BEACH FUN!

Yesterday we spent the day at Indiana Dunes State Park.  We decided that the name of Lake Michigan should actually be The Michigan Sea.  

IT'S GINORMOUS!

We were on the southeastern side of the beach and could see the Chicago skyline faintly in the distance.

After they got used to the clear, cold water, the kids splashed and played all day.  

Caleb mostly ate sand and watermelon

The water Lily Anne is standing in, is from a creek that flows down from the oak forest above the beach.  The oak trees drop acorns, branches and leaves which have tannins in them which make the water the orangy color you see in this pic.  The lake water was very blue and clean. 

Sarah got cold, so we buried her in the sand with a monkey floatie for a pillow... if only we had some peeled grapes to feed her!

Abbie being too cool for this floatie!

My Biggest Boy and my Baby Boy 

We left for home sleepy, sandy, sunburned, and happy. 

Love, love, love the beach.

p.s. there are ALOT of rules at this beach. For the amount of time and man power spent enforcing these rules they could have had enough life guards to open the other parts of the beach and let people use whatever floaties they want.  I kept feeling like, You have got to be kidding me!  This is a BEACH, PEOPLE! Lighten up!

Learning Curve

We went to Walmart this afternoon and met the nicest family, we nicknamed them "the Blondies" because they all had blonde hair.  With five children, older teens down to babies, we saw them first at Chick fil A then at Walmart, I told them we were stalking them ;-).  They were vacationing at the State Park which made me wish we would have stayed there.

Part of the learning curve of living on the road is finding our style, what we like, what we don't; what we can afford, what we can't and figuring out what makes one place feel like home and another feel like yeah-lets-get-outta-here-asap!  Since we scheduled a mailing here we have to stay, but I think we are going to leave as soon as it arrives.  The state parks have bigger spaces, more families, and a fun feel to them and the current park feels like we are living in someone else's yard.

In other news, I bought a couple of the important things I need for my trip. 

And...

So now that my priorities are straight I can go :-)

Thank you all so much for your prayers.  I truly have felt a release of the fear and have begun to try to focus on the heart on why I'm going.  

God needs to sell our house and provide us a new one so we can fill it up with whoever he has for us.  

I think I'm going on a fact finding mission.  

Creation Museum, Petersburg, KY, Prepare to Believe

Oh wow, I am pretty much speechless, so I'm writing a blog post, lol!!!

We just left The Creation Museum I feel saturated with truth, and hope, and boldness!

My kids are asking questions about sin and salvation, origins and the future.  

If you have to choose between this and Disneyworld for a vacation, choose The Creation Museum.  It's not as big or as expensive, but the quality of the exhibits and the TRUTH your family will take away from this are invaluable.  

First of all I want to thank the two families who gave us passes so we could enjoy the museum FREE OF CHARGE! You read that right.  What would have cost us around $200.00, was provided for us for free.  All tickets are two day passes so we will be going back tomorrow to see more!  It definitely takes two days to take it all in. 

From the first display replicating the "Lucy" bones found in Africa to the last exhibit we experienced, the planetarium, God's word was the cornerstone of all the information presented. 

Questions were raised about all the information which is so often presented as fact.  How many times have you read or heard, "Millions and millions of years ago...". We just did recently when we visited Mammoth Cave, the Ranger who led our tour authoritatively informed us that the caves were ten million years old.  In contrast, when he talked about what happened in the caves a few hundred years ago, he was more vague and willing to admit he didn't know how work was done by native peoples or how certain artifacts that were found in the caves were used.  There was no question however, when he explained that the caves were formed over millions of years by underground rivers.  

At The Creation Museum, there was so much to see and absorb and we were encouraged to ask questions and seek answers in God's Word.

Emily's favorite was The replica Garden of Eden which was absolutely beautiful.  Considering the pre-fall condition of the world was a new experience.  Imagine a world without pain or death.  Stop. Really imagine that. It was perfect, and it's where we are headed in the future in the new heaven and the new earth.  Lions lay down with lambs, it happened once, it will happen again, and you will want to be there!

Or maybe the espresso stand was Emily's favorite!

Doug's favorite was Walking through the life size Noah's ark where we considered that Noah was given a huge project by God to do.  He was faithfully obedient to Gods instruction resulting in the salvation of himself and his family.  God judged the entire planet, but provided a way of escape for the righteous who obeyed Him.

Ben's favorite was the planetarium where we flew through the skies and felt like we were really In a spaceship seeing the planets and stars.  It prompted the kids to ask, "If there are so many galaxies, what makes Earth so special?" While we don't have a perfect answer, we can consider that because God sent His one and only Son here to die for mankind, He thinks the inhabitants He created for Earth are pretty special.

At the dragon exhibit we observed the connection of the phenomenon of dragon lore across the centuries and the continents, presented creatively with concepts of young earth and dinosaurs cohabiting with humans. This was both educational and entertaining.  

We got to hear Buddy Davis talk about the T-Rex and how interpretations of it have changed over the years.  Archeologists and paleo-artists are really part detective, part artist and much of what they create is interpretive. We made our own t-Rex sculptures from green clay, straws, and toothpicks. 

Finally at the end of the day, we met Ken Ham the founder and creator of The Creation Museum.  We were able to thank him for his work, tell him about the big billboard in North Houston we were excited to see go up, and take a few pictures with him.  Being in the presence of believers was a breath of fresh air, a sigh of relief, and a sense of renewal.  

Visit www.creationmuseum.org and start planning your trip today!

**Updated with Pics! Rocky Top Tennessee? More Like RAINY Top!

Today we drove through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and climbed to the top of Clingmans Dome... 

In the rain.  

It was so lush and so beautiful.  The only downside to the rain was the lack of visibility.  


Well that and the fact that we were wet... 

We were not nearly as wet as we could have been though.  You see, we wore these lovely blue Great Smoky Mountain garbage bags, I mean rain ponchos, which we purchased at the National Park store,  to keep the rain off of us.

Poor Lily Anne, She was "told"

Doug, my husband, kept telling people we were celebrating National Blueberry Awareness Day or alternatively, National Trash Bag Appreciation Day.  Besides the obvious fashion statement, the other side benefit was that they trapped in the heat keeping us warm AND dry.  It was pretty chilly up there.

We are TOO COOL for Blueberry Bags!

For those of us with, ahem... issues with heights, lets just say the wind blowing our poncho like a parachute while we climbed up the corkscrew ramp to the top of a spindly tower, was a bit unnerving.

My determined little Sarah Bear

Everyone made it though, even the little ones.  One of my favorite times was walking with Sarah who is five, hearing her say over and over,  "I can do it!  I can do it!"  Walking uphill, up a mountain, for a half mile feels a whole lot farther than walking half a mile. 



Caleb was in his element. We had to wake him up from a nap when we arrived at the park and I was concerned that he'd be grumpy.  Nope! Not a bit! He LOVED the stroller ride up the mountain so much that people coming down, towards us kept commenting on his smile and giggling!  He was literally giddy, more so than we've ever seen him unless someone is actively ticking or playing with him.  So put mountain climbing on his list of activities he loves, along with swimming.

While we were driving down the mountain, we were sobered as we were stuck in traffic due to an accident which was being cleared.  Folks had seen a Mama Bear and her cubs crossing the road, they tried to swerve, so they wouldn't hit her and they lost control flipping their SUV, according to the man in the car behind us.  We saw the SUV and it looked rumpled, but not destroyed.  We prayed for that family and for our safety as well.  
Whew!  We will always remember our hike in the rain in the blueberry ponchos to the top of Clingmans Dome.

It seems that the only sure thing about this trip is that nothing works out exactly according to schedule or plan.  Learning that its not a bad thing, it's just a thing, is the challenge.