Explore: Blue Ridge Tunnel Trail

One of our recent excursions took us to the Blue Ridge Tunnel Trail. We chose the Afton entrance.

I packed our lunch and we headed over.

There were slight misgivings when we reached the parking lot only to discover there were (1) no picnic tables and (2) no modern bathrooms and (3) the porta potties were perched right on the edge of the parking lot.

We ate standing outside the van, fashioning our sandwiches on the running board and trying to be as far NOT downwind of the porta potties as possible.

Then we cleaned up our lunch, I grabbed a bag of snacks, and we headed down the trail.

 

There were wild black raspberries growing on the side of the trail, as well as vetch and viper's bugloss.

In the distance, there was a vocal cow making the sort of vehement protests I imagine she makes when her calf has just come in from a wet pasture and carelessly skipped across the freshly mopped floor. "Do you hear that goose?" asked Rosie (3), with wide eyes.

"That is a cow," said Ethan.

"No, that is a goose. Gooses honk. That is a goose," she said with a knowing nod. All of her nods are knowing, and there is no convincing her ever that she may be incorrect about something.

Rosie with Mimi and Lily

As we neared the entrance to the tunnel, various children ran ahead. Flashlight beams inundated and then dissipated as the children set off in twos and threes.

River (5), while the others forge ahead

It took about twenty minutes to walk all the way through the tunnel. (Well, on average. Some of the children were MUCH faster and had to wait for those of us following certain young ones who talked the entire time to hear the echoes and had to be reminded repeatedly to "keep walking, please.")

We were not a quiet group.

When we reached the other side, we gathered just outside the tunnel and split candy necklaces and sour gummies.

Then we headed back. 

River (5) and Gideon (12). I have no idea what she is doing here.

Ada (10) and Salem (12)

Edee (15) and Eve (7)

Mimi (17) and Lily (18)

Gideon and River

I was pleasantly surprised by the family's reaction to the walk. Several of the older girls stopped to take pictures of the trailside flowers, the older boys chauffeured those who wanted to race ahead, and the Littles vacillated between (i) being dramatic about how tired their legs were and about how so many rocks were in their shoes, which precipitated their being piggy-backed and (ii) demanding put me down right now! at which point they would race ahead three steps, stand stock still, say something loudly to hear the echo, and notice rocks in their shoes.

The tunnel was cool, the outside air was hot, and when we got home we unpacked the picnic bags and crashed in assorted positions around the house.

Success!

First Day Hike

It has been one of my goals to get Outside as a family more -- farther than the backyard. We used to be Out all the time. Lately (as in, the last few years), it has been not-so-much. I was frustrated by this, but then I had one of those Plain as Day insights hit me a few weeks ago: it is a huge effort to just do daily life with this large of a group. It doesn't always feel like a huge effort, but that is due to being blessed with a spouse and children who seem to have an endless supply of good humor.

The reality is, many days there is also an endless supply of dirty laundry, meals that must be cooked, and groceries that must be stocked.

There was something comforting in that realization.

So then I could move on.

Virginia State Parks are free on January 1. "That's it!" I declared. "We are going to go to a state park on New Year's!"

No one cheered.

The predicted high was 21 degrees, we have two dedicated nappers who most certainly would be missing their naps, and there is always the issue of What to Eat.

But I was not going to be thwarted. I threw some ham-and-cheese sandwiches in the oven, Miriam (12) put together some trail mix baggies, and Ada (5) and Zebby (4) helped me make S'mores Brownies (proving, once again, that Ashley English and I are from different worlds. She is from a world where you make S'mores Brownies for a winter picnic and then photograph them for a book whose genre is probably best described as Escapism. I am from a world where you should be anticipating the innate problems in making brownies with sticky marshmallows on top to be eaten in a van and nowhere near a sink. I think I gain a point for packing forks but lose about twenty for entertaining the idea at all and another forty for carrying through).

It didn't really matter. The food issue was conquered, and that was the main thing. We would not starve to death on the 45-minute drive to the Natural Bridge. I scarfed down my usual "Breakfast Lunch": two fried eggs with ham and a cranberry muffin, we packed the water bottles and the dog and some low-carb shortbread cookies and the rest of the food, bundled everyone up and then added some more bundling, and headed out.

It was so worth it. Even though the "hike" ended at the bridge (icicles hanging from it prevented the rangers from letting people pass under it), the chance to Do Something Else with the family was golden. (It was at about this spot pictured above that we saw a black lab whose owner said exasperatingly, "Calm down. What is WITH you, Maverick??" at which point I had to ask if her dog's name was Maverick, because that is our dog's name, too...and I think our Maverick was as confused as I was!)

Eve, 2

Zebby, 4

River, 1

Lily (14) caught Ethan sneaking a picture

One of the perks of getting Out, I must admit, is that it is more fun to embarrass your children. When Jonathan (9) saw Ethan's hat, he said, "I guess Papa's job is to make me not feel so silly."

"Oh, yeah?" said Ethan. "What if I do this? Come here, my boy." And then he did this, and I snapped the picture.

And I loved every bit of it. I loved the cold, I loved the napping little one, I loved the warmth when we got in from the cold, I loved that the gift shop featured the artisan who made Ben's mug that I broke a year ago so that I could finally replace it, I loved meeting another canine Maverick, I loved the stubborn, independent two-year old insisting on pushing her own stroller.

(Well, OK. I did not love our Maverick peeing on the signpost just inside of the building, right before you get out to the trail. Maverick, that was incredibly stupid. And also, hurry on up and get out of here before anyone notices.)

It was invigorating, and exasperating (Maverick and sticky brownies and stubborn stroller-pusher), and altogether lovely.

Quiet in the library, please

Today we took everybody to the library as a reward for finally really cleaning their bedrooms.

I sat just outside the play area with Eve while the other Littles played and the Middles and Olders found books to read (32 in all, plus a movie).

Seated across from me was a mother knitting. Her 18-mo. old was also playing in the play area.

I know his name because she must have said it over a hundred times in the forty minutes that we were there. "Matthew (name changed to protect the ... I don't know ... something), can you get the egg? Get the other part of the egg, Matthew. Matthew, do they want to see your egg? Show the other children your egg, Matthew! No, Matthew! Please, Matthew, let's not go outside the play area. Oh, Matthew. OK. Listen, Matthew. You may play in the play area, or you may sit in one of these chairs here at this table outside the play area. OK, Matthew? Matthew! Matthew! Matthew, please come back here. Let's not run in the library, Matthew! Matthew!"

Over and over and over. It will come as no surprise to anyone (excepting, apparently, his mother) that Matthew was quick to do exactly what his mother did not want him to do, almost as if he hadn't heard her.

And why not? This is what she had trained him to do. The nonstop talking, the saying of his name over and over and over...

His defense mechanisms kicked in and he tuned her out.

I was, I will admit, jealous.

Salem, this is a random picture of you, Salem. Do you want to look at the picture, Salem? Salem, why don't you look at the picture? Salem, are you ignoring me, Salem?

Outer Banks, Large Family Style

Well hello there, Much Neglected Blog. You and Laundry Room should talk! (I guess Front Porch, too, but as it's not the main entrance it's easiest to just pretend it isn't there...at least, that's what I do.)

So.

We did get a vacation this year. We decided to spend a full two weeks but not travel as far as we have in the past to get to our vacation destination. So to the Outer Banks we went, and it was a breeze of a trip (only 5 hours, which is totally doable without meltdowns!), the weather was delightful (I may be sold on late September vacations now!), and I have decided the beach is GREAT to visit but boy, am I glad I live in the mountains.

And isn't that the perfect vacation? You have fun but are rarin' and ready to be HOME, possibly even before the vacation has officially ended.

Which brings me to another point. Or maybe just "a" point, since I'm not quite sure I could detect a first point.

This. Vacationing as a large family, and a large family with one newborn and one ornery 18-mo. old, requires a bit of strategy.

We have the unique distinction of being the largest number of passengers that Charlie the Ox has ever pulled. Also, here I learn that "ox" just means "cow bull (sheesh, Ben!) that has been taught to work." How did we just finish all of the Little House books and still I totally missed this?

 And mostly, the strategy is this: Let's talk about what we expect from our vacation, and then let's cut those expectations by about a third.

When you tell someone, "We are going to the beach for a vacation," they picture beach chairs and boogie boards and magazines and margaritas and lounging.

Perhaps we should qualify: "We are going to the beach for a vacation. But we are still taking the children, so you know, there's THAT."

What WE expect from a vacation:

1) Papa will not be officially working. Oh, he might be gathering information for future sermons/Sunday Schools/other occasions, but he won't be leaving to go into church every day. He will be with us. So TOGETHERNESS.

2) People will still need to eat and still need clean clothes. So meals and laundry will still need to get done. It's best to just acknowledge that and deal with it head-on in an efficient, cheerful manner instead of pretending we're on a honeymoon with ten stowaways.

It would be a bummer honeymoon, anyway.

3) While we are going to "the beach," very little of our time will actually be spent at "the beach." Most of our children are not yet strong swimmers. It is impossible for two adults to rescue nine drowning children, especially if one of them has a three-month old attached to her.

4) There will be splurges. Coffee is one of them. Daily. And not the brewed-from-the-pot kind. We had to decide between risking damage to our espresso machine or leaving it at home and being OK with splurging.

We were OK with splurging.

5) We're making memories. No one wants a memory of us sitting around the beach house quietly while babies nap. (Oh, all right, so I can't get anyone else to want that memory...) So while there will be some of that, there will be times when it's just Mama doing that, and there will be times when we are not doing that; but Papa and Mama will be considerably more tired after outings that took the place of naptime. Your naptime is for our rejuvenation! And while coffee is a great balm, it is not a cure-all.

We need to be armed and ready for when naps must be missed. How to be ready: snacks, snacks, snacks, and snacks. Good music in the van. Coffee for Papa and Mama!

6) We will explore. Oddly enough, some of our best family memories are of driving around, finding new spots. Case in point: Manteo. Oh, Manteo, Manteo, wherefore art thou Manteo? Why did no one tell us about Manteo? Ocracoke can ocrachoke and Nagshead can go to bed, but Manteo was a delight! Oh, the cute downtown, the Bluegrass Festival, the ice cream by the library, the Island Farm, the aquarium, Festival Park, the old homes, the pumpkin spice lattes...

7) If you are a large family, and we are, expect to be gawked at like you're part of the exhibit. We even had a man take a picture of all of us just so he could show his friends a family with ten kids. (I guess he doesn't watch the Duggars.)

This also means we should make sure faces are relatively clean, diapers are not sagging, and your head and a hairbrush have tangoed (tangled?) in the last day or so. You know, since we can be SURE we will be watched. Let's pretend we're one of those respectable large families and not one of the messy ones.



But I don't care if your crocs are on the wrong feet. Kudos for finding two of them, even if they are different sizes!

And for my own memory's sake, here's what we did:

Beach in Waves
Sound in Waves
Fishing at Rodanthe Pier (Ethan, Ben, Abe)
Boogie boarding at Jeannette's Pier (Ethan, Ben, Lily, Abe, Mimi)
Jeannette's Pier
Ocracoke
Festival Park
Roanoke Museum
Island Farm
North Carolina Aquarium
Pea Island Wildlife Refuge
Jockey's Ridge State Park
Kitty Hawk Kites
Thrifting in Nagshead

Taking the kids on an outing, or Why Even Bother

My brother Daniel is a mystery to me. Not a total mystery, mind you. I get his dry wit (usually), disdain of government, and general desire to avoid baby-sitting and cats.


But I don't get his love of congestion.


Recently I was waxing contentedly about where we live...mountains all around, countryside and farms everywhere, a quaint bustling downtown with local food and musicians.

He visibly shuddered. "Ewww," he replied, his teeth set on edge. "I KNOW! I hate going to visit you. The hills through every neighborhood! The boring fields after fields! Give me skyscrapers! Give me traffic! Give me box stores!"


If I didn't know better, I would have thought he was joking.


But he wasn't.


There are only two hours of travel that physically separate us.  But those two hours bring a change in terrain, a change in population, and a change in life's pace. All the things I hate and that make me stressed -- shopping, traffic, building after building after building -- he loves and finds beauty in.


Don't ask me how.


Ethan reminded me that Daniel is not, in fact, a thirty-something mother of eight. Rather, he is a twenty-something bachelor, and that probably figures heavily into the equation.

But I still feel like we're speaking different languages. What does he MEAN he likes traffic? What on earth does that even MEAN? Those words don't even make sense together!


This post is not for him.

We recently took a family outing. For years I've found wisdom in Edith Schaeffer's advice to seek the natural for a retreat. Get away from the buildings, the merchants, the reminders of man.


For our family, this works best. Being out in nature means many stresses are removed. If a kid has a runny nose and no tissue? Find a leaf. If a kid is fussy about not getting a turn with the play phone? Play with a leaf. And even if you can't find a leaf, there are no crowds to disdainfully watch the drama called "This Is Our Life" unfold.

I know there are those who enjoy museums and libraries and malls and galleries. I know there are those who take their children, and a good time is had by all.


I am not one of those.


Oh, I enjoy the library (sometimes), sans children. But I am a closet museum-hater (maybe too many field trips in my youth?) and never really got into the gallery scene. And the only good mall in my opinion is one with an Orange Julius near the entrance.


I do seem to be rather uncultured.

Still, a good outing does wonders for the family's morale. Just getting outside ... of the house, and of the normal ... can make coming home a restful, welcome thing. Leaving the chores and the chickens (but not the children!) for a quick retreat is a good reminder that we do more than share dirt and duties. And a good outing for us is usually defined by these things:

1. Can we take the dog? I guess this could also be called factoring to the lowest denominator. If we can take the dog, then surely the 2-yr. olds will be tolerated.
2. Can we get there in an hour or less? We do take more extended trips, but these are very very rare. For a day trip, an hour is about all we can handle. After that, kids are fussy, adults are tired of answering questions (or saying, "No more questions!"), and there is always the thought that we will have to make the return trip after trying to muster up enough energy to enjoy whatever it is we're there to do in the first place.
3. What'll we do about dinner? Sometimes it just works best to bite the bullet and hit the dollar menu. Or actually enjoy our food and hit a different haunt. I understand it's such a faux pas to admit that we do drive-thru, but I've already admitted to being uncultured. And the reality is that the hour it can take to prepare a lunch (even a simple one, like sandwiches and fruit) for ten people is sometimes more than can be handled in the middle of trying to make sure everyone is clothed, pottied, wearing the proper shoes, and has seen a hairbrush in the last week. I figure the money we save in not paying for parking or a membership to wherever can be safely allocated here. And then I don't worry about it. Or I do, and it takes us forever to pass out food in the van, the kids complain about whatever I've fixed, and we all end up hungry anyway. All I'm saying is it's best to just go with your gut (ha!). If I'm up for fixing something, fine. If not, fine. But be prepared for the stop for food, and don't get all bent out of shape about it. Just chew and don't think.
4. How much is the destination going to cost? Here, I am talking about the actual destination, not gas or drinks, etc. I know there are those who never go anywhere because of the cost of gas, but we've chosen not to let that stop us. It may shorten the trip, but if the alternative is staying home forever and going crazy, I'll pay for the gas. But here I am talking about the destination. Is there an individual/family/car fee? Because if there is, and it's hefty, we may want to skip it. At this stage in our family, we can't guarantee we'll last longer than fifteen minutes (especially at the types of places that require payment), and the money will have been wasted. On the other hand, the drive can still be pleasant. Even whining can be drowned out by Johnny Cash.
5. What about naptime? For some of our babies, this really didn't figure into the equation. If naptime came, I would sling them or stroll them (the ones who liked the stroller) and it was no biggie. However, there have been those children that make the entire outing miserable if it happens during their normal naptime. Both sets of twins have been notorious for this. So for them, we plan for the trip to be a shorter one and we adjust their naptime accordingly.
6. What do we have to do when we get home? Are there going to have to be baths, cleaning for company, etc.? Is tomorrow Sunday? Since Ethan is a pastor, we pretty much try to stay home Saturday afternoons. This gives me time to help children find clothes for Sunday, get Sunday's lunch semi-prepared, and do a general pick-up. The children can all have their baths, and Ethan can spend solid time in sermon preparation.

So that's our informal checklist. As with most things that I've written, I'm not sure what the point of it is, except to clarify in my own mind that, "Hey! This IS what works for us, and that's OK!" I'm not saying it should work for anyone else, but if it does, you're not alone.

And if it doesn't?

You're not alone, either.

There's always Daniel.

Dog Days of Winter

Yesterday was a delicious day.


Today, too, really, only yesterday was especially beautiful and memorable.


I think it was partly because it came on the heels of several below-freezing days, days in which Lily and I traded off reminding each other every two hours to change the outside animal water. Lily would bring in the frozen rabbit water, and I would carry out fresh chicken water, and every two hours we would rinse and repeat. It was cold.


And then came yesterday. Nigh 60 degrees of warmth and sun and hope.


We headed for the hills, as is our tendency, and found ourselves meandering towards Sherando Lake.


Usually this is a summer haunt, one that includes bug spray and sunscreen and swimsuits. But yesterday it was all blue sky and semi-frozen water. We opted to hike around the lake.


We had almost reached the dam on the opposite end (hurrah for an exciting half-way point!) when we heard a new noise. "Listen!" Ethan instructed. "Can anybody guess what that is?"


It was the braying of the hounds. Way up in the mountains behind us, hound dogs had treed something and were braying away. About two minutes later, we were joined by three pickup trucks, three good ole boys in overalls, and three truckbeds loaded down with dog pens.


As the kids went ice fishing (fishing for ice), I was fascinated by the men tracking their dogs with their GPS devices and ribbing each other about exactly where on the mountain the dogs were and what they had treed.

Gideon was christened "Chief Uh-Uh." Soon after we left the dam, he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Gideon, don't you want to keep walking?" I asked.


"Uh-uh!" he answered. And then every thing I or Ethan said to him was greeted with the same response. He ended up riding on Ethan's shoulders and drooling red lollipop onto the top of Ethan's head.

Chief Uh-Uh sticking his tongue out

We refreshed on Ritz crackers, lollipops, and gum (all I could scrounge from the van before our hike) and finished our walk. Partially-frozen Capri-Suns greeted us in the van, and we traveled home to naps and board games and library books.


It was just such a good day. The kind of day where there's a tiredness behind your eyes that feels good and where you feel like one more breath of fresh air might put you into a coma.


Do you know what I mean?


I mean, I was so refreshed I finally clipped Maverick's nails and then, today, gave him a bath and washed his bedding.


Dog days indeed.