Our Itinerary for our Trip West

In case anyone would like to track us on our trip west here is our itinerary. The kids and I leave in about an hour with Glenn's parents on our trip west!

Train: 449 Lake Shore Ltd.
Departure: Syracuse, New York

Thursday

August 4, 2011         9:41PM

Arrival: Chicago (Union Station), Illinois

Friday

August 5, 2011         9:45AM

Accommodation: 5 Reserved Coach Seats

Train: 5 California Zephyr
Departure: Chicago (Union Station), Illinois

Friday

August 5, 2011         2:00PM

Arrival: Creston, Iowa

Friday

August 5, 2011         8:41PM

Accommodation: 5 Reserved Coach Seats

Saturday/ Sunday Fine Reunion (Glenn's mom's mom's family) in Clarinda, IA

The California Zephyr will take us through Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, Nevada and California.

Train: 5 California Zephyr
Departure: Creston, Iowa

Sunday

August 7, 2011         8:41PM

Arrival: Emeryville, California

Tuesday

August 9, 2011         4:10PM

Accommodation: 5 Reserved Coach Seats

A night in Emeryville (near San Fransisco) then down the CA coast the next day.

Train: 11 Coast Starlight Departure: Emeryville, California

Wednesday

August 10, 2011         8:25AM

Arrival: Los Angeles, California

Wednesday

August 10, 2011         9:00PM

Accommodation: 5 Reserved Coach Seats

Hanging out in CA. 
Glenn's flying out, here's his itinerary:

Fri 12AUG DELTA 4873*       OK     K   LV SYRACUSE      730P           **
                                       AR DETROIT       858P          COACH
          *Operated by ATLANTIC SOUTHEAST

Fri 12AUG DELTA 1519        OK     K   LV DETROIT       1005P    V     **
                                       AR LOS ANGELES   1204A#        COACH

 

Then Saturday is the big 90th birthday party for Glenn's dad's mom - the main reason for this adventure!
Sunday is Glenn's and my 12th anniversary then he heads home.

Sun 14AUG DELTA 1406        OK     U   LV LOS ANGELES   1100P    V     **
                                       AR DETROIT       627A#         COACH

Mon 15AUG DELTA 4117*       OK     U   LV DETROIT       759A           **
                                       AR SYRACUSE      923A          COACH
          *Operated by PINNACLE AIRLINES

We get to hang out in CA for Monday before heading back East through Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois on the Southwest Chief.

Train: 4 Southwest Chief
Departure: Los Angeles, California

Monday

August 15, 2011         6:15PM

Arrival: Chicago (Union Station), Illinois

Wednesday

August 17, 2011         3:15PM

Accommodation: 5 Reserved Coach Seats

Train: 48 Lake Shore Ltd.
Departure: Chicago (Union Station), Illinois

Wednesday

August 17, 2011         9:30PM

Arrival: Syracuse, New York

Thursday

August 18, 2011         11:38AM

Accommodation: 5 Reserved Coach Seats

Home sweet home!

Cleaning Up After a Fire

This morning I was talking to my friend Cheryl to arrange getting an old cell phone from her for Glenn to use to replace the old LG that really wasn't working (often had to be on speaker phone to hear/ be heard, etc). She told me that she was going to be helping some friends who had had a fire and wondered if we could meet up there and spend an hour or so helping.

After lunch we headed over there kind of unprepared. I quickly ran home and grabbed some socks, our rain boots and a pair of work gloves. It was really an eye opener for all of us. We got a tour of the house to find out where it was safe for us to be and where it wasn't. The fire had started on the second floor in one of the bedrooms where (from what I understand) too many things had been plugged into an outlet and a cord was pinched somewhere. All of the inhabitants of the house were on vacation - the homeowner was only in Canada for about 24 hours before his kids called him and told him that he had to come home because his house was on fire. His housemates are on vacation in Russia and still don't know about the fire. :(

The kids and I worked for a couple hours, mostly outside, putting burned and water damaged stuff that had been thrown out windows into big trash bags and hauling them to the street. There is still so much more to do but it was all the time that we could manage today.

Here are some of the many thoughts I had as I was putting stuff into trash bags:

1. What would I replace if I lost all my material possessions in a fire? I really have no idea. I was thinking about this in relation to getting rid of stuff that we own/ decluttering. So much of what I keep I keep because I have it not because I need it or really even want it. I want to remember today when I get home from our trip and re-address this thought.

2. We need to get rental insurance. Unfortunately the owner of the home we helped at had just recently paid off his home and his insurance had lapsed :(

3. I want to keep my house in order so that if I need to have emergency personal or friends or strangers come into my home I won't be embarrassed. The house looked like it was lived in and cluttered, not trashy but it made me think that I know that too many days out of the year I would be embarrassed to have anyone walk into my home. That needs to change.

I am sad that we are leaving on our trip on Thursday. I would really like to spend more time over there helping out! There is so much need :(

Five Minute Friday: Still

Still... that is something I long to be. This summer I haven't been still very much. We did school up until our 3 week vacation with 2500 miles driven and trips to SC and the Adirondacks between doctor/ dentist appointments. Coming home Glenn started working at the schospital and the kids started swimming lessons taking up all morning at Thorndon Park for two weeks and with busy outings most afternoon. This week has been nice, a break from the craziness, especially since Glenn has taken the van most days so we had no choice but to stay home. We leave again next Thursday for our train trek west. I will have a chance to be still for part of that, maybe.

"Be still and know that I am God..." That is one thing that has really been lacking for me this summer. In all of our busy-ness and lack of routine I have neglected my time being still.

Chinese Folk Tales

This two week part of Glenn's Internal Medicine rotation he is in outpatient (which has SO much better hours than inpatient that he worked 76 hours in last week!). The office that he is working in on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays is 6 miles or so from home so he has been taking the van which has been fine because we really don't go anywhere.

Today after he left I looked at the calendar and saw "Chinese Folk Tales DCL." This summer New York's library summer reading program theme is "One World, Many Stories" and there was going to be a storyteller or something at Dewitt Library that I was going to take the kids to. If it was at Petit we could have walked but since it was Dewitt we would have had to drive but we had no car so we couldn't go and I was kind of sad but then I realized something....

Last night we went to a Christian Medical Fellowship picnic at the home of the new president of CMF (Karl). It was a lot of fun. There were several people from overseas there, some from Africa and some from China. The three from China work in the lab that Karl has been working in this summer. We ate lots of yummy food and played some ping pong and a table game that you flick disks onto a target thing. While we were there the girls attached themselves to Lynn, the lady from China. They went off into an empty bedroom and she told them some "fairy tales." I got to listen in on part of them. I realized this morning that my kids really didn't miss out on Chinese Folk Tales. They heard actual folk tales from a lady from China who has only been in the US for about a year. (At the library it may have just been a librarian reading from a storybook, I don't know.) She told a story about about a wolf and a rabbit and one about a clever girl. One of the men from China told them a story about a snake and a farmer.

As I was typing this and asking about the stories Abigail said, "They weren't really true because a real farmer would be smart enough not to put a snake in his shirt." My kids had an opportunity to interact with people from China and they had the opportunity to try to navigate "what is the word for that" circumstances like when they were trying to figure out the word for something and that has a head like a snake and 4 legs  and a shell. It was a turtle. They also got to play make believe together.

I was sad that the kids missed out on the library thing but I think that the opportunity that they had last night was so much better than the library one would have been and I am so thankful that they could have a chance to make friends with some people from China, not just hear a couple of stories out of a book.

Camping at Lewey Lake ABCs

We got home from SC just in time for my root canal appointment at the dentist, unpacked and re-packed to go camping in the Adirondacks at Lewey Lake Campground (after a quick but sweet visit with my cousin Kasie and her family). While there we got to spend time with the Nafzigers because Lewey Lake is base camp for STEP this year. It was fun to see them. Here is our ABC list for that trip.

A- Abigail, applesauce, apples, met Annette, Adirondacks
B- beach, bees, bacon, bike rides, book, boxes, bugs, baked beans, beer bottle left behind by previous campers for our bacon grease
C- Caleb, Chris, campfire, candy, Cabela tent, Camelbacks, comfort stations (restrooms), Coleman stove, coffee, coloring books and pages
D- donuts (at VBS), dad, dry camping, date
E- Eli, Elijah (Bible stories at VBS), Ellie, empty campground
F- fish, flags, fireflies, fried potatoes, free firewood
G- Glenn, gorp, giant frying pan
H- Hannah, hot dogs, hikes, hot chocolate
I- Indian Lake, Izrael, Internet, ice cream at Stewarts
J- Jaynie, Julie, Joy, Junior Naturalist patch, jugs of milk
K- Kelty lantern
L- Lydia, Lily, Lewey Lake Campground, lakes everywhere
M- met the Millers, marshmallows, Mt Dew, maps, Mosquitos
N- Nafzigers :), Nathan Cronk, newt
O- Oreo cakesters, owls hooting around our tent
P- poor boys, pudding, pretzels, pancakes, pumps
Q- quesadillas
R- roasting marshmellows and hotdogs
S- smores, swimming, sleeping pads, sleeping bags, sharing food
T- tarps, trees, trip, turkeys and their babies
U- underarmour
V- Vacation Bible School, vacation
W- Watch Hill, water spigot nearby, woodpeckers
X- x-cellent adventures
Y-
Z-

Best part:
Glenn - spending time with Sonja and the kids, flexibility, go hiking everyday
Caleb- the summit of Watch Hill and VBS
Lydia- hiking, seeing Chris and Jaynie and the kids and meeting Annette
Hannah- spending time with our family and hanging out
Sonja- sleeping all together in a tent
Abigail- VBS

Enjoying lunch atop Watch Hill

about 8# of potatoes cooking with some onions - yum!

we used the huge frying pan we got from Grandma and Grandpa Nelson's house

ABCs of our South Carolina trip

After Glenn's test we spent a few days at home, getting some things done then, right after my ENT appointment, we headed south to visit my brother Russ, his wife Camy and their little guy Malachi in South Carolina for a few days. We had a lot of fun. We have a family tradition on our way home from vacations that we go through the ABCs and remember things for each letter so on the way home from South Carolina we did the same. (We drove home through DC on our way to stop in and visit our friends the Hahns in Philadelphia so not all of these things are from SC.) Here is our list:

A- Aunt Camy, Abigail, alligator, ants, air conditioning, Angel Tree
B- beaches, Black Market, baked beans, books, birds, Battery, big ships, buses, breeze, bacon
C- Camy,  Charleston, Chick-fil-a, Costco, Caleb, church, cookies, cake (from Camy's work), camera, Capital Building, cool buildings, crabs, chorizo, carriages
D- ducks, downtown adventures, dance party, docks, dolphins, date night, DC, Delaware (first time for all of us), digging holes, detours
E- egrets
F- Folly Beach, free samples @ Costco, fountains, family & friends, frogs, fruit, free parking, Ft McHenry Tunnel (under water)
G- Glenn, guns, Gracia, Goodwill, glass containers, great food, getting lost
H- Hannah, hot, house (got to see Russ & Camy's new one!), Hahns, homemade pasta, ham, HOV lane at 6am in DC
I- ice cream, ice cube machine, iPhone map function, Isle of Palms beach
J- Jen, jewelry, jelly fish, Jockey outlet
K- kite surfer, kites
L- Lydia, laughter, loved ones, lasagna, lizard, Lilo and Stitch, Lehigh Tunnel (under land)
M- Malachi, Magic Shell, music, Men's Bible Study, model homes
N- Nelsons, no bakes
O- ocra, octopuses, ocean, oil change, open air market
P- peaches, pralines, pool, Philadelphia, pancakes, pineapple fountain, pottery jewelry, picnic
Q- quality time
R- Russell, Reading Terminal Market, rain
S- Sullivan Island Beach, swinging on the dock, semis, sea shells, Sonja, sun burn, sun screen, sun shine, silliness, sorting pictures, Sam, shish kabobs, Stonewall Jackson Shrine, swimming, shark teeth, sprinklers, sand
T- Tootsie, Tangled, tacos, thunderstorms, taffy machine, tunnels, trains, True to the Old Flag from Librivox
U- Uncle Russ, underwater
V- Virginia
W- watermelon, Washington,DC, Washington Monument, water, walks
X- x-cellant time
Y- yogurt
Z-

I Can Hear!

Back on February 14th I had ear surgery. It was my second ear surgery. I had had ear surgery between Hannah and Lydia to remove a cholesteotoma, a growth of skin cells, inside my right ear. Before that surgery I had some hearing loss in my right ear but after the surgery the hearing loss was significant because the growth had eaten away at my ear bones and the growth had actually been helping to conduct sound through my ear. I was told at that time that I would need reconstructive inner ear surgery but then I got pregnant with Lydia, we moved to Houghton, etc and it never happened. My hearing loss was significant all that time but I just dealt with it.

This past fall I had a routine checkup and Glenn wanted me to mention my hearing loss and the reason for it to see if I something could be done about it. I was referred to an Ear Nose and Throat specialist and the surgery was scheduled for Valentine's Day for titanium prosthetic ear bones to be placed in my ear. The surgery happened without complications and I was down and out for about a week (my kids played a lot of Legos that week and didn't get much school work done. After about a week I started feeling better but I was disappointed not to be able to hear yet. I have been in for a few post surgery appointments and at my last one on June 22, right before we left for SC, I finally had another hearing screening done. Here are the before and after hearing screenings. They are kind of hard to see. Hearing in my right ear is still not perfect, or as good as in my left, but it is so much better!! The doctor said that the ear may still be healing as well and there may be some more improvement at my 1 year post operation checkup. I have pictures of my scar too and myself right after surgery but they are a little gross so I will keep those for myself.

Before

After

Thanks God for successful surgery and improved hearing!