The Creation Musuem

Last week we visited The Creation Museum. I had heard great things about the museum but was not sure what to expect. I had asked around on facebook and off facebook. I got lots of great tips! 

Right now Creation has free kids tickets and the adult tickets are ok for 2 days admission. Everyone had suggested we take advantage of both days. 

Entrance to the museum. 

Some historical artifacts and little snippets of info, that a momma with 5 kiddoes did not read, but a happy son absorbed.

Entrance to the History Section

We arrived very travel weary on Friday and did a short walk through, got some brochures and an idea of what we wanted to do. There were quite a few buses there, but we must have hit it just right because we did not encounter crowds as we walked through the main museum. 

We started out by watching the show "Men in White" which was a humorous show giving a glimpse into the debate between evolution and creation that many kids encounter in the "real world". 

The kids were fascinated by these skeletons...

After the "Men in White" show, we headed to the Planeturium. We had purchased tickets on our way in. It was worth the extra money spend! We sat in these cool reclining seats and watched the show overhead. Now if you must know, I find this type of science, INCREDIBLY boring. My children however were mesmerized. All I remember is how comfortable those reclining seats were! If I can convince Lee to type something up for me, I will have him share all the fun things he learned! 

This was a lifesized dinosaur dig. 

Meet Adam... 

Creation Scientists... 

They had these listed throughout the history walk. One side says "man's word" the other side says "God's Word"  and then it goes on to show what man teaches vs what the Bible says. 

Who is Lucy? Tell me in the comment's section. 

Sin entered the world through Adam and Eve. 

This was really cool... The garden of Eden was beautiful! 

The Tree of life... 

We were able to walk through this long curving "hallway" that started with Creation, then the Garden of Eden, followed by the conversation with Eve and the Serpent, portraying when Sin came into the world. 

The kids did not like this part. The beautiful garden, then the ugly darkness of sin, death and hard work. 

This for some reason is one of their favorite stories... The story of Cain and Able.

Noah's Ark. It was very real and very cool. It showed how Noah and His family entered the boat, some ideas on what it must have been like, what they ate, what they did etc... 

The  boys were fascinated by this. The people all drowning and the last few hanging on for dear life.

Then we continued on to the idols of Babylon... 

The older 2 and I spend a good bit of time in this area, discussing God's thoughts on slavery, why slavery exists, why people treat each other the way they do.. 

We ended that section of the musuem with a short video of "The last Adam". It was an amazing video portraying the life and death of Adam. Which would have been very interesting, had I not needed to keep my attention on squirmy children! 

After "The Last Adam" show we meandered into the Insect. The kids loved the little talk the guy did. I was fascinated by all the bugs! 

Next we headed upstairs to see the Dinosaurs.  This part of the musuem was no handicapped accessible. We decided that a small boy could probably fit into this guy's mouth. 

The kids were getting tired and were getting pretty tired. This part of the museum was much less packed and it was much easier to explore at our own pace. 

We finished up our inside tour of the Museum and headed out to tour the gardens and the petting zoo. 

The kids asked me to take this picture of them in the pavilion. 

Lee took a picture of the dinosaur topiary. 

The camel ride.. the ridicoulous $5  a person ride... I remember riding an elephant as a child. I simply had to let them ride. 

They loved it! 

We headed to the petting zoo where we got to see the zorse and the other strange animal, whose name escapes me at the moment! 

Good by Creation Museum.
We learned so much on our trip. I believe this will be a place my children will never forget. It has changed the way I look at a lot of things. It was very educational for me, as well as the kids. We have had many interesting discussions since the trip and I feel much better equipped to answer questions.

Have you been to the museum? What tips would you offer others who are planning on visiting? 

Friday Encouragement

God cares about every detail of our lives.  He wants us to pray about the small things and the big things. He wants to walk with us as we go through daily life. 

He wants to be the one we breath a prayer to when we are tired. He wants to be the one to catch us when we fall. He is our strength  when we can go no more. He is the one steadying the steering wheel when you hit that puddle of water in the highway. He is the one sending His angels to protect you. He wants to protect you.

God cares about your struggling marriage, your difficult finances, your challenging children, your broken heart. He cares about the broken faucet and the sleepless nights..

When you are down on your knees, when it's to hard to keep pressing  on, when you are to weary to keep fighting, when life is HARD, God is there. He may not be answering the way you want, He may feel distant. But he is there, he cares and He has a REASON for this. A reason... Your pain is not in vain. He makes us and molds us, until His hearts desires are our hearts desires... if we let him. 

1200 miles in 4 days...

This past week we took a long road trip to Ohio.  We traveled 1200 miles over 4 days.

We rented a van, as my van has two missing seats to accommodate Nesiah's wheelchair.

We rented this van from our neighbors. A chevy 15 passenger van. We picked it up and loaded all our bags on Thursday afternoon. The kids were hanging out in it from the moment I picked it up! They were sooooo excited! 

6 pm Thursday evening we left my house, we picked up 2 families and one friend's brother. We had 2 couples, one young guy, 2 infants, 2 toddlers, 2 - 8 yr olds and 2 - 9 yr olds. I was the one and only driver for this long drive! 

 

We drove all night, through heavy rain and traffic. Finally around midnight traffic and rain eased and traveling went much faster! The kids did really well. The big kids slept, the little kids slept and ate, the men sat in the back talking about land shopping or cows or something,  while us ladies chatted up front! We made one stop for gas and a potty break at about the 5 hr mark!! The kids thought it was great fun to have a midnight snack! We finally  arrived at our destination at 2:30 am!

We stayed at my friend's aunt's house... We walked into the house at 2:30 am, snuck upstairs into the reserved bedrooms. #plaincommunityhospitality
 The big kids went right to sleep, so quickly in fact that my boys missed the fact that they were "GASP" sleeping. IN. A. GIRL. BEDROOM with PINK FLOWERS!
However "someone" wanted to play and because of the "needed playtime". I did not go to sleep until 5:30 am. Thankfully "playtime" did not involve screaming and everyone else was able to sleep! Thankfully that 25 ounces of syrupy strong coffee keep me fully functioning!

Elizabeth who was sleeping with me, woke me up at 7 am to tell me she was itchy... sigh. No more sleep for the momma. Now the dreaded part. I had to go downstairs and meet our hostess! I was grungy and tired. I had slept in my clothes for those few hours I had slept. Not exactly the most pleasant way to meet new friends!

Thankfully my friend (who had slept at another relative's home across the street from us) had stopped over to talk to Mrs. L, so she was able to do introductions.
But what a fascinating family!!!  This family is conservative, they dress a lot like the horse and buggy Mennonites but they have no electricity. The house was immaculately clean and very beautiful, but simple.
Mrs. L had prepared a breakfast casserole, cereal and milk along with fruit and yogurt for us, the table was set and everything was set out for us. There was no one around when I opened the door to the main floor. I hesitated until I heard voices around the corner...

I peeked around the corner into  a small room filled with medical supplies, 2 wheelchairs, a hospital  bed, a suction pump and the most adorable, freckle faced, blond 9 yr old boy. His momma was combing his hair and straightening his clothes.

We had an instant connection. This momma, who has 3 children in heaven, who had the same genetic disease that Little L has, was loving caring for him, while chattering away to us. She did not seem the least bit frazzled to have 5 extra people for breakfast and finished her care of Little L before serving us. We had the most interesting conversations about our loved ones in heaven and our loved ones who require 24 hr care. I was absolutely blessed by this family's kindness and our conversation. 

Soon it was time for us to move on to our next stop, The Creation Museum. That will be a post all of it's own! So we piled kids into the car and headed off to the museum. Tired momma, tired kids...We were so excited to be on vacation, but our bodies simply wanted to sleep! 

We enjoyed our time on vacation and then headed home on Sunday morning!

This time it was with much less enthusiasm and energy. lol
We left at 10 am. My kids were silly and grouchy before we ever left...

(we were not driving at this moment)

We traveled 2 hours before stopping for a potty break. It was hilarious to watch people's reactions as we climbed out of the van in some rural Ohio town, first there was several men wearing jeans and suspenders accompanied by 2 black boys wearing sweats and t shirts. This was followed by several covering and dress wearing women with little ones, finally here comes a white momma wearing jeans and a tshirt, accompanied by 2 little black girls, everyone filed in, used the bathroom then filed right back out. #weprovidedtheirsundaymorningentertainment

We drove several more hours before we stopped for lunch right before getting on the dreaded turnpike! I had packed sandwiches and snacks for the kids so I took them to the gas station while our passengers ordered subway.

Another "huh" moment.. we pulled up to the gas pumps, the kids piled out and were goofing around waiting for me to fill the van. I was standing off to the side. This young black guy pulls up beside us, car thumping, hat sideways, drawers drooping, he hops out, looks at my kids and my van, then peers around the pump to get a look at me. The look of surprise on his face showed that he CLEARLY was not expecting to see a large white woman answering to "mom" from these beautiful children. My children were not amused when I nearly collapsed with laughter. They were sure he was a gangster who was about to rob us.

We filled our gas tank, emptied our bladders and headed back to pick up our friends, ready to travel our final leg of the journey. We had brought hours and hours of audio books. However the babies did NOT like when we played the cds. Little E. was quite unhappy for the majority of the trip. However her crying kept the other lil one quite entertained. The kids all did really good until we were about an hr from home. Big boys got silly, big girls got nitpicky, little boys were screaming, babies wanted out of carseats, parents were sick of traveling and whining kiddoes... I put the peddle to the metal...  we arrived at our first drop off in a little over 7 hours after we had left Ohio.

It took me another hour to drop everyone off, refill the van with gas, unload our junk and return the van. I was simply exhausted, but ran to get Nesiah, who had stayed with a friend. (I managed to break her wheelchair which is yet another story for another post) I had planned to pick up fast food for the kids, since there was not much "quick fix" food in the house, but I forgot my wallet! At 9 pm, I finally had all my kids under one roof and by ten everyone was sound asleep with full bellies!

This was def an adventure my children will remember for life. We had fun and I really truly enjoy traveling with my kids. I love that we have the flexibility to travel and hang out with all different kinds of people from all walks of life.


My favorite comment from all weekend... our hostess had expressed distress at what to feed my "African american" children. I responded with they are really "Amish-African-American children" and their favorite food is chinese!

Remembering....

This past Monday would have been Mr.'s 38th birthday! YIKES! We celebrate every year by releasing balloons to float to heaven! This year things were just a bit crazy, we had been gone all weekend and then spend half of Monday at the specialist's office. But I managed to pull it all off last minute! 

On the way home from the specialist office I stopped at A.C Moore and picked up a helium tank to blow up the balloons. I had forgotten my wallet so I only had a enough money for the tank.
So I had to go back out to the grocery store and get balloons. (I needed formula too!)

I had asked my sitter to make pizza for us, but there was no wings. Our traditional meal is wings and pizza followed by the balloon release! Grandma E came over to join us in the balloon send off. 

Lee helped me blow up balloons, Elizabeth and David tied strings on each one. We blew up 30 balloons! 

We wrote a message on some of the balloons. I was simply going through the motions, through my extreme exhaustion. So it was not the typical fun celebration. 

But everyone joined in, even Nesiah! 

Lee tied these balloons together to represent Mr. and I! ;) 

We invited the neighbor kids to join us in the release! Oh what fun it was!! 

On count of 3, we released our balloons and watched as they slowly drifted heavenward... 

We watched until they were long gone, far off in the horizon. The kids argued over whether or not they will actually reach heaven or if Mr. will see them from heaven! 

My love, gone but not forgotten. Even 7 years later with people who have never met him, we celebrate him. We celebrate the love he brought into my life. We celebrate the joy he brought into life. We celebrate and we remember.

To tired to blog...

I have a ton of pictures to post of our trip to the creation museum. Unfortunately I am still recovering from all that driving..

Then coming home and dealing with real life...

So sometime soon, I will hopefully have the energy to post!

I drank 4 cups of coffee today.
I hauled sand and wood chips. I babysat.
I was blessed by a friend who brought chicken for dinner.
I hoed my garden.
 I was blessed by a son who made mashed potatoes, beef gravy and corn for lunch.

Nesiah IEP meeting

When Nesiah came to us a month before her 4th birday, she had already been in foster care for over a year. She was a sweet girl, but had very little interaction with anyone or anything around her. She refused to hold anything in her hands. She hated crowds and loud noises. She could barely sit on her own. She was not able to bear weight on her legs. They said she was blind. She did not acknowledge her new siblings. She cried only when she got mad at therapy. She constantly whacked her throat with her fist.

When Nesiah was born, she was a happy, easy going child. She was above average when she turned two. But less then 4 months later, she was injured. She has a NONE ACCIDENTAL BRAIN INJURY.  The PC term for attempted drowning..
Her brain was severely damaged. She was hospitalized for 3 months. When she was finally released she needed a g tube and total assistance with every moment of her daily care. She was in an excellent foster family from that time until she came to live with us.


My first visit to all her specialists, I asked lots of questions. I wanted to know what to expect, what to work for etc.. I was told, we are 2 years post injury at this point we do not expect any further progress. She will never walk, eat by mouth or even really acknowledge and show you love. She will be in a vegetative state for life. Her brain wiring was all killed off by lack of oxygen. Picture a computer and all the devices it is connected to, now imagine if all those wires were cut. Yup that is her brain.

Her dx: Traumatic Brain Injury, Tonic Clonic seizures, Cortical Vision Impairment, Gtube...


6 months after being with us, I took her to get an evaluation so we could get services and assistance for things like wheelchair lifts and adaptive toys... the lady came out and was shocked to see how happy and attentive she was. She informed me that very few people with brain injuries to this extend are able to enjoy life. Most become trapped in themselves and do not respond to their environment. Already we were seeing the hand of God in her life!


Once I got an education on sensory issues, she was able to calm down and interact with her environment much more.

Nesiah has grown so much. Despite the Dr's advice I went ahead and started feeding therapy. It has a been a long road, but she is now eating 78 % of her meals as pureed food eating by mouth!

We had  her IEP meeting last week. These are her current goals! GOD IS GOOD!

Goals currently include, identifying familiar objects, choosing and eating a large variety of pureed foods, walking enough to make her life easier, learning to use the toilet, identifying herself in a photo, intentional play with a toy instead of just shaking or tapping it.

We are excited because she has both at school and home  been seeking out and intentionally "asking" for attention from a busy adult. She occasionally copies phrases or songs... She has cortical vision impairment but, she has an amazing vision therapist who helps her learn to work with what she CAN see and adapt.


Nesiah knows her sisters and brothers, she is jealous when I sit down to rock. She love Miss L her friend at church. She loves to sing and can actually carry a tune, but we can never get her to work with us. It is always her own little song. :)

Nesiah got to be an angel at our Christmas program!

We are seeing God heal Nesiah. One step at a time. It's a long slow journey. But the progress is evident. Nesiah spend the weekend at a friend's house while we traveled. This friend was amazed at the progress we have made just in the last month. She was happy and calm, relaxed and interacting better then ever! 

Mother's Day

Mother's Day cards from my kiddoes! They made them at church and handed them out after church!
I also got 4 certificates of things they are willing to do for me.