Finally Camping Again

We just got back from a wonderful camping trip at the Look Rock campground in the Smokey Mountains. We went with some new friends and our kids had a wonderful time playing together.

We got to our campsites slightly after supper, so it was starting to get dark. We quickly set up our tent and got supper started for the kids - then realized we had forgotten to bring roasting sticks to roast hot dogs! Oh well, on camping trips you get to be creative, so the boys searched through the woods for some sticks and sharpened an end to get the hot dogs cooked. Since it was so late, we tried to hurry and get the beds made up so the kids could go to bed. While I was making the beds, Tom went looking for wood to make a nice fire.

He came back really excited and told me that while he was getting wood, he saw something watching him from behind a tree, but whenever he looked at it, it would move. He was about 30 feet from whatever it was, so he tried making a noise to scare the raccoon or squirrel. Whatever the animal was growled back and scurried up the tree. Then he realized it wasn't a raccoon, and it wasn't a squirrel - it was a BEAR! We have been camping in the Smokies for more than 10 years, and despite hearing there are active bears there, we have never seen one. The friends we camped with said they saw 7 bears the weekend before. So we were excited to finally see one, even if it was closer than we wanted it to be. The bear gathered nuts from the top of the tree for several hours. It was a little nerve wracking knowing that the branches falling outside the tent were from a bear so we made certain to lock up all our food safely in the car.  Thankfully, it didn't appear to bother anything in our campsite, although my girlfriend Jamie says she heard lots of car doors slamming all night long as people realized something was enjoying their food.

 

Saturday morning we had a nice pancake breakfast. I made the kids pancakes into pancake rolls to keep them less sticky for my girls who LOVE getting stuff in their hair and crying when I brush it later. Then we had a quick worship and decided to hike to Abrams Falls - a 2.5 mile hike one way. We weren't sure how far we would get with 5 kids 6 and under, but we decided to see how far we could go. We ate lunch by our cars and started on our hike.

The girls were quite talkative on the trail. Nikki got a little grumpy, but as soon as we got her started talking about cookies and what kind of cookie she would make, she was happy as a clam. Her cookies would be strawberry cookies, in case you were wondering. 

  

Becky also walked along the trail with me for a period of time, chatting away about whatever crossed her mind. We passed some people, and one of the kids had a coonskin cap on his head. Becky watched him pass, then commented to me, "Mommy, that boy had a raccoon butt on his head!"

We stopped to play in the water along the way to the falls and the kids found some minnows in the water. Another family hiking on the trail offered a net they had brought along just for that purpose. They had two boys, so it made sense. We are SO going to be bringing a net the next time we go hiking. What a great idea!

At the falls we stopped to catch our breath and enjoy the view. I warned Tommy not to get wet since we still had a long 2.5 mile trek back to the cars - but he's a boy. Think he listened to me? Nope. He went wading. Oh well. At least we got a couple great family shots while we watched the waterfall.

I was very impressed with our kids on the trail. We didn't have to carry either girl very often - so they walked almost the entire 2.5 miles to the falls and the 2.5 miles back to the cars - 5 miles total! Tommy didn't complain once about having to walk the entire trip, so on the way back, I offered to carry him a short distance piggy back. He loved it.

By the time we made it back to the cars, it was almost suppertime. We decided that we'd stop at the Cades Cove visitor center so we could let the kids look at the mill there before we headed back to camp.

However, traffic was horrific. We discovered that there was a baby bear in one of the trees, so Tom grabbed his camera and ran off to take pictures. We crept along and finally got to take a peek at the bear way up in the tree - bear #2 of the weekend. A ranger was shouting at everyone to keep moving, so I didn't stop to let the kids get a good look - plus Tom was taking pictures that they'd be able to see later. Tom hopped back in and we continued on to the visitor's center.

At the visitor's center, I decided to make the kids take a potty break, since the trails really don't offer much. When we got back out, Tom had again heard that people had seen some bears across the field, so we started walking towards the field. When we finally made it to the side of the field where the bears were, we saw that it was a mama bear and her 2 cubs (bringing the number of bears seen to a grand total of 5!). We only saw one of the cubs when we first arrived because the second one was either hanging out close to the tree, or wasn't moving much. The bear cub at the top of the tree tried moving around from branch to branch and at one point almost missed a branch. Thankfully it made it, because it would NOT have been fun to have a mother bear on the ground!

We decided not to look around the mill, and just headed back to the campsite. The kids were exhausted, so we made chili and cornbread, then sent them off to bed, where within minutes of climbing into their beds, I think they were asleep!

We headed home on Sunday, and now I get to begin the fun of catching up on housework and laundry! Whoo-to-the-HOO! Wait, I'm not excited about all that housework, but I did have a great weekend! Any tips on how to get my house whipped back into shape quickly? :)

Field Trip: Homeschool Day at TN Aquarium

This year we are going to be taking some field trips for school. I didn't really do any last year for Tommy, and since I am teaching all three kids this year, I thought it would be fun to plan some field trips. The Tennessee Aquarium holds a Homeschool Day every September for area Homeschoolers, so that is our first field trip.

We met up with some of our friends and began touring the Aquarium at 10 am - when the doors opened. They gave the kids a quiz to fill out and return at the end of the day so we headed down to begin our tour with the Sea Horses. We didn't make it that far though, because when we got to the bottom of the escalator, there were lots of animals on display in the new Ranger Rick showcase - so we had to stop there first.

The first animal we saw was the Eastern Box Turtle.Box Turtles have a high, dome-shaped carapace (top part of shell) and a hinged plastron (bottom part). The hinged bottom allows the turtle to completely close off its body to the outside - making it hard for another animal to eat it for supper. :)

The kids learned that turtles are vertebrates - and that anything you find in the wild with a spine, you should not take home as a pet. Bugs are ok to catch, but not turtles, frogs or lizards. Apparently, Tennessee has a law forbidding any wildlife from becoming a pet. So if you want to get a box turtle as a pet - you have to buy it from a breeder - not pick it up from your back yard.

This turtle was fascinated with Nikki and kept walking over to say hi. His keeper was very nervous about Nikki getting bit on the nose or something, so I backed her farther away from the table - even though she really wasn't that close.

The next animal encounter was the corn snake. She had milky colored eyes because she was getting ready to shed her skin. We learned that the snake starts to swell up with water just before she gets ready to shed her skin. When it's time to shed, she reabsorbs the water, and starts looking for something to scratch her nose on. The snake rubs her nose until the skin catches on something, then she slowly slides out of her skin, turning it inside out and she slithers out of it. It's kind of like when you pull off a tube sock from the top instead of from your toes.

The kids had fun touching her skin to see what she felt like. We learned that this corn snake wasn't as brightly colored because it was a wild corn snake - instead of a captive-bred snake that was bred for brighter colors.

After meeting the corn snake, we found a Leopard Gecko. This species of gecko stores fat in its tail in case of food shortages.

We also discovered that unlike most other geckos, leopard gecko's have little claws instead of sticky pads and eyelids that they can blink.

Our next encounter looked very snake-like. However, it wasn't a snake. It was a Legless Lizard. Legless Lizards are also known as Glass Lizards, because they can easily loose their tails when grabbed. When the tail breaks, it can break into several squirming parts. The animal’s predator will focus attention on the wiggling tail while the lizard escapes. The tail will grow back, but just not as long as the original! The tail makes up almost 2/3 of the lizards body.

You can tell the difference between the Glass Lizard and a snake because the lizard has eyelids over its eyes (a snake has scales) and it also has ear pits to hear with (a snake "hears" through vibrations on the ground).

We quickly toured the Sea Horse exhibit, then the Ranger Rick Bird show began. The first bird is the Worlds Smallest Toucan- the green aracari. His name is Squirt. His beak is considered a soft beak that’s used to grab fruit in the tropical rainforests of the aracari’s home. Apparently people used to think this bird was diving for fish in the water - but instead of fish, it was really fishing for the fruit that had dropped off the trees.

The second bird they brought out was the Rose Breasted Cockatoo. These birds can live a very long time - 20 to 40 years! They are also very smart birds and can quickly learn how to do certain behaviors. This bird was trained to pick up money from someone's hand and fly it back to the trainer. Then the bird took the money and a sticker back to the original person and flew back to the trainer. Very impressive since it didn't matter how far away the person was or where the person was in the room (we saw three different shows with this bird at various times throughout the day).

The last bird we encountered was the Easter Screech Owl. This is North America's smallest Owl. It is roughly the size of an extended Adult hand. Owls are able to fly very quietly through the forest to catch their prey. The Eastern Screech-Owl is known to eat a variety of songbirds, including the European Starling. Despite this fact, the starling regularly displaces the owl from nesting sites and takes over the hole to raise its own brood.

After the bird show, we headed up the escalator to continue our tour at the top of the Aquarium. However, because of the sheer number of people crowding to go up, I didn't pay attention to the fact that Nikki was standing backwards on the escalator and that her shoelace was untied. We got to the top, but she wasn't able to move because her shoe had gotten stuck. I tried to pull her, but she started crying - and I realized she was stuck in the escalator. People started piling up behind me and falling on top of me. I tried to push the off button on the escalator but I guess I didn't push hard enough. Someone tried to help me up but I quickly explained I was protecting my daughter from getting trampled and just needed the escalator to get turned off. I guess because of all the confusion, they didn't hear me, so the escalator kept going. Finally I was able to push the off button hard enough and the escalator stopped. I quickly took off Nikki's shoe and moved off the escalator so others could move off, then an employee grabbed her shoe for me. They checked to make sure she and I were both ok, which we both were - just a little shaken up - and then we continued on our way up to the third floor to continue our tour to see the Otters.

We made it to the Otter exhibit and then I noticed Tommy was missing! So I ran back towards the top of the escalator and he walked through the doors. He had seen Tom walking outside the Aquarium, so he had stayed behind to watch. I called Tom to let him know where we were and that I had already gotten a ticket for him. I guess I wasn't clear in which aquarium we were in, so when I got to the bottom of the River aquarium, he had left to go to the Ocean aquarium to meet us. We finally figured out how to find each other and Tom got to join us for the rest of our tour.

The girls had fun playing in the Sturgeon fish tank, but weren't able to touch any of them. Sturgeons are on the endangered species list, so the aquarium has a release program to help increase the numbers of sturgeon in the wild. We walked through the Delta Swamp and then through the Rivers of the World Gallery. We saw a Dwarf American Crocodile that grows to be 6 feet in length. Doesn't he look happy?

It was almost time for lunch, so we quickly finished up the River Aquarium and went outside for lunch. After lunch, we split up so Tom could take Tommy on a behind the scenes tour of the Aquariums with his friends. I took the girls through the Ocean Aquarium where we got to try to pet stingrays (none came close), catch butterflies (they all flew away) and watch the penguins. One of the penguins was having a great time "flying" through the water. I wish I had the camera, but I sent it with Tom and Tommy on the behind the scenes tour.

See that rock in the corner beside Tommy? He told me that's where they send the food out for all the fish in the shark tank.

Here is the tour guide explaining how volunteers put the food into the tubes and it gets flushed out into the big tank for all the fish. The fish know when its time to eat, so they gather at the end where the food gets washed out of tubes.

While the kids were learning all about how the food gets delivered to the fish, Mr. Oscar, the Green Sea Turtle, came to pay them a visit and check them out.

See that bowl shaped thing in the water?

It's to make ripples on the water to break the surface tension so people beneath won't have to see the ugly ceiling above the tank.

This a smaller tank next to the large tank where they put the new fish in to get acclimated in. When the fish gets used to the water, they open the gate between this small tank and the large tank so the fish can swim back and forth. When the fish spends more time outside in the large tank, they close the door between the tanks. The fish prefer the larger tank, so acclimation usually doesn't take too long.

These white barrels are the filters for each tank in the aquarium. Every tank (large and small) in the aquarium gets filtered here. The numbers on the green pipes indicate which tank the filter is filtering for.

The tour passed by the quarantine room where they keep the sick fish and animals until they are well again.

The final stop on the behind-the-scene tour was the kitchen where they learned about how the food was prepared and what food to give each fish or animal.

 And that is the end of our tour of the Aquarium. Have you taken your kids anywhere fun this year for school? Do you plan field trips or just spontaneously decide on a trip? 

Thankful

April 26, 2011 - Our dishwasher had been on the fritz for the past month and a half and I was expecting the repairmen to arrive sometime that morning. It was supposed to have been fixed the week before, but they forgot to put us on the list, so when I called them to find out when they were coming, they said "sorry, it will be next week". I had called Monday and they hadn't talked with LG yet to figure out what they should do to repair the dishwasher. Monday evening, while I was out shopping, the repairman called to say that they would come later in the week. I was irritated, but couldn't vent my frustration in the store. I called Tuesday to suggest that they make my dishwasher a priority since this was their 7th or 8th visit (wouldn't you lose track?) and  they would only reschedule to wednesday morning. I encouraged them again to make things right and fix it sooner because wednesday wouldn't work well for me, but they refused. It was irratating to say the least. Becky had a well-child checkup to go to wednesday morning, which meant that Tom would have to take her if I couldn't.

April 27, 2011 - Wednesday arrived, and Tom took Becky to work with him, and I sent along some coloring books to keep her happy and hopefully quiet. Then I waited for the dishwasher repairmen to come. There was bad weather, so I didn't expect much from them. Around 10:00am, I called to see if/when they were coming. They said hopefully around noon, so I called Tom to let him know he would have to take Becky. The storms passed through and it became pretty outside again. Tom took Becky to her checkup, then took her out to lunch at Panera Bread for a fun treat. 

I fed Tommy and Nikki lunch and they played very well together. I got on facebook and saw that more storms were heading our way. I watched the weather and finally sent a text to my trainer that I was going to plan on just staying home instead of working out because the weather was so bad. I went downstairs and started working on my quilts to pass the time. I have yet to finish one of them, so I figured with the possible storm approaching, what better way to pass the time. I called Tom to find out when he was planning on coming home, because I heard that the storms were going to be really rough and the trees outside were already bending in the breeze. He said they would be home between 3 and 4 or when everybody else had left. 

I went upstairs and started to get ready for the upcoming storms - something I never, EVER do. I dragged all my earthboxes into the garage - we have 5 of them and I'm sure each one weighed over 50 or 60 lbs. Then I started bringing sleeping bags into the basement. That was another weird thing for me to do. I never take storms like this seriously, but for some reason, I thought it would be fun for the kids to pretend we were camping or something like that during the storm, so if it really DID get bad (and I knew it wouldn't) we could have fun down there. 

Tom got home with Becky around 3:30pm and she joined Tommy and Nikki as they watched the movie Cars. Tom suggested I work on hemming up some of his pants that I've been putting off for forever since I already had my sewing machine out. So I hemmed up the pants and ran upstairs to iron them. Then when I ran back downstairs to hem some more, I grabbed drinks or snacks and put them downstairs. Not typical of me for "bad" weather. I have a hard time remembering to bring things up or downstairs when I'm supposed to!

We ate a corn on the cob supper and the weather turned stormier, so we headed back downstairs, not bothering to finish putting supper away (shame on us!). We watched it get stormier and windier and still weren't worried. The power went off about 6 or 6:15, so we let the kids watch movies on our laptop. Around 7:30pm, it was still stormy out, so we started another movie for the kids instead of sending them to bed. I guess I figured letting them stay up a little late wouldn't be too bad. Around 8:00p, it started getting scary outside, so I moved the kids into the mechanical room with all the blankets and padding. They didn't care what I had them do so long as they got to watch Beauty & the Beast (one of their favorites). Tom kept pacing and watching the sky - going outside to see the trees bend over and I don't remember what else. I started getting nervous and reminded him to come back inside. 

It was about 8:15pm when we watched the sky light up with lightning. I can honestly say, I have never seen so much lightning in my life. So I told Tom I was going to go back into the room with the kids and he probably should too. People started texting me, asking if we were ok. We were, so I texted back that we hadn't seen any tornadoes yet, but it was pretty bad outside. I had just texted my mom that we were all ok, when the laptop turned off completely. It still had about 40 minutes remaining, so it shouldn't have just turned off, but since the weather was so crazy out, I'm sure that's what turned it off. Seconds later, Tom came running into the room and shut the door. He said something about it being pretty wild out there, then it suddenly got really loud and the doors started rattling. 

We all hunkered down and got close together. The pressure in the room increased significantly. I would compare it to being in an airplane - but the pressure was SO much greater than that. Somehow through it all, I wasn't afraid. I felt calm and safe - which under the circumstances, was not the typical reaction from me. I even shouted to the kids over the noise that we were in the middle of the Tornado and that God was watching over us. I asked them if they wanted to say a prayer and Tommy said a short one, then I added one of my own.

The noise was so loud above us, I was certain that at least the roof was gone upstairs, if not the entire floor. It sounded like rain was directly above us. Then it started to grow quiet. We waited a few minutes longer, because I wasn't sure it was over yet. I'd heard that it could get quiet in the eye of the storm  - so I wanted to be sure that wasn't it! We peeked out the door and Tom commented that the windows were covered in mud. I noticed an eerie pink view out the window and I said unbelievingly, "Tom, the trees are gone." He said, "No, I think that's just the mud on the windows" then stepped out to check. I was glued to the room with the kids -not sure what to do. Tom came back and said, "Wow, Christy - all the trees are gone. All of them!" He must have been in shock because he kept running out to check on things and I'd have to call him back in. He ran upstairs and told me that it was a mess upstairs, but we still had an upstairs. 

Tom really wanted to go check on our neighbors, but I told him we needed to stay in the room, because leaving it was making the kids nervous and we could check on them in the morning when we could see and know if another tornado was coming. We both tried to lay down, but the adrenaline pumping through our veins made it hard to sleep. Thankfully, the kids all fell asleep quickly and slept all night long. 

April 28, 2011 - The next day was surreal. We got up at about 5:15am and started walking around the house, just taking it all in.  The window by our dining room table had been blown across the room into the kitchen, breaking one of our chairs in the process. The china cabinet beside it - with all my china dishes and crystal - was completely untouched. The fish tank opposite the china hutch was also untouched. I had seedlings growing right beside the window that blew out - and while some got knocked over - they remained unharmed. Amazing.

We walked toward the living room and saw that the door to the attic had been blown OFF it's hinges and completely turned itself around. Up in the attic we found lots of the paper plates and plastic ware that we had been using since our dishwasher was broken. I had hemmed some of Tom's pants the day before and they had been blown up the stairs and dropped on the floor of the attic. Some very important papers I needed to mail off got blown up the stairs as well - but were recoverable in all the attic insulation - and not blown off to one of the neighbors houses like so many other people's belongings. The beam in the roof over our girls room had been broken by something large, but it was fixable and didn't damage their room.

Our Master bedroom had a broken window with glass spread throughout the room. We found a piece of glass embedded into Tom's dresser that we won't be able to remove - but it will always serve as a reminder. All our laundry was in our room ready to be folded and put away - and somehow it remained in the pile I set it in - despite being in the path of the glass.

We walked outside and saw the damage done outside. Tom had parked his Tacoma outside the garage, and the tornado pushed it parallel to the garage. It knocked out a window and put a dent in the side of his truck, but the truck is otherwise fine. My Expedition had a window knocked out of it and some dings in the windshield, but was otherwise untouched.

The chicken coop got destroyed by the twister - but we were able to find all 10 chicks and ducks. One of the ducks had a broken wing, which was sad, but it survived! We called some friends to find out if anyone would be able to take them for us, but we weren't able to reach anyone Thursday night.We decided not to tie our dog Buddy up Thursday evening, thinking the birds would be ok with all the trees and debris covering them, but we forgot how dumb birds are. Buddy had a great time, and when we came to check on him Friday morning, he had found all 10 of the birds as well. Oops - a sad lesson learned by us.

We went back inside after surveying the damage and tried to figure out what should be done. Shock is a weird thing though - and even though Tom and I knew we needed to do something - we weren't sure what to do. Sweeping a floor has never been so difficult for me. I would pick up the broom and sweep a few steps and then just suddenly stop. Thankfully Tom's brother Bill joined us and started working on getting things straightened up inside the house. 

Around lunchtime we decided to get the kids to Bills house - so we trekked through all the downed trees, praying we would get to the main road without getting lost. About 45 minutes later, we made it and Shari took our kids home with her to their house. Then we realized we would need to begin clearing the road. We went back to the house to grab chain saws, then Bill, Tom and I then started to work on clearing the road back to our house. Our friends Ronnie and Marggie came with food and Ronnie stayed to help clear the road. We had been so overwhelmed, we hadn't even thought about eating.

After working on the road for about an hour, I realized that I could request help on Facebook - so I did. By about 5:00pm we had 12 people helping us clear the road. Ronnie would hook his jeep up to a tree and pull it with his wench, and others would cut down trees ahead for him to pull away. Those without chainsaws helped move the smaller branches to the side of the road. Our friend Clint brought one of his heavy machines to help toss trees out of the road about 4pm. We worked until dusk - and when it was almost too dark to see, Clint moved the last tree out of our 1/2 mile road. What a miracle!

I am so thankful God protected us from the atrocities of this storm. It shouldn't have turned out the way it did. But I'm thankful that God protected me and my family - and even chose to protect our belongings as well. What an awesome God we serve.