Julie Goes to France

Yes, you read that right. 

I, mother of 5, took a vacation for 8 days to France.

While most of my friends go to all inclusives in Cancun, laying on the beach in bikinis and large hats, I walked 12 miles a day in 30 degree weather to see all that history has to offer in Paris, Grenoble and Geneva.

Definitely more my style.

I really didn't think we would go to Europe before the kids were all grown up.  It actually wasn't at the top of our list for vacationing spots and really not even on our get-away radar.  All that changed when Noah came home and told me that his company was sending him to France for 14 days in January. I, still traumatized by last January, declared that he could not leave me for 14 days alone with 5 kids in the dead of winter.

Instead, I would come along.

So off I went to secure a passport and a plane ticket.

It was determined that 14 days would be too long for me to be away, but that 8 days would be ok.  We worked childcare out with our parents (thanks parents and in laws!) and I requested vacation from work. 

So many details- shifts at work, childcare for shifts that I had to work while Noah was gone and I was home, homeschooling plans, kids activities, money for lunches, snacks for preschool, packing, itinerary for me, museums, hotels, train tickets.

But finally Noah left and a few days later I left too.

Poor Roman did not want us to go, and I know he was especially traumatized by the fact that our plane would be flying over the ocean.  I think his biggest fear in life is being dumped out of a plane into the ocean where he would be surrounded by all of the ocean animals that freak him out.  And honestly, I did breathe a sigh of relief when I saw on the flight monitor that we were back over land.  I would rather crash on land, I think. But I tried not to think.

I arrived in Paris, where I planned to spend a whirlwind 24 hours before getting on a train to join Noah in Grenoble, France.

And that is what I did.

My overnight flight had lots of empty seats, so I actually had 4 seats to myself and was able to get at least some sleep.  The flight made me laugh though.  I liked the little ipad-esque thing on my seat.  I actually can't read very well on planes due to the motion, so having a variety of movies and tv shows was convenient.  What made me laugh though was how much they fed you.  It was like they were trying to hard to keep people busy on the flight.  First we had ear buds and eye covers, then it was wet wipes, then we had garbage, than we had snack, then it was garbage again.  Next it was supper, then it was drinks, then it was garbage, then it was nap time. As my mom said, plane rides feel a little like preschool.

Not that there is anything wrong with preschool.

Finally my plane landed at the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris at 8:30 am their time and 1:30am my time.  I was finally ready to start my adventure as a tourist.

Confession May be Good for the Soul...But Maybe Not When You Have Boys?

Back before we were married, Noah and I would sometimes go to Barnes and Noble.  Now, this was a concession on my part, because even though I love to read and I find books interesting and informative and slightly addicting- I actually do not like book stores very much.  Libraries, yes.  I love libraries.  In libraries, books are free.  You don't have to finish them, you don't have to love them.  You have nothing invested in them- you can just take them for what they are.  They are there for enjoying or despising and then you chuck them in the return box early in the morning the day after they are due, but before the library actually opens, and you are done, moving on with your life.

But buying books, that is another story (ha!).  They look pretty, they look shiny, they look promising- and then you spend way too much money only to be disappointed by them, or have them lay there unread, day after day, month after month, mocking you.  Now, I know that you don't have to buy books at the book store, you can just browse, but to me it feels wrong to sit and read all you want at a bookstore without actually buying the book.  It feels like cheating, and I am nothing if not a rule follower. 

But Noah?  Noah loves to spend time in bookstores.  He also loves to buy books- pretty books, shiny books, thick books, thin books.  Unfortunately, they are rarely ever read books.  (I hear him protesting already...but the numbers don't lie). 

I digress, and have probably worked my way into an unintended fight, because if there is anything that my husband holds dear- it is hardcover, real books- whether they be read or not.

So I would trail after him at Barnes and Noble, looking around and getting more nervous by the minute.  Why the nervousness?  Well, we were usually there in the evening and there is actually very little that gives me greater anxiety then being in a store near closing time. 

I am not joking.

I would never, by choice, be in a store when the "closing in 15 minutes" announcement comes on over the loudspeaker.  I can feel my heart rate increasing, my palms get sweaty, I get panicked, nervous, upset.  I don't have overwhelming problems with anxiety normally, but get me in a store at 2045 and I turn into a anxious mess. 

When I was a kid I read a book called "Help, I'm a Prisoner in the Library".  I actually think this book is the cause of my anxiety.  I read a lot of books as a child, but this one really struck a cord with me and led to a lifelong fear of being locked into a place after it was closed for the night.

Recently I came across the book at my parent's house and read it to the boys.  In a light hearted, bonding moment I explained my fear to the boys, forgetting that in the past telling them that I was afraid of snakes, frogs, toads and mice has led to them being shown to me with much glee.

I know they haven't forgotten, the other night I was leaving for the Y and Deacon wanted to know when I would be home. He said, "It closes at 10, right?  So I know you will leave for home no later than 9:45..."

He's got my number.

He's Pretty Awesome

The last couple months have been crazy.  It has been a whirlwind of end of summer fun, busy shifts at the hospital, school prep.  Now we are in the full swing of school, flag football, busy shifts at the hospital, house work and yard work. 

I will never catch up on blogging about all the fun, memories, thoughts and impressions from the last few months.  Nor will I be able to manage a lot of posts about the school curriculum plans for this year. 

But I will say this: My house is officially in "homeschooling" mode, which means that only the minimum housework is getting done, but I like to think that maximum learning is being accomplished.  I have had crazy, long shifts at the hospital, but my mom, sister and Noah have helped out and I have made it through.  The kids are happy, and my schedule is looser this fall than it was last year.  I think that will be good for my sanity.

And Noah has quietly been helping out, trying to come home earlier so I can get a break and a chance to rest.  He has been cooking and transporting.

He's pretty awesome.

Loss

I know, once again I haven't blogged for most of the month.  I haven't finished my vacation posts, I haven't posted pictures of Everyn's hair loss or obsessed over how 2/3's of summer is gone.  I haven't posted pictures about baseball or our 14th anniversary.

We have been enjoying summer, and I have kept our days fairly unscheduled with just a vague "bucket" list and a lot of time just bumming around the house and yard, hanging out with neighbors and reconnecting with friends.

I haven't blogged, however, because this is the post that I have been wanting to write, and it is also the one that I just haven't known how to write.

I miscarried our 6th baby at the beginning of the month.  I wasn't very far along, just 6 weeks, but as the nurse told me: a loss is still a loss.  And I am ok.  I really am doing far better than I expected that I would be if I ever imagined these circumstances.    But this loss has caused me to spend a lot of time thinking and pondering and it is interrupted by moments of sadness.

There is a girl at work who is pregnant with her first baby.  I am SO EXCITED for her, but she is due just a month or so before I would have been.  I am looking forward to holding her baby and thinking of my own, but watching her experience pregnancy makes me wish I was still pregnant too.

We talked to the boys about this, and we have been pretty open about it.  I have talked to a number of my friends, because for me, processing verbally is a way for me to heal.  I can talk about it without tears, and my friends/family have been a support for me.

I have been left thinking about a couple of things, though.  First of all, grief.  Everyone grieves in their own way, and everyone's experiences are a little bit different.  This miscarriage didn't devastate me, and there are probably a lot of factors for that.  That does not mean, however, that miscarriages aren't a big deal.  The amount of loss a person feels is probably affected by a lot of things, but it is still a loss.  Being sensitive to where people are at is important. Don't think they are overly emotional if they are more upset than you might be and on the flip side, don't think people callous if they are not crying as much as you think they should.  Everyone is different.

Secondly, I have been thinking about how we really don't always know what is going on in people's lives.  Even people that we are close to.  I am one that is quick to judge, but this experience (and some other things that have happened this month) have made me realize that we really don't know everything.  I was in the middle of a miscarriage and still working my job, still hanging out with friends and no one knew.  I could have chosen to keep it to myself and it would have been my secret.  I knew that for me that was not a healthy choice, but it did make me wonder how many people I know go through pain and loss silently, putting on a happy face.


The last thing that I have been thinking about is what to say when people grieve and experience loss.  I struggle with what to say in these situations, and so I tend to be very forgiving of people who put their foot in their mouth.  It is easy to do, and since everyone is so different, something you say that is extra encouraging to one person could come across as offensive to someone else.  Because of that, I can't speak for anyone but myself.  But for me, it actually didn't really matter what a friend said.  What mattered is that I could sense that they cared for me and that they acknowledged that what I was saying to them was important to me.  And I know my friend's hearts and how much they love me and how they communicate so differently from each other, and yet they all care.

One friend just said, "I am so sorry, Julie".  And it was enough.  Another friend, with him I hash out all the details of life, asked me details and gave me permission to talk.  My family knows that I need space sometimes, and they gave it to me while making sure that I knew that they were there if I needed them.  Noah's mom said she would pray for us (and I know she did) and called to check on us. A couple more friends who have also experienced losses validated my feelings and had tears in their eyes along with me.  My practical friend that I see a lot let me talk without passing judgement or giving opinions.  I had encouraging emails that showed me that friends, even in the midst of their busy days, took time to care.  All the responses were so different, and yet they were the exact responses that I would have expected from those friends.

The most heart breaking moment was, in the middle of the miscarriage, when Noah put his hand on my stomach as if he were saying goodbye.  We hadn't really gotten much of a chance to say "hello" yet, and it was already "goodbye". 

After 13 years of Nursing

13 years ago I started my first job as an RN.  I have worked at 3 different hospitals and they all have had their own quirks and they all have had their own victories and their own struggles. 

A couple of things have remained the same though in all of those jobs: the difficulty in dealing with patients/families who do not view death as a natural part of life, and how bad it feels to cause people pain/discomfort when the end result is only being a few more days on this earth.

This is a fabulous article, and I think one that is well worth the read- especially for people that are not in a health care field.

Week!

Accomplishments of the Week:

1. Took 4 kids (the younger ones)to Y pool by myself and no one died
2. Took 4 kids (the younger ones) to Y pool and splash deck by myself and no one died
3. Took 5 kids (along with a friend and her 2) to the beach and no one died
4. Grandma found ballet slippers and tap shoes for a quarter a pair at a garage sale
5. have picked almost 50 cups of strawberries from my little patch

AND...

Berean finally did the monkey bars ALL BY HERSELF!

She is one proud girl!

Vacation: Zoo and Arch!

 When I last wrote, our vacation was just starting.  We left the ball park around 8:30- handing off cleats, bat, protective equipment and uniform to Grandma in the parking lot.

We had packed that Suburban carefully and there was no extra room.  Every seat was full and the back was crammed.

Our goal was to drive to Iowa- we already had a hotel booked and paid for, which was good incentive to make it as far as we had planned!  There was some initial drama when we realized while enroute that neither one of us had printed our hotel reservation info, neither one of us remembered the name of the hotel and of course neither one of us has a smart phone.  After randomly calling some hotels on our GPS we were still getting nowhere.  Finally, Noah ended up just talking my dad through accessing our email and getting the info. 

4 1/2 hours later, at about 0100 we arrived at our destination.  We hadn't had to make any stops and we had spent the trip listening to "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" and some Adventures in Odyssey CDs. 

The girls, a boy or two (and maybe a Mom) napped a little in the car, but even so everyone fell asleep pretty quickly when we got to the hotel.  Our rooms were connected and Karla and the boys took one room and Noah and I and the girls were in the other.

In the morning we got up and ate at the hotel.  Deacon sat at a table far away from the cereal.  An older couple were pleased and amused to watch our family and said that they were well behaved.  And they were.  Score!

We quickly packed everything back up, filled up the tank and headed out. I had packed a "Wed" bag with a new outfit for each of us so we just had to pull that out of the Suburban (and we even put it near the top!) which made it so much quicker to leave in the morning and also left the

 somewhat precarious packing situation intact.

We drove another 4 1/2 hours without stops and arrived at the St. Louis Zoo.  After a somewhat tense few minutes while actually locating the parking lot etc, we finally disembarked. As soon as we got in we gathered maps, visited the concrete seals and ate our lunch.  I had made braided pizza bread and that was really easy to cut up and eat- some of us dipped it in a jar of pizza sauce.  It was nice because it was different than normal traveling food.

The zoo was explored and experienced in a whirlwind fashion.  The boys aren't huge zoo guys, and we only had 3 hours before closing. 

I think that their favorite part of zoos is getting to climb on various benches, sculptures and climbing through logs.  Some lady gave us zoo train passes with one stop left- they were leaving and didn't need them, so that was also fun for the kids.

This zoo was pretty cool though because they actually got to see Hippos swimming (and we could watch them because the display allowed underwater viewing!) and there were elephants, even a cute baby one.  The kids had never seen a real elephant before, so it was a very exciting event. They were especially impressed when one of the elephants pooped.

Family Picture!

Sisters and the Littles!

Best buds for life!

Sweet

Yeah, he's pretty cute :)

We spent the trip trying to get some pictures of the two of us

Baby Girls in bright dresses

Lincoln being silly.  Rare to capture on camera

Next we left the zoo and drove downtown to get to the arch.  It was another tense couple minutes of navigating as we could see the arch, but due to some construction it was very unclear how to get to the parking lot. After briefly visiting Illinois we successfully parked the Suburban and then obsessed a little over the fact that a warning to check our coolant came on the screen. 

We have found that the Suburban is a little message crazy.  The coolant level was fine, the oil level was fine and although we watched the temp gauge like hawks for the rest of the trip we didn't have any more trouble with annoying screen messages.

Hopefully it stays that way.

Amazing

Roman was freaking out as we waited for our "Going up into the Arch" time.  We had purchased tickets online, but it wasn't very busy.  We killed some time in the Museum of Westward Expansion which interested some people (Noah, Julie & Karla) more than it interested others (Deacon, Roman, Lincoln, Bre and Ever).  The whole time, though, Roman had this nervous energy just radiating from his little body.  He just wanted to get it over with, he said.

After a lot of waiting we were told to go stand by door 3.

We amused ourselves (Karla, Lincoln, Deacon and I) and distracted others (Noah and Roman) by taking selfies in the little pod on our way up to the top of the arch!  It was a challenge to get us all in one frame!  Poor Roman, only his eye is showing!

It really wasn't too scary and Roman had calmed down a lot by the time we reached the top.

I didn't include any pictures from the top.  It was weird lighting in there, and it was evening so the pictures didn't turn out the greatest.  It was fun though and the kids did seem to like it, especially when they weren't dwelling on the fact that they were looking out of the teeny-tiny windows way up there that they had seen from the outside.  It is kind of a scary thought (for all of us who don't like heights!)

We didn't hang around too long after our tour.  We checked in to our rather odd hotel and fed the kids picnic lunch #2 in the hotel room.  This time it was PB & J or Ham/Roast Beef with of course chips, fruit and Pepsi.

I also remembered the "Thursday" bag, and once again our Suburban packing job remained mostly intact.

Everyone crashed and we were done with the first full day of vacation!