Williamsburg and Earrings

March 2, 2015

Very tiring day but a good one.

After making the very hard decision to not travel up to Maryland to visit Carl’s family we were stuck with the dilemma of what to do next. Should we go back to North Carolina? Should we stay in town? The decision was kind of made for us as the camper is still stuck in a lot of snow and ice and the campground is still icy. We pulled into this campground at night so we did notice that this section of the campground is the most shaded. The sun does not get to this part enough to melt anything. While most of the campsites and roads are fine, the site we are on is still full of ice and the road where we need to pull the camper out is a sheet of ice still. We decided to stay until Wednesday to give the snow and ice ample time to melt. We have to leave on Wednesday because there is more bad weather coming Thursday and Carl has army duty this weekend.

We decided that we would take the kids to Williamsburg for the next two days. They were not excited at all. They protested and whined and argued and tried to get out of going. Each child ended up having a blast. We went to the visitor center and viewed the movie and then ate some lunch before going to the town. It always works better to pack lunches except the kids are getting tired of sandwiches. I really need to come up with some other portable lunch ideas other than sandwiches. I did buy some pudding cups so that made everything okay. Chocolate makes everything okay.

We were planning on taking the walking bridge over to the town but it was closed. We had to take the shuttle which was fine with the kids as they loved riding the “bus”. Tirzah especially enjoyed the ride. We visited the Governor’s Palace first and had a wonderful tour guide who was very patient with Caleb as he asked a silly question every 3 minutes. She made him feel special by responding to him nicely every time he made a comment. The kids loved the ballroom and Tirzah made me dance with her. When we first told her we were going to a Palace she responded with “You mean my palace.” She is thoroughly convinced that she is a real princess and every princess needs a palace in her mind.

We then went to the stores and trade shops of the town. Esther loved the dress shop and Caleb just had to know where they sold the boy clothes. Across the street we marched to the boy shop as he called it. The boys loved the gunsmith and the blacksmith shops. Tirzah and I stayed out as she was more interested in building snowmen in the snow that was left over from the storms. I think we built about 5 snowmen today. Tirzah is right at the stage where her attention span is short and we had a lot of training sessions today. I spent a lot of time teaching her to stay right by my side and to hold my hand.

We went into most of the shops that they had open today. They were doing some renovation so a lot of things were not open. We did not make it down to the coffee shop which is one of the things Caleb wanted to do. One of the boys told him that he could get hot chocolate there. We had to promise him that first thing tomorrow we will go to the coffee shop. The trade shops closed at 4:30 but Carl had promised Esther a dress and the boys a treat. We raced down the street where Esther had a blast picking out her dress and sash. She picked pink of course. The boys went to go look at costumes but the costumes for boys are a lot more expensive than the girl costumes. Wow! I was shocked. It would have ended up being almost triple the cost of the dress I bought Esther. We had to explain to the little ones that we could not afford that. We ended up walking over to the more commercial section of the town to a general store that sold cheaper things. The boys each got a colonial hat and a civil war hat. They were thrilled.

We had to run to catch the bus back to the visitor center where our next stop was… to get Esther’s ears pierced. She has been asking for so long and we had told her she could at Christmas. With everything going on this is the first opportunity to really go. She tried last night but she was not ready. Today she told us she was finally ready to get it done. It was a stressful process that took almost 30 minutes with her going back and forth. We got the first one in and then she chickened out. We had to spend 10 minutes convincing her to get the other one in. After a prayer and some tears the second ear got done and she was overjoyed. She was so excited that she immediately wanted to call BaBa (my mom). She was so proud of herself and so was I.

We came home and had dinner which was refried bean soup with steak. Delicious. It had been cooking in the crock pot all day long. The little ones are now sleeping and the older boys are reading their bibles. Carl had to run out because the laundry room at the campground was padlocked. Both laundromats in town are closed. He had to run to the store too as I do not have any cotton balls to clean Esther’s ears with.

Busy days but so many memories built. Carl and I are tired but we spent a lot of time working on training today especially with the little ones. I have found that you have to be so consistent with them. I also have been able to work on my patience. Caleb tested me today …a lot and I did not lose my temper once. I was calm and that calmed him down and it did not end up in a huge ordeal. I am slowly learning and so are the kids. Yes, it is a lot of work and a conscious effort on my part to train them but the rewards are so great. They are also SLOWLY learning too. They are realizing that Mommy is trying to please God by not getting angry and that mommy has more joy lately. We have a long way to go, in fact the process will never be over. I hope to continue to grow more in Christ every day.