Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

(I'm experimenting in this post with putting the pictures before what I'm talking about in the text.  Let me know what you think.  I'm not sure I'm a fan.)

We camped.  And let me tell you, if you want to go camping, then the Upper Penninsula is your place!  There are more places to camp than places not to camp, I swear.  Pick a spot.  Just don't assume it'll have indoor plumbing, electric hook-ups, or running water.  I was actually really impressed with Miciah, who used the bathroom facilities first.  She came back and excitedly declared that the bathroom was actually pretty nice!  "I can do this," she said.  I assumed, then, that it was actually pretty nice.  No, it was a permanent shack built over a port-a-potty.  On my first visit to that same facility, I smiled and said out loud to myself, "I love my daughter."

We fished.  I was previously unaware that Rob actually knew how to fish.  He'd told me so before, but I assumed he meant, like, he can put a hook in the water just like I can.  No, no.  The man has fishing skills.  He knows how to do things related to fishing that I didn't even know were things you'd need to know how to do.  I was impressed.  (And also surprised that 13 years into marriage I'm still finding out new things about my husband.)  

We ate some fish.  The kids insisted that they keep a few fish to cook and eat.  This was funny because the fish they caught were best measured in millimeters.  And when it came right down to it, they had a hard time stomaching the actual killing and eating process.  Still, Rob cleaned and cooked two microscopic blue gill.  Everyone got a taste.  I just died laughing.  All that work for a few bites of average-tasting fish?  In fact, the whole fishing thing was hilarious to me.  I kept saying to Rob, "You think this is worth it, right?  ...  Okay, then."  Fishing is kinda fun and relaxing.  Fishing with kids is markedly less so.  But they all loved it.

We chased waterfalls.  On a day-long voyage that included singing that waterfall song while our kids listened perplexedly, we went to as many local waterfalls as we could shove in.  We saw a lot of the area that way, and it was all gorgeous.  By the end of the day, we were pretty exhausted.  We visited 6 or 7 waterfalls in just a few hours.  On the way back to the campsite, we convinced the kids to stop by one last place(s):

Worth it.

We went on a boat tour.  It's pretty clearly stated that the best way to see the rocks was from a boat, and not from the hiking trails or lookouts.  This was our big ticket item and man, was it worth it!  If you ever go, DON'T SKIP OUT ON THIS ONE!  Well worth the $20 a piece ticket price.  (We have lots more pictures of the boat tour, but you can find better pictures with a Google image search.  Which I suggest you do.  Because the place is amazing.)

We hiked.  After the boat tour, I convinced the family that we should take a hike down to the beach where a stream ran into Lake Superior.  I had seen people playing in it, having fun.  No one was playing in Lake Superior, but they were playing in the mouth of this stream.  Plus, the captain of the boat said that we HAD TO go wade in Lake Superior.  He declared the water warm at this time of year.  He is smoking crack.  The water was 65 degrees.  We touched it, just to say we had.  Then we played in the mouth of the stream because it was really warm - like bath water.  Perfect.

We almost got eaten alive by mosquitoes.  On the hike back (3 miles each way), we hiked fast fast fast.  We had, of course, brought bug spray: 25% Deet.  We left the 99% Deet in the car because, don't be silly, we won't need it.  Well, when you're hiking beside a place called Mosquito River, here's a hint:  There might be a lot of mosquitoes.  I was at the front of the pack, hiking super fast.  Every time we stopped, the mosquitoes swarmed.  We re-applied when they were nestling into Teancom's hair while he was walking top speed.  I was super proud of the kids, though, they kept pace with me and didn't complain.  The hike in had taken us a few hours (we stopped for pictures, etc.).  The hike out took 45 minutes.

Here's an after shot:  

Miciah in particular wasn't happy.  "But it was worth it, right?  The beach was awesome?!"  ...  "Suuurre."  They'll thank me later.

We brought home contraband rocks.  You aren't supposed to take these out of the park, and I had intended to give the kids a speech about how we are law-abiding citizens who follow rules and protect our parks, and that's why these rocks will stay right where they are.  And then we got to the beach and saw the rocks.  The pretty, pretty rocks.  They were mesmerizing.  We all found ourselves with our pockets full in about 3 minutes flat.  Those rocks are like The One Ring.  I swear it was impossible not to pick them up.  We all picked our 5 favorite to bring home.

We ate pasties.  As we drove into the U.P., we kept seeing signs saying, "Fresh Hot Pasties."  At first I thought it was a typo - a missing 'r'.  They must be advertising cream puffs and danishes.  After the 3rd sign, I decided that pasties must actually be a thing and that we ought to try them.  (For the record, you don't pronounce it like 'pastries' without the r, but like 'past' with a -y stuck on the end.  Also for the record, you sound like an idiot to the locals when you can't pronounce it right.)  They were pretty good; we went back for seconds.

We ate wild blueberries.  They were everywhere and they were delicious.  Surprisingly so.  We didn't eat the wild mushrooms, though.  It's a shame we didn't know which ones were edible.  You could live off them, there were so many!

We touched Lake Michigan.  On the way back home, we stopped at a rest area that was inches away from the shore of Lake Michigan.  Which means we had to touch the water.  Holy cow, it was like 20 degrees warmer than Lake Superior!  I don't really know how much warmer it is, but the water was really pleasant.  Like, I would have gotten in if we'd had the time, and if you know me, that's really saying something.

We didn't shower for a week.  Sunday - Friday.  When we arrived at Rob's parents' house on Friday night, the kids were ready to just hop in bed.  We forced them all to take a shower first.  Us, too.  It was kinda funny to me because for a few days after that I kept saying to Rob, "What's wrong with my hair?  It just feels wrong.  It's all bouncy and stuff."  And that's when you know you've been camping too long.  :)

Still, I immediately started trying to figure out how to get the Upper Penninsula into my future.  It was kind of magical up there.  We will definitely be going back.

And that's it!  That was all our trip taking for the summer.  We went to the Southern and then the Northern extreme of our country.  Fun!

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, the back story and sum up

At the end of the last school year, Miciah mentioned to her teacher that she liked camping.  The teacher said, "Oh, then I know a place you'd love.  It's called Pictured Rocks."  She then showed Miciah pictures and Miciah came home chatting us up about this place and how we should go and how fun it would be, etc., etc.

Well, I'd never even heard of the place.  Yeah, the pictures looked cool, but where was it?  Michigan?  By Lake Superior?  Umm, big deal.

We looked into it.  There was camping, sure, and hiking, but according to the website, it was cold most of the year, even in summer, and the water was FRIGID.  It said repeatedly, "Don't go in it.  It's dangerous."  And this is from the website that's trying to advertise all the cool features of the Park!  We decided we'd skip any canoeing, kayaking, or swimming ideas we'd previously had, and just do the boat cruise along the shoreline.

In short, this was a trip that we planned for our daughter because she was excited.  Also, because we'd never been there before, in fact we'd never even been into Michigan beyond the Detroit airport (I just assumed Michigan looked like more of Ohio), and because we like going new places.  And the pictures did look pretty cool.

So, with such a simple trip planned, now we were only waiting for the time and money.  Last year it didn't work out, obviously, but this year we decided to go for it!  The Florida trip was awesome, and it didn't cost us much (once Rob's work reimbursed us for mileage, we spent less than $100 out of pocket - for everything), so we had the money left for Pictured Rocks.

IT WAS AMAZING.

I fell in love with it and by the end of the week, I was so sad to leave.  Seriously, I almost cried when we got back to Cincinnati.  Who knew that Michigan's Upper Penninsula was SO GORGEOUS?!  Rob said, "See?  Cincinnati is pretty, too.  With these trees and all the houses and the city."  I looked at him with a pained look on my face and said woundedly, "Please don't ever say that again."  Rob was trying to be funny, but I had hardcore fallen in love with the U.P. and was already trying to figure out how quickly we could get back there.

Not that Cincinnati isn't a lovely place.  I like Cincinnati, and I do think it's pretty here.  But the U.P. spoke to my soul.  There's just ... something about it.  I can't describe it.  But I need that place.

Pictures and a short re-cap to come.  (There isn't much to re-cap.  We drove there.  We camped.  We hiked.  We looked at waterfalls.  We did a boat tour.  We came home.)

A Soft and Cuddly Man

I was missing Rob in Key West, so I found myself a new man to cuddle with:

He was super soft.

Key West

I spent last week in Key West.  And there's one main reason that I haven't written about it before now:  I had to determine if I actually went, or if it was only a dream.  I have decided that it's a good thing that I brought home souveniers, as physical proof that I was gone.  Else it would have felt very unreal indeed.

First:  Why did I choose to go to Key West as opposed to say, well, anywhere else in the world?  Well, my good friend, J, lives there.  We wanted to get together after not seeing each other for a very, very long time, and I told her she could come here to Cincinnati, which she was very willing to do, OR ...  I could go to Key West.  By myself.  For a week.  Sold.

I won't detail my trip.  But I am going to post some pictures (stolen from J, who took all the pictures while we were there), and give highlights.

Highlight 1:  On the plane ride there, I spoke with a fascinating woman who owns 2 cats.  Also, I saw a clearing in the forest that was shaped like a conversation bubble.

Highlight 2:  On the plane ride back, I stood up at the end of the flight and bumped my head on the overhead compartment thing.  People behind me were sympathetic, but I said, "It's okay, I'm short."  I'm only an inch or two taller than the bottom of the overhead compartments, and I tend to hit my head on them a lot--I'd say 4 out of 5 trips.

Okay, now on to the real highlights.

It was nice to be able to just chill!  I got to talk to J, think about life, sleep for 12 hours straight, and do nothing.  During the down times (and thankfully, there were a lot of down times), I looked at the ocean.  J lives 118 steps from the water's edge (I counted for Miciah), and so everyday I would look out at the ocean and I discovered that it was never the same color day to day.  Sometimes it wasn't the same color moment to moment.  Gray, gray-blue, emerald green, light blue, darker blue.  I can now no longer define the color of the ocean.

Key West is further from mainland Florida than I supposed.  And locals refer to the drive to Miami as The Drive, which cracked me up.  But makes sense, right?  Cause you can only drive out of Key West one direction.

Also cracked me up:  Key West claims to be the Southernmost Point of the continental United States.  Like someone forgot to tell them that they're an ISLAND.  ...  Key West is only 90 miles away from Cuba, and I didn't know that.  That's like Cincinnati to Columbus!  Crazy.

We decided to walk all the way around the island.  It was my idea, so I take full blame for the fact that we were worn out all the rest of the week.  But it's such a small island:  4 miles by 2 miles.  You GOTTA walk around it!  I was surprised by the fact that there are very few beaches.  Mostly it's just land and then, umm, water.  A lot of times it was road and then water.  It was very strange to me.  Here's one of the actual beaches on Key West:

Even the beaches, then, only have like 5 feet of sand.  I guess I just expected it to be beachy.

We went and saw a bunch of stuff.  There's a treasure museum that we went to which sings praises to Mel Fisher.  Mel Fisher was crazy and a treasure-hunter, and even though he lost his son and daughter-in-law during the searching process (and as a result of it), he kept searching and eventually found his El Dorado:  2 sunken 1620's Spanish ships with immense amounts of gold, silver, and other unimportant things of historical significance.  You can see lots of those things on display in the museum and you can even purchase some of them in the gift shop (like the gold snuff box we saw, yours for the low low price of $65,000), which only goes to show that Mel Fisher is still racking up cash.  He was kind enough, though, to let us lift this real gold bar without paying extra.  The markings on it--the stamps--were very cool:

Mallory Square at sunset was awesome.  Locals come and give performances and then guilt tourists into giving them tips.  We were not conned by their "give me money because I just entertained you" act because I did a quick calculation and realized that the good ones are making more money than I do.  The good one we saw was juggling fire sticks while standing on a 10-foot unicycle.

One of the bad ones was strumming an acoustic guitar, butchering American Pie, and standing right behind us as we watched the sunset.  For half an hour.  It was torturous.  But the sunset was beautiful.  Check it out:

and:

While watching the sunset from the shore, we decided that we NEEDED to get on a sunset cruise.  Boats go out about an hour before sunset and arrive back at shore about an hour after sunset.  This was, hands down, the best thing we did.  (Right here I have to put in my plug for traveling sans kids.  A $40 sunset cruise is MUCH more manageable when you're only paying for 1 person.)  For so many reasons.
Neither J nor I had ever been on a boat on the ocean.  So here's for firsts!
The sunset was gorgeous:

We also got to watch a couple get fantastically drunk.  They were old enough to be our parents (I'm guessing they were in their early 50's).  She was dressed in a cute black evening dress, and he was in khaki shorts and a floral print button-up shirt.  He started the trip by saying, "Will we have to duck under the sail?  Because my reaction time is a little slow right now."  Right.  By the end of the night they were "dancing" on the "dance floor."  They were the ONLY ones dancing.  He had his shirt unbuttoned (For the love of all that's holy, WHY?) and she was touching him all over while they -puke- danced.  Gross.  I wished I had video taped the whole thing so that I could show them the next day how RIDICULOUS they looked.  Be glad you didn't see it.

Despite the fact that this Plastered Couple almost made me hurl, the sunset cruise was fabulous.  We got to talk to the captain of the boat, and that was fascinating.  He's been in Key West for 16 years, minus the year he moved with his young family to Wisconsin to try to make it there, in a more family-friendly environment.  Shockingly, there is little need in Wisconsin for sailboat captains.  One of my favorite nuggets from Captain was the fact that it can get cold on the ocean over the "winter."  As he said, "I have to wear a sweatshirt and wind breaker.  And sometimes, even socks and shoes."  The pinnacle of cold in Key West:  Needing to wear socks and shoes.

I asked lots of questions about the Keys, because the history--both human and geological--is fascinating.  For instance, Key Deer.  A subspecies of the white-tailed deer, they only exist on the Keys.  But how did they GET there?  ...  I mean, doesn't it make you curious?  ...  Well, turns out that the ocean used to be 50 feet higher than it is currently.  Then it dropped to 300 feet LOWER than it is now.  What had formally been the original reef became the Keys.  All kinds of animal life went down the new, now-connected land mass.  Then, as the water levels rose again, the animals fled back to the mainland, but some of them got trapped, and there you have the Key Deer.  Neat, huh?

As for human history, the fact that the Keys exist as a tourism location is amazing to me.  In the 1800's, a guy decided to build a railroad line all the way from Miami to Key West and everyone thought he was crazy.  But he was rich, so he did it anyway, and it totally worked.  Eventually they paved it over to allow for car travel.  Fortunately, parts of the old bridge were destroyed during a hurricane, so they updated it with a bridge that's much wider.  You can see parts of the old bridge, and it's so narrow that it makes me nervous just THINKING about driving across it.

Oh yeah, plus the crackpot Hemmingway lived in Key West.  And Pres. Truman loved it, too.  And that's that.

So, all in all, a great trip.  I learned that people go to Key West to get fabulously drunk, and I hadn't known that before, so I feel less ... naive now.  I learned that the ocean is beautiful, no matter what color it is.  And I learned that Cincinnati is also beautiful, just different.  When the plane got below the cloud line, and the rolling hills of Cincinnati came into view, the trees exploding with fall colors, ...  I was home again.  Hurray for vacations.  And hurray for coming home.

Announcements and an update

Rob's Class

Rob just called me after teaching his first class at NKU. So it's official. ... The class is a Basics of Biology lab for non-biology majors. Plus, they're taking this in an accelerated, 5-week format, so probably most of the students wouldn't be there if they didn't have to be (it's a required course). But Rob's excited about teaching it, nonetheless. It's a 2-hour class, 3 times a week, and Rob gets the first 10 minutes or so to introduce material for the day. So it's not lecture-heavy, which is probably good, since he has little time to prep.

We're gearing up for 12 hour days, and lots of weekends worked. ... At least we only have the next 5 weeks to worry about.

Vacation Plans

And then we're going on vacation!! For those of you who don't know and who are interested (which might be a whole 3 of you), this is our rough outline for the trip (note that these days are NOT set in stone, but it should go down pretty close to like this):

July 3rd - leave for Yellowstone

July 5th - 11th - Family Reunion in Yellowstone

July 11th - July 20th (or so) - Time in Utah

July 20th - mid-August some time - Rob leaves us. Time in California

mid-August some time - leave CA for a long, leisurely trip back to Cinci, including a longer stay in St. Louis, where I grew up. Hopefully Rob will re-join us for that part.

August 16th or so - arrive back in Cinci

Yes, we are driving.

Rob will leave us after Utah and fly back home. Then me and the kids will head to CA for some time at the beach, etc. After that my mother will drive back across the country with me and the kids (plus cousin D). This was my MOTHER'S idea, I will have everyone know. She's the crazy one. But it'll be fun. Definitely a summer to remember and never repeat.

I'm excited to show my kids Yellowstone. It's one of my favorite places in the world. Not that I've been a ton of places in the world, but of the places I've been, it's one of my favorites. There's just nowhere else like it. We will be camping in Yellowstone that whole week, so it'll be an adventure.

Graduation - Ceremony and Party

Rob graduates next Friday, June 12th. For those of you who are sad to miss the ceremony (yeah, right), Rob has informed me that you can watch it live on the internet. So here's the link:

http://www.uc.edu/ucvision/event.aspx?eventid=223

The doctorates are awarded in a ceremony that starts at 10:30 am.

For those of you who are happy to skip the ceremony but who would like to help Rob celebrate his achievement, there will be a party that evening at our house. 5:00 pm - midnight (or whenever you'd like to leave). It's a potluck. We'll be providing meat: hamburgers, hotdogs, and brats and mets. And all the fixings for hamburgers. Everything else is potluck. So bring stuff you like to eat. :)

Our Spontaneuos Weekend

We had a fabulous weekend. Rob was pre-feeling the crunch of a busy June, so we did lots of fun stuff this weekend to pre-make up for it. For the second weekend in a row, we camped out in our backyard on Friday night. Had a tin foil dinner. Stayed up late talking by the fire. It was great. We had invited people to join us for a spontaneous camp out in our backyard. No one ended up showing, which is totally fine. It was just fun to be spontaneous.

The next day we took a drive to test the car top carrier that we'll use for our vacation. We borrowed the carrier from someone who hasn't used it for years, so we checked it for water-proof-ness, and then took a drive on the highway to check the straps and stuff. Took the kids with us. Driving to nowhere in particular. We decided to turn around at an exit near Indiana that just happens to be the same place you'd exit to go to a fun park.

So we took the kids to the park. Ended up staying for a few hours. Rob got all spontaneous on us (I LOVE when he's spontaneous, so he tries hard to be spontaneous at least once a year) and we rented a paddle boat. Paddled around this cute little pond. Saw lots of ducks, including about 20 baby ducks, and baby ducks are adorable. All 20 baby ducks were with one female duck. We wondered if she was babysitting.

We ended the weekend by attending a spontaneous pot luck picnic dinner. Met some new friends and hung out with old friends, too.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend, full of fun and spontaneity. The spontaneity wasn't on purpose. It just happened that way.

(Yes, I was trying to be funny with the last comments.)

Pictures

Now that that's all out of the way, I'll post some random pictures from May.

We babysat a baby, and Teancom thought the portacrib looked inviting. So for a few nights he went to sleep in it. I thought it was cute, and I had to take a picture:

My lilacs in full bloom, early May:

Rob's little brother got the lead in a play. He'll be portraying Nephi. So, in a late-night moment, Rob made these Nephi faces: (You're welcome, Garrett.)

(And, yes, that's Rob's belt around his head.)
Teancom, all ready to play outside in the rain:

I just loved that it was warm enough out that he could go outside without pants. Him in no pants, a jacket with hood on, and bright green crocs. What's cuter than that? And you can be jealous of my outfit-picking abilities. It's okay.

The kids have been playing outside a lot. We brought out the kiddie pool and by the end of the first day, a week ago, they were both lobsters. Teancom was a red and brown lobster, and Elijah was a red and white monster. The boys have been taking turns wearing the floaty stuff, too:

And wearing it backwards. Totally funny.

July Happenings (an update)

Teancom as he normally is: sucking his fingers, holding his ear, and tilting his head.

D's Baby Blessing

Last Sunday we were able to be there when DT was blessed. The T's defected to Kentucky and so are no longer in our ward. So we made the short trip down there. Thankfully we were able to attend the blessing and be back for our own meetings. Not that I'm a glutton for punishment (more church, really?), but Rob was conducting our meeting, and I was teaching Primary.

Which brings up something interesting. I team teach the Primary kids with a friend. She is a much better teacher than I am, no question. I feel like I get absolutely nothing taught to these girls. They're 10 and 11-year-olds and they are squirmy and I'm not sure they hear anything I say. :) But one of the girls said I was her favorite teacher ever. So I'm thinking either that she doesn't remember any other teachers, or there has to be some other criteria for making a good teacher. Because CERTAINLY it's not that she's learning a lot from me. :) I haven't figured it out quite, though.

That same Sunday of D's blessing was the baptism of KC. Rob was able to conduct that meeting, too, which was an honor for him to be able to do. Usually it's the Bishop who does that, but in this case he was filling his role as father, so Rob got to conduct. It was great to be able to participate and be there. The 2 youngest don't really get much out of stuff like this yet, but Miciah did. There was another baptism that was announced for this last Sunday and Miciah arranged to be able to be there for that one, too (I told her I had to take the boys home and wouldn't be able to stay). That was completely unprompted by us. It's nice to have such a thoughtful daughter.

5 Signatures

Rob came home last Tuesday with a piece of paper that has 5 signatures on it. That's the 5 people on his committee that had to approve his earning his doctorate. Rob came home and showed it to me. Then he remarked about how strange it is that after 4 years of hard work, it all came down to 5 signatures on a piece of paper. Rob is now Dr. Thacker, and that feels really nice for him.

The re-write ended up equalling about 5 more pages for his dissertation. We'll get it bound soon. I almost don't want to do it, since it's not cheap. But someone looked at him and said, "When else in your life are you going to write a book?" :) We'll get it bound.

Carter Caves Trip

Bodies: the Exhibit

Wednesday morning we set off on our mini-vacation, just me and Rob. We dropped the kids off and went off to the Museum Center to go see Bodies. We watched the imax movie that went with it. The movie was fantastic!! It showed stuff ultra-close up and in different ways. They showed food going down the esophagus and entering the stomach (seriously gross). Then followed the mush of stuff as it went down the intestines, met with bile (truly, it made me not want to eat for weeks). They showed the inside of the lungs (how do they do that?), and that was really really cool. Then they went inside the heart and it was so amazing that I cried. Wow. At the very end of the movie they showed a birth scene, very tactfully done. You didn't see any woman parts, and when the baby was born the doctor wiped it off a ton before you even saw her, so she looked like a human instead of a purple-grey gross thing. It was so amazing to watch the birthing process that again I cried. The movie was moving and amazing. I suggest everyone go see it.

Bodies: the Exhibit was pretty good, too. My favorite part was the baby room. They showed tiny, tiny 4-week-old fetuses (you could hardly even see them!), up to near-full term babies. It was amazing to see them. Other pretty cool things:

1 They had the digestive tract all laid out on a wall.

2 The blood vessel specimens were dang sweet! Seeing an entire body in just blood vessels. Cool.

3 Looking at the cross section of a non-pregnant woman's female parts. Holy smokes, babies should NOT have to fit down a hole that small!! Amazing.

4 They did an anti-smoking campaign. Showed some nasty smokers' lungs and then said, "Each pack of cigarettes takes 3 minutes 40 seconds off your life. Leave your cigarettes here and never smoke again!" Then they had a big clear box with a slit on the top for people to leave their packs. The box wasn't very full, and I wondered if the box was just a display. At the end of the tour, the lady said they'd emptied the box 3 times already since the show opened.

5 It was neat to go with Rob. For him, this was like a refresher course. I didn't realize he knows all the stuff he does. It was fun to ask him random questions about the human body and have him know the answers.

Carter Caves

After leaving the museum center, we drove down to Carter Caves State Resort Park. We were there around 7:30 p.m. and set up camp. The site we first got was a lousy, lousy site in the middle of everything. Close to the bathrooms, people walking through or right by the site every few minutes. No good. Rob went back and asked if there were any other sites we could have. The lady at the desk said that one of their most popular sites, 102, was open. It was set back into the trees a little and was pretty out of the way. On Thursday our immediate neighbors left, so we felt like we were camping all alone, and that was cool.

Thursday morning we woke up and went caving! I told Rob that caving wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be, but I'm not sure what I was expecting, either. We went first through a cave where you could walk, mostly. The next one we did some crawling and it was a little wet, but then opened up into a cool "waterfall" (meaning, water was falling from the cave ceiling).

Then we walked to the cave called "The Birth Canal" where Rob got stuck during Scout Camp. I told him I wanted to crawl through and take a picture of him at the opening. First off, we were at the mouth of the cave and to the right was a large opening that you could walk into. I started walking towards it and Rob says, "No, that's not the right way." He points to the left and there's an opening barely big enough to crawl through. I looked at him like, "Yeah, right." He was serious. I asked him if it was an tighter than the cave we'd just been through. He said no. He is a liar! It was not only tight in places (Rob was belly-crawling, and I almost was. Probably should have, but come to find out I have mental issues with belly-crawling), but in other places you had to crawl through cold water and/or at least 6 inches of muck. Rob had told me about the water and the muck. But until you experience it, you have no real idea.

I took the pictures of Rob at the opening. We took a throw-away camera with us, and who knows if it survived. It wasn't waterproof (we could choose either waterproof or flash, but not both, and what good would it have done to be waterproof but not flash inside a cave?), and we abused it pretty good. I'm taking it in today to get the pics developed, and if they turned out, I'll post them here.

I also measured the opening that he got stuck in. The hole he was trying to get through was 9.5 inches high! Insane. It was small enough that I didn't even want to go through it. Though the idea of going through the hole was more appealing than crawling back through the water and muck. Water on bare hands is painful.

The last cave we went through ended us up at a waterfall, and that was cool. It was about a 5-foot drop off the ledge to get down, so I'm glad Rob was with me. It would have been scary to do on my own. Dropping almost my entire body-length onto a surface that is not only uneven, it has running water on it? No thank you.

Funny things I found out about myself from caving:

1 I already said this, but I learned that I have mental issues with belly crawling. For any reason at all. During the part where I probably should have belly crawled, I instead stretched out my body a really long ways and sang a song to myself with the lyrics of, "I don't want to belly crawl. I don't want to do it."

2 I had forgotten how fun it is to get dirty! I was a tomboy growing up and I got dirty and wet and gross all the time. I laughed at girls who thought it was awful to do those things. At the first spot where I encountered the muck, I looked at Rob like, "I don't think so." But by the end, we were both covered in water and muck, head-to-toe. And as we were walking back, it all came back to me. The freedom of allowing yourself to get so yucky. It was awesome.

3 I am now a wuss. Flat out. Rob took me through a good progression of caves there. Had he started me out on the cave we ended with, I would have not been happy at all.

4 I am not uber-adventurous when it comes to caving. We would come to a part of the cave that got pretty tight. Rob would say, "Why don't you squeeze through and see if it goes somewhere." I'd look at him like, "And, WHY?" No thank you. I don't have to be the person who amazingly fits through a 3-inch opening. I'll let someone else have those treasured moments.

Camping

We spent the rest of the day relaxing. We ate lunch, which was a mini-adventure because we forgot all 3 of our camping-dedicated can openers. Rob opened a can with his pocket knife, and I'm probably retarded, but I was not even aware that you could open a whole can that way.

We took naps. We read books. We talked and talked and talked. I kept looking at Rob and telling him, "It's nice to know that I like you!" We knew we liked each other, of course. But it was nice to have moments that were just about me and him. No kids. No obligations. We know that we like each other as parents. We know that we like each other in a crunch. But it's nice to know we like each other just for who we are without any of the other stuff that makes up life. We still like being together. We still like talking. It was therapeutic.

Ripley, OH

On our way home Friday we stopped by Ripley, OH, which is a town famous for it's involvement in the Underground Railroad. We parked down by the river in the old section of town, on Front Street. I wouldn't mind retiring in a place like Ripley. It's beautiful. Anyways, the John Parker house wasn't open (due to illness, the sign said). So we read the sign outside the house, then took off from there to find the staircase up the hill to the Rankin house. Holy smokes! The hill was awful. :) We were tired before we'd even reached the start of the staircase. Then the last part of the hill, up at the top, was super-steep. A wooden staircase that kept weaving back on itself. Wow. I kept thinking, "We are healthy, young people. We aren't barefoot. We aren't being chased. We don't have a small child with us. It's mid-day. This isn't life and death." It was hard enough to do without any of those things! Rob kept saying, "They probably were in much better shape than we are, though." Probably true. But still.
We didn't realize that the Rankin house would cost money (we should have, of course), and Rob didn't bring his wallet. So we turned around and walked back down the stairs. We would have had to do that anyways, to get back to our car. But it was a bit disappointing. ... My calves were burning before getting down the wooden part of the staircase. We had to stop a lot. It's a huge hill. We drove back up to the Rankin house, paid our $3 a piece and took a look around the house. It was a pretty small house and the Rankins had like 13 kids in there! Craziness.

The history wasn't new to me, since I've read Beyond the River (everyone should read this book. It's a fascinating history). But it was fun to walk around there with all that history around you.

The funniest part, to me, was this: The staircase was not well marked. In fact, it wasn't marked at all. We walked up the hill to a spot that seemed likely to be where the staircase would start, but couldn't see it and weren't sure which way to go to find it. We asked directions from a man sitting on his front porch. ... So here we are, two white folks trying to get up Rankin's Stairway to Freedom, and we have to stop and ask directions from a black man. Something about that made me want to giggle. It seemed perfect.

I love Rev. John Rankin and his family. If we were ever to have another boy, I would name him Adam Lowry. Adam Lowry was Rankin's eldest son and his "conversion" to the cause of abolitionism is a fabulous story. And his involvement in the movement, wow. ... In fact, had I read the book 3 months earlier than I did (Teancom was just born when I read it), Teancom would probably be named Adam Lowry.

Home

Back to life! The kids loved staying at the W's house. Miciah swam and swam and swam. The kids picked blackberries. Elijah got to finally watch Spider-Man 3. :)

Teancom's Birthday

We had Teancom's 2nd Birthday party on Sunday with R & C and the B family. L and Teancom are bestest buds (L will hug him around the neck from behind and Teancom will look at me, smile, and say, "Hug me." Totally cute). We had cake and ice cream and celebrated the life of a cute little boy. He's growing up!

Here's Teancom checking out his cake, right before we cut into it:


Miciah and Elijah in a pretty good picture of the both of them. Elijah is actually smiling, that's a plus. The red box he's in is the toy box that R & C have at their house specifically for my kids. Elijah got in it and told Teancom that it was a present for him. Teancom came over and "unwrapped" the present. The present was Elijah.


Elijah makes funny faces for pictures usually. This was my favorite of the series for the night.


The fabulous R & C.


Elijah and his best bud, A, watching TV. R turned on "cool cars": drag racing. The boys thought it was awesome. I just kept watching it thinking, "Who is insane enough to do this?"


This is baby N. I watch him for a few hours a few days a week. He's an excellent baby.

Rob's New Job

Rob had his first day as a Children's Hospital employee. Monday and today were orientation days. Tomorrow will be his first day actually in the lab. ... Rob came home and proudly showed me his new work badge. The first thing I noticed is that his picture showed him with facial hair! It was the Monday after Scout Camp. He didn't know they were going to take his picture, and if he did, he probably would have shaved for it. :) But what Rob was trying to get me to notice is that under his name is listed 3 little letters: PhD.

Congrats, Dr. Thacker!

We love you all. Thank you for all your support and love and patience during the last few months. We needed it.

Rob, Tamra, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom