End of the Season

Charlotte finished up basketball yesterday.  While her team ended the season with a 4-7 record, Charlotte ended it with a great enthusiasm for basketball.  She has asked to attend a basketball camp this summer, so I’m going to see what we can do.  I think the local high school coach offers one at the middle school here in town during the summer, which would be close and convenient!

She ended up scoring three or four baskets throughout the season, which made her something of a sleeper on the team.  Only about half of the girls ever scored, and Charlotte was never guarded very hard…until she scored!  She ended up being a very strong defensive player, and the coach often paired her with girls taller than herself.  She is still not very aggressive, but we were so pleased with her progress.

Jeff ended up assistant coaching, since the head coach was alone.  Here are a few photos of their last couple of games.  Charlotte is number 34.

 

Yesterday afternoon, Charlotte’s coach, Greg Brahman, hosted an end-of-season pizza and basketball party in the gym where he attends church.  He was coaching his son’s 1st and 2nd grade team, as well as his daughter’s 3rd and 4th grade team, so there was a pretty good crowd of players, parents, and siblings.  Charlotte and Elijah had a blast, as did all of the coaches.  The party was supposed to end at 6:00, but we didn’t leave until around 7:00.  All in all, basketball was a good experience!

I thought I’d end this post with a couple of comical pictures.  As I mentioned in a previous blog, Jeff took the kids skiing on Thursday and is planning to take them again tomorrow, so their ski helmets are just lying about right now.  On Friday evening, I heard Charlotte start playing “Fur Elise” on the piano.  As she had already practiced that day, I was curious as to what she was doing.  Not often do my kids just sit at the piano and start playing for no reason.

This is what I saw when I went back there.

After I ran to get the camera and snapped this picture, I heard Elijah start playing.  I snuck back again and saw this.

I’m still not sure what they were doing, but it certainly cracked me up!

Naming Baby

Well, after months of tossing around, eliminating, and picking and unpicking names, we have finally settled on one for our new baby boy.

Drum roll, please…

We are planning to name him Jeremy Dylan Wilkes.

Jeff has been rolling his eyes at my neuroses-driven approach to naming this baby, but this is a name with which we are both very happy.  Jeff is the type of baby-namer who hears the “perfect” name and just knows that it’s the one.  It took him a long time with this one, which didn’t worry him in the least.  He knew we would eventually find it.

Me?  I really wanted this baby named about 15 minutes after our November ultrasound!  After all, we settled on Charlotte’s name within days of finding out she was a girl, and Elijah had been named since we found out we were pregnant with Charlotte.  We evidently had used our only boy name though, because naming this one has been hard.

For me, I wanted something that matched or at least complemented our other boy’s name.  Jeremy is a derivative of Jeremiah; both names are Hebrew in origin and mean “exalted of the Lord.”  Elijah means “Jehovah is God,” so I was happy with that congruity.  Jeremy also has three syllables, like Elijah, and, furthermore (insert eye roll by Jeff here), our children will be named in alphabetical order!

What could be better?!  (More eye rolls by Jeff.  But he’s been married to me and my OCD tendencies for a long time, so it’s all in good fun…I think!)

Today, I picked up some burp cloths that I had had embroidered with Jeremy’s name, so, hopefully, he is, indeed, a boy and doesn’t come out telling us that he’s supposed to be named something else. 

In other news, we picked out carpet last Saturday, and our insurance settlement check arrived later that afternoon.  Jeff got a call yesterday afternoon that the carpet had come in, so hopefully it will be installed sometime next week!  Our basement project is finally back on track.

Last Friday, while I was scrapbooking at a friend’s house, Jeff and the kids set up the crib.  So, Jeremy will have someplace to sleep when he comes home.  Jeff also managed to talk the kids into sleeping in the basement, concrete floors and all.  Amazing, but good for them to get accustomed to it.  Soon, they will have beautiful new carpet (selected by them, with a little guidance from us) and new bedroom furniture, which has to be a world better than what they’re in now!

Maybe, just maybe, we’ll actually be settled in this house by the time the baby comes.  We shall see!

Me and My Bright Ideas

This one actually seemed really good.  And I’m very pleased with the end results.  But I think that it was one of the most exhausting things I’ve ever done…probably not the smartest thing in the world when one is 33 weeks pregnant!

Anyway, I got the bright idea that I should put some meals in the freezer for when the baby comes.  I think that a few people will bring us food, but I just remember how exhausting it is shopping and trying to get a decent meal on the table those first weeks after having a baby.

Jeff is actually taking family leave for six to eight weeks this time around, so, technically, he could take over the shopping and cooking, and he will, to a certain extent.  But after ten years of this being mostly my job, it’s faster and easier for me to handle the shopping and the cooking.

So, I got online and started doing some research about freezer cooking.  All I really knew was that not every meal can be frozen and that certain types of food lend themselves better to the process than others.  In the course of my search, I found a website called Thirty Meals in One Day.  It sells cookbooks and software not only about freezer cooking, but also about how to get a month’s worth of suppers prepared in just one day of marathon cooking!

The software offered all of the recipes in the cookbook, plus functions that could generate grocery lists based on selected menus, could save menus, could print freezer container labels with cooking instructions, and could even have my personal recipes added to the database.  As I am generally a very organized person and am married to someone who specializes in efficiency, this seemed to be the perfect product for the Wilkes family!

Of course, I ordered it and set about selecting recipes and messing around with the software.  The book was extremely detailed, far beyond what the software offered…shopping day, day-before cooking prep, step-by-step guide to getting 30 meals in the freezer on cooking day, which really consists of picking 15 recipes and doubling them.  As suggested, I selected two crock pot recipes, three oven recipes, two stove-top recipes, and nine so-called assembly recipes, which had components that needed to be cooked, but would only be baked after freezing.  All I needed was to set aside a day.

On Monday, Jeff told me that he was planning to take Thursday off and take the kids skiing, something he has been trying to squeeze in since January.  The hamster wheel in my brain started turning:  this was my big chance to have a day all to myself just for cooking! 

Monday evening, I generated my grocery list from my selected menu, which included three of my own recipes that were similar to some in the book.  (FYI, the grocery list generated by the software even divides the groceries into categories, like dairy, canned, deli, etc.)  On Tuesday, the kids and I hit Wal-Mart, which I left with enough food for a small army.  When I arrived home, I started the day-before cooking prep, as I had plans for Wednesday.  This consisted of boiling and chopping/cutting up 14 pounds of chicken, chopping 10 cups of onions, and dicing a bunch of carrots and celery.

I was exhausted.  And I hadn’t even started cooking yet!

Thursday was my big cooking day.  Jeff and the kids hit the road around 8:00 a.m., and I started cooking.

And I cooked.

And I cooked.

And I cooked some more.

At lunch time, I sat down to eat and check email on my iPod, and I nearly fell asleep.  I was about seven recipes in to the sixteen or so that I had selected.  I was starting to have contractions, which, of course, is a big red flag to GET OFF MY FEET!

After lunch, I continued cooking, only this time I dragged my barstool around the kitchen, depending on where I needed to be at any given time.  Also after lunch, I threw out book as far as what I should be doing simultaneously and just concentrated on working through the recipes.

At 5:00, I packaged the last meal for the freezer.  Some recipes made more than double, so I had 34 meals lying around my dining room, finishing cooling to room temperature so I could put them in the freezer.

HOLY SMOKES!

I think that is the hardest that I have worked in recent memory.  I had no idea that cooking could be so exhausting.  I now understand why the friend with whom I spent Wednesday afternoon looked at me askance and said, “I went into labor with my second son because I did that!  Do you have someone close you can call just in case while Jeff is skiing?!”

The good news is that I didn’t go into labor, although if I hadn’t dragged my chair around, I probably would’ve ended up back in the hospital!  The even better news is that this gargantuan task is done!  As long I packaged everything properly, we should be in great shape with food for a good while after the baby is born!

Lesson learned?  Freezer cooking is probably best done when you’re not pregnant.  Will I do it again?  It’ll probably be awhile!

There’s a Light at the End of This Tunnel

And it might not be an oncoming train. Here’s hoping, anyway.

The oven repairman came on Tuesday afternoon, and I now have a working oven! And, even more amazing, the insurance adjuster called Jeff this morning. He says that he is sending a check tomorrow morning for the carpet replacement/installation and will issue a second check for other items that were damaged as soon as we send him what they are worth.

We sent him a loss list a day or two after he visited, but he didn’t tell us to estimate the dollar amount then. Seems as if this whole process would’ve gone faster, had he told us this at the beginning, but at least we know now!

And, as long as this isn’t a classic “the check is in the mail,” we

should be able to pick out carpet this Saturday and set up a date for the installation. Hooray!

The new hard drive should be arriving today or tomorrow, as well. So all is looking better on those fronts.

However, I probably shouldn’t have jinxed the cars. Jeff’s is making a terrible noise, and he’s going to have to take it in.

Nope. I’m not kidding. If I were you, I’d avoid this place like the plague!

On a happier note, I thought that I’d post the kids’ January 25 Tae Kwon Do green belt board breaks. Charlotte broke her board on her first kick, and Elijah broke his on his second. In all previous tests, it took each one at least four or five kicks, so we are thrilled and proud at their improvement! Jeff got to assist in the holding their boards, while I filmed this time.

Talk to you soon!

Wrapping up Washington

Happy Valentine’s Day!  I hope that you’ve had a good one.  For my Valentine’s gift, Jeff bought tickets to watch a Peoria Rivermen hockey game on Friday night, followed by a NeedToBreathe concert…lots of fun!

Before I get back to our final afternoon in Washington DC, I thought I’d catch you up on life here at Chez Wilkes.

The latest big-ticket breakdown around here is our two-month-old hard drive.  Evidently, we got one with a defective mother board that finally played out on Tuesday night.  Jeff had hooked it up on Tuesday for the first time since the flood, and it had worked fine.  On Wednesday, when I tried to turn it on to access some scrapbooking stuff, none of the peripherals were getting any power.  Jeff messed around with it when he got home, with the same results.

When Jeff called technical support, the guy basically told him that we would have to take the hard drive to Best Buy because he couldn’t trouble shoot it over the phone.  So, yesterday, that’s what we did.

The Geek Squad told him that the mother board was defective.  As the hard drive was still under warranty, the good news was that we could basically pick any computer in the store to replace it, or Best Buy could issue store credit.  The bad news was that data recovery was not included in the warranty; we could either pay Best Buy $100 to recover it for us, or they would just wipe the drive before sending it back to the manufacturer.  Or we could take it home, remove the hard drive ourselves, and thereby void the warranty.

Fantastic.  The best news is that the only information on the hard drive that isn’t anywhere else (old hard drive, laptop) is a bunch of scanned items that I planned to scrapbook.  I can always rescan that stuff when our printer/scanner is hooked back up.  We opted for the store credit and ordered a new hard drive this afternoon.

As one friend asked us, what’s next?  A car?

On the bright side, the oven repairman comes on Tuesday afternoon.  I will be very glad to have a functioning oven again.  Cooking with the microwave, stove top, and crock pot is getting difficult.

On the frustrating side, the insurance adjuster has not only not contacted us, but is also markedly ignoring the messages that I am leaving for him.  I guess that he’ll get to us when he gets to us.

Ah, well.  Things could always be worse.

As far as our last afternoon in Washington…when we finished up at the White House, we decided to walk over to the Vietnam War Memorial before going back to pick up our stuff at the museum.  As with everything else, it was covered in snow, but some organization had set up a Christmas tree in its corner, which was covered with thank-you messages from an elementary school.  It was neat.

Afterwards, we walked by the World War II Memorial and the Washington Memorial, trying hard not to fall down on the ice.  Then we picked up our stuff at the American History Museum and grabbed a bite to eat in one of the cafeterias there.  We hit a few highlights, including the original Star Spangled Banner, before heading back over to Capitol Hill.

Once there, we visited the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court building.  While we bypassed guided tours of both places, the architecture and beauty of the buildings made stopping by worthwhile.  The Library of Congress has one of the original Gutenberg Bibles, which was was neat to see.  Both buildings were also decorated for Christmas, as were all of the federal buildings.

Here are some photos of the Library of Congress…

 

…and some of the Supreme Court building.

 

These buildings are designed to look thousands of years old, but the Library of Congress is just over a century, and the Supreme Court was built in the 1930’s.  I find this all kind of funny, since our government was looking for a break from how things were in the Old Country.

After we finished looking around the Supreme Court, we rode the Metro back to our hotel to retrieve our bags and then headed for the airport.  Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:30 p.m., and we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time.  Because of the snowstorm over the weekend, travel was still backlogged, and we didn’t want to run any risk of being bumped because we checked in late.

Of course, a new bad weather system was moving into Chicago, and earlier flights there had already been cancelled.  This added to the number of people being crammed into later flights.  Nevertheless, we arrived, cleared security, and took a seat at the gate.  This was not destined to be the easy trip we had getting there!

We ended up eating supper at the airport and trying not to get frustrated at all the delays.  Finally, our flight boarded about ninety minutes late, and we were headed home.

Our original plan was to get to Chicago by 8:45, drive the three hours home, and be in bed around midnight.  The actual series of events included not arriving in Chicago until 10:30, waiting 20 minutes for the shuttle to our car, and hitting the road in freezing-rain-slippery conditions shortly before midnight, which got us home between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve.  Whew!

And that finally brings me to the end our Washington DC trip, nearly two months after the fact.

Have a good one!

Touring the Big Guy’s House

Well, I think that we’re going on six inches of snow, with no sign of its letting up!  Local schools were cancelled today, which means that basketball practice is cancelled tonight.  (No, our school wasn’t cancelled.  It’s one of the downsides of homeschooling!)  We got out to tae kwon do this morning, and, fortunately, the kids can walk next door for their piano lessons.  But I must say that I am glad to be safely tucked away inside my house, fire going, everything I need right here!  And I’m glad that I don’t live in Washington DC or anywhere else on the east coast right now.

Here are a couple pictures of our winter wonderland…taken from warmly inside our house!

I think that, today and next time, I’ll finish up our long-ago trip to Washington DC!  It’s ridiculous how long it has taken me to blog about this.  I’m starting to forget what we did, which sort of defeats the purpose of writing about it!  (For those of you who don’t know, I use my blog to scrapbook…lousy blog memories equals lousy scrapbook journaling.  Grrr.)

Anyway, on Wednesday morning, after checking out of the hotel and checking our luggage in to the hotel’s storage for later pickup, we started our last day in the city by getting breakfast from a nearby bakery called Au Bon Pain.  The kids had been asking to do this since they saw it on our first day.  I’m not sure if the French name or the prospect of giant cinnamon rolls and chocolate croissants was the bigger draw, but we finally stopped.  And the food was good!

Then, we jumped the Metro over toward the sights.  The only thing we actually had scheduled for this day was an 11:00 tour of the White House.  But we had missed out seeing the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, the Vietnam Wall, and going up the Washington Monument due to the blizzard, so we were going to try to squeeze at least some of those in.

As we were debating whether or not to try to do the Washington Monument before the White House, I remembered that there was a little known sight called the Old Post Office Pavilion, which offered a tower and fantastic views of the city.  So, we decided to do that instead of the Washington Monument.

This turned out to be one of our better ideas.  There was absolutely no line; in fact, there was no one else even there.  Most of the shops and restaurants in the building weren’t open yet, and we had the elevator and the guide’s spiel all to ourselves!  Here is a photo of the beautiful interior of this place from the elevator.

On the way up, we got to check out the bells that were a gift from England in 1976, in celebration of our country’s bicentennial.  I found this a bit ironic, but hey!  We also saw signs about an interesting activity: learning how to ring these bells.  Evidently, it’s lots of fun and requires little athletic ability.  Good to know.

While it was definitely breezy at the top (read: freezing cold!), the day was clear, and we could see for miles in every direction.  The White House is tucked behind the columned building in the last photo.

On our way back down, we finally saw some other people on their way up.  There’s nothing like having the whole place to ourselves!  On our way out, the kids posed for a photo with their “special” snowballs in front of a statue of Ben Franklin, whom we had been studying in school.

 

At this point, we needed to dump our cameras, backpacks, and my purse in preparation for our White House tour, as the only items we were allowed to carry in there were phones, wallets, and car keys.  The Museum of American History was a few blocks from the White House and offered locker rentals, so we hoofed it over there.  This was a bargain.  The museum is, of course, free, and locker rental cost is a refundable quarter!  We pulled out our ID’s and our phones and walked over to line up with the hoard at the White House gate.

White House tours are notoriously difficult to book, as only your congressman or senator can do it for you, and I’d like to offer a big kudos to our congressman, Aaron Schock, and, more particularly, his office staff who really worked hard to get us this tour.  Everything that I read recommended requesting it six months in advance!  As we didn’t have any firm plans until about six weeks in advance, I asked for a tour anyway, figuring that the week before Christmas might be a slow time.

Uh, not so much.  Senator Dick Durbin’s office told us right away that we were out of luck.  In addition, as we were trying to book this tour right after those crazy people crashed that White House party, my brother told me that getting one would be particularly difficult, since the Secret Service was cutting down on the number of people allowed in direct response to that.  Great!

The week before we left, I had resigned myself to not seeing the White House.  But then, two days before we left, Congressman Schock’s office called me to double check our availability.  The staffer told me, “Well, I can’t get you in on your requested dates, but, if you are available on Wednesday, I can book you then.”  It just so happened that our flight did not leave until late Wednesday afternoon, and she had an 11:00 opening!  We were in!

As you might guess, security was tight.  Our names were on a list, we had to show our ID’s several times, and we had to go through a metal detector. (“This isn’t the airport,” a secret service agent snarkily told people.  “Don’t take off your shoes!”)  There were no exceptions on bags; if you had one, you didn’t get past the perimeter gate.

But, after all that, we got to walk through the beautifully-decorated, most famous residence in the world!  Lining the hall into the well-known rooms were candid  photos of President Obama and his family and photos of presidents through the years lighting the National Christmas Tree and standing in front of the yearly Gingerbread House.  (The Obamas’ gingerbread house featured a mini Bo the Portuguese Water Dog!)  And nearly every room had a ginormous Christmas tree somewhere in it.  It was lovely!

Once inside, there was a large cardboard Christmas tree with thousands of cubbyholes all over it.  Visitors were invited to put their fondest wish for Christmas or the New Year on it and stuff it inside.  This was very cool!  We all wrote something down and found four spaces next to each other before heading into the rest of the tour.

At one point, Charlotte asked me if the Obamas ever came into these rooms that we were touring.  I told her that she should ask one of the plethora of Secret Service agents stationed everywhere.  So she did!  “Yep, they can come down here,” he told her.  “But they don’t very often!  They mostly stay in the private quarters.”  Charlotte was well pleased with her inquiry and the agent’s answer.  I think she found him much less intimidating because her own uncle was now a government agent!

Even though we couldn’t take any pictures inside, we had a great visit.  I would highly recommend trying to do this, if you ever get the opportunity.  And, while we couldn’t take any photos within spitting distance of the White House, we managed to get a few outside on Jeff’s phone as we were leaving!

 

Next time…our afternoon and trip home.  Unless something more interesting happens!

Dancing with a Princess

As I type, the snow is once again falling.  The forecast is called for four to seven inches of total accumulation before Wednesday morning.  Sigh.  I like the snow just fine; I think it makes winter in Illinois much more beautiful.  But I surely do hate what it does to the roads before the plows and salt trucks get through.  I think we’ll make it to Tae Kwon Do and my doctor appointment this afternoon, but I’m not sure about anything tomorrow, when the worst of it is supposed to blow through. 

It’s a good thing I’m resting.

Anyway…

Jeff and Charlotte attended a wonderful Daddy-Daughter Princess Ball this past Friday night.  Charlotte, who has never before attended a dance (unless you count my brother’s wedding reception five years ago) was completely enchanted and can’t wait to go back next year!  She has never been a girly girl, so I was wondering how she would take to the whole dressing-up, getting-a-corsage fanciness, but she was beautiful!

Charlotte and Jeff attended the ball with our friend Von Pugh and his daughter Ryann.  Since the Pughs live about five minutes from where the ball was held, we went over there to get the girls ready.  Here are a few pictures.

 

 

 

Jeff also took the camera with him to the ball and was able to get some photos of their special evening!

 

Everyone had a blast!

Then, for something completely different, Jeff, a couple of friends, and their six total kids went to the Monster Jam at the Peoria Civic Center Arena the next night, while I had a lovely, quiet evening home alone, scrapbooking.  Yes, this would be the event with giant-wheeled trucks, smashed up cars, lots of noise and diesel fumes, and more rednecks than you imagined might live in Peoria.  While Charlotte enjoyed this, too (one of her favorite trucks was called Anger Management), she admitted that she liked the ball a bit better.

Whew!

This weekend was dominated by the kids’ activities.  Charlotte had a basketball game on Saturday morning (she scored her third basket), and then we spent a good part of Saturday afternoon at a practice for a Tae Kwon Do event the next morning at a nearby church.  (One of the adult higher-level belts is also a pastor, who does fantastic youth events about overcoming adversity, using TKD as an object lesson.)

Before we left for the practice, the oven repairman showed up.  The computer component of our oven is completely fried, necessitating its replacement, along with the igniter switch and cover panel.  Since the cover panel is not in stock, we are still without a working oven and probably will be until the end of the week. 

All I can do is laugh.

On Sunday, we spent a couple hours at the Rock Church, just down the hill from us, worshiping and watching 59 Tae Kwon Do students demonstrate their abilities.  Very cool!  After the early service at Rock Church, we hustled over to our own church for the late service and then took Charlotte to a newly-formed, fourth- and fifth-grade girls’ Bible study that one of her teachers started, due to requests from the girls.

As I have been praying about trying to find Charlotte a circle of girl friends, this is truly an answered prayer.  They will be studying a book on the Proverbs 31 woman, especially geared for tween girls.  I am thrilled, and she loves it!  Thank you, God!

Then, of course, we had the Superbowl last night.  As we still don’t have a TV, we asked the Pughs if they minded if we came over and watched with them!  Saundi and I made snacks, and we all laughed at the commercials and cheered the Saints on to victory.  (I don’t want to start anything…we mostly rooted for the Saints because they were the underdogs and had never even been to the Superbowl, let alone won one.  The Colts and Peyton had their chance a few years back!)

And then Jeff had to go to work today to get some rest.

But it was a good weekend!  It felt productive, in spite of the business.  And while it may seem as if I ran around a lot, I actually spent most of my time sitting in the car, sitting in church, sitting on the couch.  Hopefully, my doctor will give me some insight on how to deal with the rest of this pregnancy.  As I hope to avoid straight bed rest, I’m trying to be still as much as possible!

Have a good one!

The Reindeer Is in the Fir Tree

Here’s a quick update before I explain the title of this post.

I am still having contractions if I stand up or walk around for more than about five minutes, so I try to spend a lot of time sitting down.  I’m finding this surprisingly difficult, as I guess I don’t spend a whole lot of my day sitting down.  But I’m doing it.

Tonight, Charlotte and Jeff will attend the Daddy Daughter Princess Ball.  Charlotte picked out a lovely dress last Friday, which is in itself rather stunning, since she doesn’t like “girly” things, as a rule.  But this dress suits her, and she thought that an evening out with her dad, dressed to nines, complete with dinner and dancing, sounded like fun, so off they’ll go!  I picked up her corsage this morning and am looking forward to having some cute photos to post soon!

I am planning to attend a Ladies’ Night Out at church with a friend, while our sons are at her house with a babysitter.  (Her husband and daughter are also attending the Ball.)  I suppose I’ll stake out a chair and sit down for the evening.

Anyway, back to DC…

After Thad’s graduation, we (meaning Zech, Alyse, and the four of us) grabbed a quick bite to eat at a nearby Potbelly Sandwich Shop.  This was a fun experience; it’s one of those places where you shout out your order from pretty far back in the line, tell what you want added farther up, and pay before you sit down.  It was a fairly quick and inexpensive way to have a decent lunch.  Afterwards, we caught the Metro to the stop closest to the International Spy Museum and proceeded to visit one of the most entertaining places in Washington DC.

I had mentioned to my brother Thad that we were planning to go there, and he told me, “Hey, I think I heard on the radio they’re running a special right now.  If you tell the person at the ticket counter, ‘The reindeer is in the fir tree,’ I think they’ll give you a discount on your ticket.”

Of course.  Secret code.  Spy museum.  Makes perfect sense!

Of course, being the people that we are, Jeff and I tried to research this before we went.  I guess we didn’t want to feel foolish in front of someone we’d never before met and whom we would never see again.  But we never found a concrete answer as to if this would really get us a discount.

Nevertheless, we hopped in the ticket line, and, when it was our turn, Jeff inquired, “Are the reindeer still in the fir tree?”  The lady behind the counter flashed us a quick grin and replied, “Yes, they are!” and proceeded to give us a 25 percent discount off our admission.  (On an $18 per adult ticket, this was quite a bit of savings!)  Since it worked for us, Zech and Alyse asked, too, and were also given a discount.

Very cool!

I took no photos in this museum, but I think that this was in our top three for this trip.  The International Spy Museum tells the history of espionage from ancient to modern times.  It is chock full of spy equipment, straight out of James Bond, fascinating short films about how spies perform surveillance and gather information, and small rooms dedicated to quirky subjects, such as poisons and passenger pigeons.  There were headphones where we could listen to other museum-goers conversations, because bugs were planted nearby, and an air vent to crawl through.  There was a tricked-out Aston Martin, a la James Bond, that Elijah could have watched all day.  The kids were over the moon in this place, but the adults were equally fascinated.

One of the neatest aspects of this museum is that every person could pick a “spy” identity before entering the museum proper.  We had to memorize our personal information and our mission and then check in periodically at kiosks for new information and to answer questions about how well we were performing our missions.  Since the museum wasn’t overly crowded, we were all able to do this pretty easily.

There were also exhibits of spies in movies and famous 20th century spies, like Robert Hanssen, how much damage they caused and how they were finally caught.

It was absolutely fascinating, a terrific way to spend a few hours.

By this time, we all were pretty beat, especially the two pregnant ladies, so Zech and Alyse headed back to their hotel.  Our family stopped back the White House Visitors’ Center, as the gift shop was open, to buy a couple of books that we had not managed to find elsewhere.  (Come to find out, it’s because they are published by the White House Historical Association.)

Then, we headed back over to Zech and Alyse’s hotel, where we met up with Thad and my dad for supper.  We used Jeff’s handy-dandy iPhone to find a nearby restaurant and ended up eating at the fantastic Thai Kitchen, right across the street.  It was another night of great food, great conversation, and great times with family.  As we are uncertain when we will next see Thad, we particularly enjoyed our time with him!  And we all got great entertainment in watching Elijah try some of Uncle Thad’s super spicy rice!

Afterwards, Thad drove us back to our hotel (very nice, much better than riding the Metro again), where we fell into bed exhausted.  Wednesday would be our last day in Washington DC, and we had our White House tour scheduled…yippee!

When It Rains

I’m not sure what kind of weird cloud that Jeff and I are living under right now, but we are sure ready for it to float away from us.

I’ve told you about the flooded basement.  We’re at the same point with that as we were last week, although we have returned the dehumidifiers and had a carpet guy out to give us an installation estimate.  We’re also still waiting to hear back from the insurance adjuster.

Our latest adventure is that I spent six hours in the hospital last night, due to contractions that wouldn’t quit.

My mom came for a surprise visit last Friday, and she, the kids, and I were shopping at Wal-Mart.  As I walked around the store, I started getting contractions.  As I have been having contractions off and on for about four weeks, I wasn’t overly concerned at first.  Usually, all I had to do was get off my feet, and they would quit.

Well, as I was hurrying to get my shopping done so I could sit down, the contractions started getting closer together.  But I finished up anyway, drove home, and put my groceries away before finally lying down.  I guess I’d been contracting for about two hours at that point.

After lying down for an hour, the contractions were still coming, so I called my doctor’s office around 4:15.  As it was late in the day, the nurse told me to go straight to Labor and Delivery at the hospital so I could be monitored for a few hours.

This is not unprecedented.  I had this same issue with Elijah when I was 28 or so weeks pregnant with him.  That time, they hooked me up to an IV, got me hydrated, and told me to take it easy.

Nevertheless, I called Jeff, left Charlotte and Elijah with my mom, and drove myself to the hospital.  By 5:15, a triage nurse had checked me in, put me in the triage room with three other beds (I was the first to arrive, although the other three beds were occupied before the night was done), and hooked me up to a fetal and contraction monitor.

Then, a midwife examined me and took a sample for a test to determine if I was at risk for going into labor in the next 14 days.  Fun, fun.

After Jeff had gotten lost and taken a foot tour of many other sections of the hospital, he arrived around 6:00.  (OSF St. Francis is a huge, sprawling place, with much of it still under construction.  And the best parking is a 10-minute hike and and elevator ride away from Labor and Delivery.)  Shortly thereafter, the nurse confirmed that I was, indeed, having contractions every couple of minutes, hooked me up to an IV to get me hydrated (after telling me than my veins were terrible!), and gave me a shot of some sort of steroid to help stop the contractions.  (Evidently, it’s very effective on asthma, too.)

This shot was awful.  It made my heart race and my hands shake, and I swear I could hear the blood  pumping in my body!  It must be sort of like what speed is like.  Why on earth would anyone want to feel like that on purpose?!?!

And then, it was hours of lying there on my side, waiting for the contractions to stop to my doctor’s satisfaction.  I finished my current book (Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, the sequel to The Hunger Games; I highly recommend both!)  I played Free Cell and Solitaire on my iPod.  I asked for a snack around 7:00.  At 9:00, the nurse ordered me a food tray, on my doctor’s orders.  At 9:30, because the meal and the lying there and the fluids and the first shot had not stopped the contractions, I got…oh joy…a second shot!  Sometime in there, the resident on call told me that my test for going into labor in the next two weeks was negative, which was excellent.

Finally, by 10:45, my doctor was satisfied that my contractions were, if not stopped, at least way slowed down, and I was cut loose.  Jeff wheeled me out to the parking lot, and we drove home, arriving about 11:15.

Whew.  That certainly wasn’t much fun.  But I was very grateful not to have to spend the night.

When we got home, we discovered that our oven was broken.  This would be the brand-new gas oven that we bought upon our return from France.  My mom had been baking supper, when POOF!  It just quit.

Fabulous.

The soonest a repairman can come is Saturday afternoon, between noon and 4:00.

Fabulous.

I guess I’ll see what meals I can make in the crock pot and microwave.

As for today, I have been trying to take it easy and drink lots of fluids.  I’m fine if I’m sitting down, but I do start contracting again if I spend any time on my feet.  Luckily for me, I can conduct school and talk on the phone entirely on my rear end, so that’s what I’ve tried to do.  I can’t say I like it much, but, as the alternative of a ten-weeks-premature baby is truly horrifying, I’m not going to complain!  Much.

Anyway…I’m not going to ask what will happen next.  Or if things can get worse.  I’m going to hang on, keep praying, and trust that God does have a plan in all this!  It, too, beats the alternative!

Maybe next time, I will actually tell you about one of the coolest museums in Washington DC.  I can hope!