered the words, “Thank you, Mommy” no less than 10 times a day, every­day. Where does she get it from? I fear that I am not thank­ful nearly enough in my life.

Thank You, Lord, for the gift of this silly, won­der­ful, thought­ful girl!

Ain’t It Grand?

Ain’t It Grand?

On the sec­ond day of our annual field trip, we ven­tured to the Grand Canyon. Admit­tedly, I was a lit­tle ner­vous. Last time I was at the Grand Canyon, I had three lit­tle boys, aged 4, 6, and 8. Plus a sweet lit­tle six month old daugh­ter who was strapped to my body. Boys and canyons that are opened wide for falling just aren’t a great mix.

I was pleased to see that some mother was able to influ­ence the pow­ers that be in the deci­sion mak­ing and money spend­ing realm of the National Park Ser­vice because this time, they had rail­ings and fenc­ing every­where I looked. A boy would have to work hard to hurl him­self down that canyon to cer­tain death.

And I know it was a mother because a father doesn’t tend to notice such things. In my experience.

Have I ever men­tioned my insane fear of heights?

Seri­ously. I have often con­tem­plated just dri­ving off of a high bridge that I am dri­ving over, just to get it over with. I KNOW I am going to end up falling off any­way. So far, I’ve made it across all bridges unscathed.

Mike rec­om­mends just stay­ing put when I have the option. We were vis­it­ing in San Diego once. He had meet­ings. I had the day to explore with the kids. Huge bridge to get to the beach. Me freak­ing out as we drove over. It was a wild ride. He sug­gested an alter­na­tive plan for the next day…

Any­way. Back to the Grand Canyon.

grand-canyon

It was spec­tac­u­lar. The rail­ings were helpful.

But I think that going with lit­tle girls and an older son made it much more peace­ful for me.

image

 

We made it safely out of the park. Not even a close call this time. We con­tin­ued our drive to King­man.
And we even got a sur­prise for din­ner:
image

I feel like a hero.
It’s been a good day.

Old Route 66 and Drive Up Motels

Old Route 66 and Drive Up Motels

We left Col­orado in the early hours of the morn­ing on Mon­day, dri­ving through New Mex­ico and on to Ari­zona. My hus­band had pre-planned our trip and made hotel reser­va­tions for me. He takes such good care of me that way.

I remem­ber him men­tion­ing that in Hol­brook the pickin’s were slim, but that the hotel he chose was rated the best in town, and it had great reviews. He said some­thing about me not freak­ing out when I got there. I was only sort of pay­ing atten­tion. I guess I thought he meant some­thing along the lines that it was prob­a­bly more of a Hol­i­day Inn rather than a Mar­riott or something.

Um. Not quite.

We glee­fully made our exit off of I-40, arriv­ing into Hol­brook, AZ, after a long day of dri­ving. As we drove the 1/2 mile into town, real­iza­tion set in. Um…

Wait? What? The reser­va­tions say Glo­be­trot­ter Inn. Does that sign say… Oh. Wow. Well…

We ten­ta­tively entered the park­ing lot. I snapped this picture:

image

I fran­ti­cally called Mike.

No answer.

Google… I looked at the reviews. All four and five stars. 186 of them. One 3 star rat­ing. Noth­ing below that. Gulp.

I grabbed my strap­ping son to go into the lobby with me. Jes­sica, the adult daugh­ter of my dear friend who hap­pens to be my trav­el­ing part­ner, waited in the car with the girls.

I braced myself, put on a brave face, and told the kids that we were going to be adven­tur­ous. It was all a farce. I was shak­ing in my boots.

Oh! The lobby was adorable. And clean. I think we can do this.

We were greeted with smiles and sweet hos­pi­tal­ity. We were shown our room, which actu­ally had two rooms in it. Per­fectly clean and retro. Adorable.

We moved in for the night. Jes­sica went out­side to call her mom. She ven­tured to the pool area, which I had told the kids was not on the agenda for the night. I could only imag­ine what that was like. Old, dated motel with one of those old pools. If you lived in the 70s, you know what I’m talk­ing about. Right?

Well, Jes­sica came run­ning in excit­edly. “You’ve got to come see this pool!” Really?

I’m a bit slow on the uptake. It was adorable like the rest of the place. We all moved out­side to pool­side. We lounged on chaise lounges: beau­ti­ful, wood chaises. We dipped our feet in the pool. We swung on the swing. We chilled. It was glo­ri­ous.
image

Even­tu­ally, we had to tuck the girls into bed and turn in ourselves.

Morn­ing greeted us with a lit­tle con­ti­nen­tal break­fast. The fam­ily who owns the motel is from Aus­tria, it turns out. Break­fast was delightful.

Thus ended our stay in a motel I would have never slowed down for had I made the call for the night. I have to admit, it gave me the courage to even con­sider the other option we could have had, just across the street:

image

Ok, who am I fool­ing? I could never stay there…

By the way, those old cars in the first photo…they are just for show. They are there to give the feel of vis­it­ing the old Route 66 motel. Clever. Even if it did make me ner­vous when we arrived!

Field trips

Field trips

We are a home­school­ing fam­ily. I have six chil­dren. Two have grad­u­ated. Those keep­ing up will know that I still have four that I’m teach­ing. A cou­ple of years ago I came up with a bril­liant plan. His­tor­i­cal field trips.

We have done a Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War field trip, trav­el­ing clock­wise from Col­orado, tak­ing us to Philadel­phia, Wash­ing­ton, DC, and Charleston, SC. We lis­tened to some Faith and Free­dom Tour CDs  from Vision Forum on the way across the coun­try to pre­pare us for what we would see. Occa­sion­ally, we would make an unplanned stop to see some­thing spec­tac­u­lar, like the home where Stonewall Jack­son died. It was a high­light of our trip. The actual bed he lan­guished in is still in that tiny white house. With tears in my eyes, I relayed to my chil­dren the story of his death, his faith, and his Hope. And they were there.

Stonewall Jackson home

Stonewall Jack­son Home

 

Then last year, we made a sim­i­lar trip, this time counter-clockwise from Col­orado to Florida, and up to Boston. On the way up to Boston, we planned to drive by to see the Statue of Lib­erty from across the har­bor. How­ever, when we got there we couldn’t resist the urge to go on the ferry to see it up close. We vis­ited Ellis Island while we were there. Faith decided that she would like to go back to NY for her birth­day. She waf­fles between NY and Paris. And throws in Pom­peii on occa­sion to keep us on our toes. We ended up in the Bronx dur­ing Rush Hour…in my 15 pas­sen­ger van. I called my hus­band and asked him to guess where we were. I was a tad bit overwhelmed.

So, we make great mem­o­ries, learn a ton of his­tory that sticks, and the chil­dren don’t even seem to real­ize that they are learn­ing. It’s just part of the big field trip.

This year, we are head­ing to the West Coast. I want to drive the kids to Cal­i­for­nia, by way of the Grand Canyon. Then we will head up the Pacific Hwy. I need some his­tory ideas! I want to take them to the Hearst Cas­tle, Solvang, San Fran­cisco. Pic­nic on the beach. What else should we do? I am in great need for ideas. We used to live at Edwards AFB, so I will take them out there for sure. I’m beg­ging you for ideas. Where do we go? Even in those spots I men­tioned, what are for sure not to miss sites? Act like I know noth­ing (and you’ll be pretty close to where I’m at) about the places and spill the beans. Where would *you* go?

 

Photo credit: Bill Selak / Foter.com / CC BY-ND

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