Sand, Sewing & Escaping the T-Rex - 2

On our last day with Stoeltings, we took the children to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The sound of the waves and the gulls, the warmth of the sun, and the gentle breeze coming off the lake are hypnotizing.  The sun makes the sand scaldingly hot, but a step off the beach blanket periodically awakens one enough to enjoy the rest.  You don't want to fall asleep at the Dunes, you must be awake to recoat yourself with sunsceen every hour or you'll crisp painfully. 

The children find endless things to build, explore and collect at the Dunes. Some years we’ve come home with buckets of smooth little stones. This year, they happily engineered sand castles and canals for three straight hours. Kay started to bury Aunt Michelle in the sand, but he funny thing about being buried in sand by a child with ADHD is that she only gets your ankles covered before she's distracted and off to another activity.  The Dunes are my favorite of all the Northwest Indiana places to visit. 

I pinned and Grammy sewed all the blanket bindings.

 On Wednesday, Stoeltings packed up their car and drove home. I spent the day sewing with my clever mama. We had found fabric for summer weight blankets at my favorite fabric warehouse a month earlier, and she taught me how to bind the edges in ribbon. It took the bulk of the day to get all four done. That darn fabric was pretty slippery, but it was chosen for its tacctile qualities, not its ease of use.

John got called into a meeting so, we left Thursday morning to go with him to Milwaukee and then home. The Tardis gave us a good solid scare on the north side of Chicago when it suddenly stalled-out on the expressway. John coasted to the shoulder and we sat alternately praying and calling roadside assistance while buffeted by the draft of very fast traffic on our right. Roadside assistance couldn’t figure out who was authorized to bring a tow truck to that area, but God provided much better help. After about 15 minutes of rest, the Tardis engine turned over and roared back to life. We put more oil into her at the next exit and the rest of the trip was uneventful.

The children and I spent the afternoon exploring the Milwaukee Public Museum. It was very much a “look but don’t touch” kind of place. Interesting natural history exhibits, but my crew prefers hands on and the whining began after an hour. My silly Emma found the animal reproductions in the museum very creepy and I lead her through most of the diaramas with her eyes closed.  Actually I dragged her through them with my arm around her shoulders while she shuddered and protested and shed a crocodile tear or two.  Grrr. 

Fortunately, I was able to cajole all of them along, pointing out various things of interest, until we came upon a well-lit room full of crystals.  That room was the children's Holy Grail, and we spent a long while in there picking out their favorite jewels and reading the names for every single one.  

After failing to convice Emma to come see the dinosaurs next (even though she lived for them as a toddler; and snuggled a pointy edged, scarey looking T-Rex to sleep each night; AND played 'families' with a set of plastic dinosaurs which she called her "sweeties"), so after failing to get her to come see these dinosaurs, I rounded the corner to the darkened T-Rex exhibit and found Kay hiding behind a doorway loud-whispering “Shhh, or the T-Rex will eat us! Hide, Mama, hide!” She, Ian and Tara were taking it in turns to sprint from cover to cover to get past the T-Rex without its notice.  It was my favorite moment of the whole day and I'm very thankful for the camera feature of my phone.



"Shh!  Or the T-Rex will EAT us!!!"  Ian makes a break for Kay's hiding spot.



Evidently if you make my children bored enough, their imaginations kick in.  That's a useful bit of knowledge for my arsenal.

  

Hiding from the T-Rex, getting ready to break for the upper level.