Greetings from Indiana-Again

We’re in Indiana again, again past Indianapolis, but this time halfway between Indianapolis and Louisville, KY. It’s been a long week and we have 9-10 more hours to go tomorrow, but so far Operation Iowa Road Trip 2007 has gone pretty well.

Haven’t Decided if This is a Low-Light or Highlight:

· During the current worm obsession as Grace’s and Johnny’s favorite movie is “How to Eat Fried Worms,” hearing Johnny whisper to me that he has worms in his pants and discreetly pulling back his underwear and sure enough seeing about 10 colored rubber worms just hanging out with Johnny's privates. All day. To steal a line from the movie: "Boys are so weird."

Low-Lights:

• The weather. We knew it would be sweater and jacket weather but we didn’t expect it to be hat, glove and coat weather. We took advantage of yesterday’s heat wave (41 degrees) and spent about 45 minutes outside.
• Minor kids’ illnesses. Pink Eye, throwing up, stomach aches. But what do you expect when one kid swallows a piece of rubber “spaghetti ball” and the other eats 4 dinner rolls and 3 cupcakes within an eight-minute span?
• Little physical activity + too much sugar and fast food. Seven days of no exercise and bad eating habits make one weak.
• Riding a total of 36 hours in a car with restless kids who aren’t asleep. Kids who make a game of throwing everything in the food basket to the “way back” and then a few minutes later decide they’re hungry and thirsty and wonder where the snacks are.
• Dial-up Internet access.

High-Lights:

• Hotel stays. Watching tv in bed is a luxury for us. And we never get tired of free breakfasts, even when it’s cold sugary cereal and bad coffee. And the fact that Grace successfully jumped from one bed to the other without landing in the middle. That was a big deal.
• The fact that Grace named her new stuffed cat “Chicken.”
• The tie-dyed looking Easter eggs that we colored from a new kit that Grandma Mo picked up where you roll the eggs down the patches of dye.
• The Sopranos season opener. And the fact that Millie watched it with David and me and liked it. Any 80-year old woman who can sit through an episode of the Sopranos and not flinch any more than the rest of it is ok in my book.
• Spending the day with Millie cooking southern-style green beans (that we hand-snapped…while David was with the kids for a five-hour wild goose chase in Des Moines tracking down motorized cart batteries for his dad. But that’s a whole ‘nother story) and my very first rump roast that people at her birthday party raved over.
• Seeing the kids immediately warm up to their cousins (whose father is really my kids’ first cousin, which means his kids are their first cousins once removed, because their grandmother is David’s sister, and have I ever mentioned I love figuring out how everyone is related?)
• With our family just being there, and the 10 bouquets of flowers that were delivered yesterday and the party at David’s sister’s house with lots of great homemade food and memories shared between guests and Millie and Mille and guests and the fact that she is really the most remarkable 80-year old woman you could ever meet, that she said, and meant it, “This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”