Celebrating the 4th of July in Michigan

It was the perfect place to celebrate The 4th of July... old buildings decked out in red, white and blue bunting, carousal music playing favorite americana songs, model T's driving quietly on the streets with a few horse drawn wagons, and old fashion bicycles that you always see in pictures but wonder if anyone could really ride, and a village green with families playing old fashion games.

Not bad for a last minute plan! We like to be in Arkansas on the lake with my parents for the 4th, enjoying family, a swim in the lake and a lazy evening of watching fireworks across the lake from the comfort of Grandma's porch. But somehow the price of gas and an 18 hour drive each way seemed more than handle this year. We thought about lots of options, Williamsburg, family camp, Lake Erie, and Greenfield Village, but nothing solid.

We decided on June 30th to go on vacation over the 4th. I used to resent this last minute decision making, but I've come to see it as a romantic way to live. Decide you're going, book the hotel, load up the car, find a dog sitter and away we go! Baseball was finished on the 2nd, Eric's schedule was open, we had one week before we would start teaching Sunday School for a month and we could still find a decent hotel close to where we wanted to be. And we realized that with all our schedules it was NOW or NEVER for a summer get away!

We went to Dearborn Michigan. A quick 3 hour drive away and spent 4 days visiting The Henry Ford (museum) and Greenfield Village. Olivia rated it a 9 next to last year's Williamsburg (a 10 ... "the pool was cleaner" but we won't go into that).


Everyone had a blast. Olivia loved playing with the old fashion games and puzzles and teaching others to use them. Ben got to have his picture taken with members of the La De Da's and the Nationals (he of course favors the La De Da's because of their red and white uniforms). Everyone took a try walking on stilts. Ben played 1800's baseball and watched 1800's baseball. Olivia went to a one room school house for a 15 minute class as often as she could and could "make something" each day. Eric tried his hand at making a glass creation with molten glass at 1200 degrees. And I realized with great excitement that we covered some American and Ohio history. (Being unplugged from the tv has great advantages. After a swim in the pool, we spent our evenings in the hotel reading about incredible folks from history like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, The Wright Brothers, George Washington Carver, Robert Frost...

Another fine example of how fun last minute leaps can be!

Someday

It's already the end of June!!!! I had great hopes of getting organized so I could blog more. There's the garage and laundry room to organize (part of which means finally doing something with all the stuff I've saved all winter for a garage sale), the kitched table and floor to sand, refinish and seal, three poorly used rooms to rethink and move around, math and grammar lessons to complete...

Someday I'd like to blog about the death of Eric's brother David at the age of 54. What a wonderful story of God's redemption there. So many things to be learned from his life and now from his death. For now I'll add his picture that shows his spirit in the last few years. With promises to share more soon.

Someday I'd like to blog about how we turned off the tv and in the first two days Eric, Ben & Olivia read a book, Ben built a castle and Olivia had time to listen to Odyssey, draw and dance to music and we played Uno attack long enough for someone other than Ben to win!

Someday I'd like to blog about the books we're reading...

For me it would be The Shaping of A Christian Family: How my parents nurtured my faith by Elisabeth Eliot; So Much More by Anna Sophia Botkin and Elizabeth Botkin; Passionate Housewives Desperate for God by Jennie Chancey and Stacy McDonald; How Starbucks Saved My Life by Michael Gates Gil, Faith Driven Families by Voddie Baucham.

For Eric it would be Valley of Vision by Aurther Bennet; Me Myself and Bob: A True Story about God, Dreams, & Talking Veggies by Phil Vischer; Battling Unbelief by John Piper; Waking the Dead by John Eldridge

For Ben it would be Beowulf the Warrior by Ian Serraillier, God King, A story in the Days of Hezekiah by Williamson Sockey, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

For Olivia it would be anything Dr. Suess that ryhmes, In Aunt Lucy's Kitchen by Cynthia Rylant, Happy Little Family by Rebecca Caudill, Freddie Goes to the North Pole read by James McDonough

Someday...

Enjoying Long Lost Friends

After 9 months of hearing Olivia cry at night "I miss Lindsey," We finally were able to visit the Megilligans in Raliegh North Carolina. We LOVE the Megilligans.

Eric first met Brian when he was singing with Refresh at the Chapel. I met Janet just after their first, Austin, was born a few short months before Benjamin was expected to arrive. The friendship began to really take shape when Brian, Janet and baby Austin came to Children's Hospital to visit us when Ben was admitted with RSV. They came to pray for Ben & us taking turns since Austin wasn't allowed to visit.

That was 9 years ago. Olivia came and we moved to PA, then Lindsey was born and we moved back to Ohio. Janet and I both began our homeschooling journey together. Eric and Brian shared lunches at the Trough (wouldn't the Golden Coral love that name!). Brian and Janet bought their first house in Hartville and we moved out of our condo to our current home in Akron (only after searching long in the Hartville area).

And then one winter day, they insisted on meeting us for breakfast at McDonalds... only to announce that they were moving to NORTH CAROLINA.

"How Lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." Carol Sobieski

So you can understand how incredibly excited we all were to be taking a 4 day trip to North Carolina this fall.

The kids got to camp out together... 2 hours after lights went out we could still hear them all chatting. Austin built a zoo for Ben and got him hooked on Zoo Tycoon. Ben had lion cubs in just a few minutes! Lindsey, the Donkey Cong QUEEN, taught Olivia how to do Donkey Cong on the Wii, thanks to Reece's sacrifice of his own Wii time! And we all fell more in love with Reecey... though I think Eric and Reece bonded the most during their private breakfast... there was a lot of communication going on and very few words spoken. :)

After a day at the park, and a visit to Marbles Museum, Eric and Brian went out on a date and I got to ask Janet about all my health and homeschool questions and learn about the latest things she's doing.

We had moments of refreshing that was much needed.

The Megilligans are great parents, we got to experience morning circle time with them. And we were deeply touched when Austin and Reece prayed for us the night before we left. We were again reminded of how blessed we are to have them as friends.




(Our camera only blinks out about 3 photos before the batteries give out. So if you want to see more pictures of our visit, you'll want to jump to http://megilliganfamily.blogspot.com/2007/11/wactels-visit-to-north-carolina.html)