Change of Plans

So a couple days ago I hinted that I had plans for other adventures while Phil was gone this time. Well, the weather has had other plans for us.
A Noreaster has blown ashore here and is creating it's havoc. Today Josh is home from school even, due to weather conditions. So here is where the Mommy job gets harder... How to make adventures when we probably shouldn't wander past the door?

Colonial Williamsburg, Part 1

This weekend during the brief time we had with Phil, we took advantage of the free weekend for military at Colonial Williamsburg. The boys and I have made an entire project out of it and have been reading, listening to music and using recipes from colonial times before we ever went. I'm pretty sure they only half understand it all, but it was fun anyway. It's a beautiful time of year to visit there.
This was the fife and drums band. The boys really liked this part. What boy wouldn't like a whole bunch of boys walking together and banging a drum?
Their garden there still had things growing and for some reason the boys took particular interest in this. This is Josh walking with his composition book holding Daddy's hand. He brought some questions with him to ask there.


On our way back to the car we found a particularly friendly horse. The boys got a big kick out of him and the woman who was asking Joshua if he swam there (since in that time there would have been no car or bridges to get him there from Virginia Beach).

Daddy is back off to work again. We'll see him soon enough. In the mean time, we have a couple more adventures to do to help pass the time.

Joy

Last night I found out that yet another of the foundations of my childhood has passed away. More and more of this will come as I get older, but that doesn't seem to dampen the blow.
Joy was... well, just that. Joy but with a capital "J." There was always this joy and peace that seemed to radiate from within her. When we were in California in September I was able to see her one last time. Her dialysis had certainly been taking it's toll. You could tell that just living had gotten much harder for her in these late days. Even in spite of all of that, though, she was still Joy through and through. She got to see both of the boys and I got to hug her again. I have only gotten to see her a couple times since I got married and moved away from my hometown, but I will still miss her greatly. I want to be more like her in my own life and circumstances, peaceful, joyous, loving and supporting. She was always there with a hug and an encouraging word for me and my life would have been so much less without her in it. For now I will mourn her but there's the consolation that I will see her again. Joy is not one I would ever have a worry of not seeing in heaven someday. Her pain is gone now, the struggle over and she will be with her husband and daughter again.
There are so many memories and loving thoughts of Joy in my head and heart, I could not do them any sort of justice here. So I'll close with this. When I spent some years working as a youth pastor when I was much younger, I was given an office that I decided to decorate in beach decor. Joy and Ray took the time to go dig up this hymn, make a copy and frame it just for me. I still have it even today because it was that special to me.

Finally Home
by Don Wyrtzen

When engulfed by the terror of tempestuous sea,
Unknown waves before you roll;
At the end of doubt and peril is eternity,
Though fear and conflict seize your soul.

But just think of stepping on shore and finding it heaven!
Of touching a hand and finding it God's!
Of breathing new air and finding it celestial!
Of waking up in glory and finding it home!

Welcome home, Joy!

Halloween

Today the focus was just enjoying Halloween together. Phil got in super late last night so we were just really glad to have the time together.
We've been waiting to carve our pumpkins until Daddy came home.
Daddy had to help with Joshua's. Still not quite coordinated enough.
Jeremiah drawing his design on his pumpkin.

Finally after dinner it was time to get dressed up and hit the road. Joshua was Spiderman and Jeremiah a pirate. He did still change his mind 3 times just today on what he wanted to dress up as. Unfortunately for him Mommy doesn't have any spare dragon costumes just laying around.
It was over 80 degrees here today. Weird, I know. Joshua was especially sweaty from his little mask. Nevertheless, the candy was still totally worth it.
I'm pretty sure Jeremiah ate his entire weight in candy tonight. Tomorrow is when candy moderation begins. I figure they can have one night.
Our pumpkins. In order they are: Jeremiah, Joshua, Phil and me. Mine was the pumpkin Joshua picked out on his school field trip that he then decided he didn't want to the be the one to carve. Both of the boys are hand drawn. Jeremiah said his looked scary. Josh was focused on shapes this year. Phil did his freehand. I am majorly impressed! His candle just wasn't cooperating when I took the picture. Mine... well... I did whatever the pumpkin would let me and worked hard at it! The pumpkin had the toughest skin I've ever cut through. The booger hanging out it's nose is my way of getting revenge.
So goodnight, Halloween. We enjoyed you a lot! Until next year!

A Drive

Today I was feeling impatient waiting for the night to come around when Phil would be home. I'm still impatient, but a drive out to Pungo (the country part of Virginia Beach) helped a lot!
We had no plan of where to go. Just drove around looking at interesting things. This is a great time of year to do that!
Completely on accident we found this educational little gem.
It's a 1 room schoolhouse from 1915. It was an elementary school in Virginia Beach for "black students." This lead to a really interesting conversation between Joshua and myself about how people used to think there were differences between people just because the color their skin happened to be. They were wrong, but it took them a long time to figure that out. Joshua got it, I think since he corrected me in saying that they're actually brown, not black.

The windows are barely doing their job of keeping out the elements, but I was able to sneak a couple pictures through them.

Then we stopped by a farm stand. We had visited this one to pick strawberries in the spring. It wasn't manned, but you could pick up things on the honor system. We got some potatoes, apples and flowers. I love locally grown produce! This is dried okra (intended for decoration).



The best part of our whole adventure this afternoon: the sandbox. It wasn't a box at all really. Just an area of sand with all sorts of toys for the boys to play with. I'm pretty sure they played for over an hour and still didn't want to leave.
What is it about sand mixed with toys? Nothing else holds their interest for nearly as long!
The boys helped me pick some flowers and then I dragged them back home. Maybe we'll be able to make it back again sometime before winter kicks in. It was a perfect afternoon!

Leaf Collecting

Last night we went leaf collecting. About 1/2 a mile away is a beautiful patch of trees. Nothing extraordinary about them until this time of year when they turn all sorts of beautiful colors. We went to go take some to bring home with us.
For Joshua this was a time to talk about seasons. With a little help he identified all four and we talked about the weather during the seasons as well.
For Jeremiah this was a lesson in color identification. He found yellow, green, orange and red leaves. Some of the colors were hard to identify because they were a blend of several.


Overall we just had a really good time. We were maybe gone for 45 minutes from the house with the walk and the time spent there, but it was all our favorite time of the day. We all were still laughing when we were walking home.

My Latest Project

Last night I had some very weird dreams. I'll save you the unfortunate details, but all in all it made me realize just how little we've done to this house since we've moved in... even though so many things had irritated me beyond belief. One of those things was the bathroom flooring. Both bathrooms were awful, but mostly the spare bathroom. Rosy colored rose diamonds? Really did not go with our pirate theme in there! Here is what it looked like when we first moved in. It's the first bathroom you see. I know the flooring isn't really clear. I was probably trying to hide it from pure embarrassment.
So today I picked up some ridiculously inexpensive linoleum floor tiles. I tore up the old ones and magically found what has been making an irritating odor in our bathroom since we moved in. Moisture and mold under the tiles that were already there. At my brothers advice I've had a fan in there all day. I'll put a space heater in tonight and hopefully tomorrow it will be nice and dry so I can finish up my project and get a wax seal on it.
This isn't how we'd like it to permanently end up looking, but I'm feeling a lot better about it then I did when it had roses all over.