Family

The Vacation That Was Planned

April 2, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

Happy Thursday friends.

I kept meaning to blog about our Spring Break trip. But coronavirus…

I thought I’d write in two parts. Today, I thought I’d share about the vacation that we planned. Well, that I planned. Last July. When I couldn’t have fathomed what March 2020 would look like.

Then, in Part 2, I’ll write about the vacation that happened. Still very good. But different. Which is okay.

My sweet friend Sarah posted amazing pictures from Utah and Arizona last May from their nearly two week family vacation. I immediately reached out to her for her itinerary because I wanted to do what she did!

I stole from it liberally and it’s that itinerary I’m sharing with you in case you want to take your family to the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park.

We booked flights into Phoenix on the Saturday before Spring Break and out of Las Vegas the following Saturday.

From Saturday to Wednesday, we would stay in Flagstaff so we could hit Sedona and the Grand Canyon. Wednesday, we would relocate to Springdale, Utah to do those three days of activities. It was a fair amount of driving but I rented a minivan (much to my family’s ridicule), so they had space to spread out and play travel games and read books.

I absolutely loved our VRBO house. It was in a neighborhood but set back off the beaten path in all these tall trees. It had a pool table and ping pong table and a grill and a hot tub (whenever I look for a VRBO house, I require a grill and hot tube, it definitely narrows my options but my family loves it!).

We arrived about lunch time which gave us time to get to know the area, do our grocery shopping and settle in before the days ahead.

The remainder of the schedule looked like this:

Sunday – Sedona, ride the Sedona Trolley up to the Chapel of the Holy Cross, have lunch at Sedona Pizza and ice cream at Black Cow, and then take the Broken Arrow Pink Jeep tour (lots more on this fabulous tour tomorrow).

Monday – Hike Sedona or take the day and visit the Out of Africa Wildlife Park in Camp Verde (we ended up switch our Monday and Tuesday).

Tuesday – Spend the day in the Grand Canyon, hike the South Rim, take the south rim trail to El Tovar. I meant to make dinner reservations at El Tovar 60 days out like the recommend but forgot to and I’m glad we didn’t – it was nice to have no schedule this day. Also, I looked at the train ride into Grand Canyon, but after researching it, the landscape isn’t that great on the ride and it doesn’t actually take you around Grand Canyon only to Grand Canyon, so unless you just want your kids to experience a train I wouldn’t spend the money.

Wednesday – the long day! Clean and check out of the VRBO house, and pack lunches for the float trip. Drive the over 2 hours from Flagstaff to Page to go on the Lake Powell Wilderness River Adventure. This lets you see the dam, Lake Powell, and Glen Canyon. There are amazing slot canyons in Page too but I couldn’t make both things work because in the spring the float trip doesn’t depart until 10 am and you return at 3 pm.

This was sadly where our trip ended, but the remainder of the trip promised to be amazing. We would drive Wednesday night to Springdale and stay at the Desert Pearl Inn at the base of Zion National Park.

Thursday – We booked the Peek A Boo Slot Canyon Tour in Kenab through the Kanab Tour Company. You go four wheeling through gorgeous slot canyons over the afternoon.

Friday – Sticking with the highly recommended Kanab Tour Company, we booked a guided all day tour of Zion National Park.

Then on Saturday, we’d catch a noontime flight out of Las Vegas. A word of caution, rental cars are a lot more expensive if you drop them in a different location than you pick them up. Even with a corporate discount, the price was steep.

Because Spring Break is their peak season, I booked everything way in advance to ensure we got the lodging and tours we wanted for the days we wanted. There was tons of time built in for leisurely mornings (Wednesday and Saturday were our only early days) and there was lots of time for grilling out dinner and relaxing in the hot tub or playing a rousing game of ping pong.

We really did love our trip, but more on what happened in the next installment!

Homeschool: Day 1 Recap

March 24, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

So. I’m finally getting around to writing about yesterday.

Day 1 of homeschool.

I might throw in highlights from Day 2, too.

It wasn’t bad.

Seriously. We’re all okay.

We did not remotely follow the schedule that I hung from our dining room chandelier.

Mainly because the teachers send their lesson plans the night before and it just doesn’t match.

But they are actually doing school from 8:30 to 3:30.

Of course there are bathroom breaks and lunch and we take a walk every day. Still, I think they are getting more school in at home than they do at school.

They take their time.

We learned pretty quickly that all three of them at the dining table wouldn’t work. I spanked one kid, for the first time ever, when he got into a fist fight with his sister at 9:30 am. Once that was over though, it was the only fight we had to contend with all day.

The eldest, who has always marched to the beat of his own drum, decided to set up school in Bray’s office. He evacuates once Bray comes home from work (he is actually still going to work, so I’m solo during the day). Him working in that space has turned out well. And little bit and the baby work together beautifully in the dining room.

I set up office at the kitchen table. It’s not perfect but it puts me mid point between the two classrooms. I’ve had to mute my line a few times when “moooommmmyyyy, I need you” comes out. For the most part though, I warn them when I go on a call and they respect it.

Mornings, of course, are quieter and better than afternoons. I know this will get old. At this time, they are giving homeschool good marks. Little bit did write a persuasive essay though on why real school is better than homeschool (ha!).

The lesson plans have been packed, which has been good for us, because I don’t have to develop curriculum. Our favorite item on Day 1 were the dot monsters they did for art class – what fun to get to watch them create. Another one of my favorites was watching them do their cursive homework – the assignment was to write three scripture verses in cursive. That’s little bit’s up there in the photos, how timely.

There are a lot of cool supplemental resources I planned to us, virtual tours and space reading and sketching with Mo Williams, that we just haven’t had time for yet because they’re putting in a solid 8 hours.

I cried twice today, even though I made it through Day 1 okay. Once, when the kids did a Zoom call for lunch with all their fourth grade classmates. It was loud and chaotic, but it just made me so sad that they’re missing out on their community.

As you may have picked up over the years, I’m big on community.

Next, each of their teachers called them and talked to them. When little bit was talking to her teacher, she said she’d gotten stuck on math. The precious teacher said well let’s just go through the problem. So they walked through a couple on the phone together and she got it down. I hate that they don’t have their teachers every day (and I know their teachers hate it too).

But you know, we’re doing okay.

We’re doing better than most, actually.

We are safe and healthy. We have food in our house and money in our checking account. I have a job that I can do from home and that keeps me busy. I have three fourth graders instead of three totally different grades and ages and stages.

They’re getting along better than they have in months, maybe years. They jumped into the swimming pool and though it still feels like ice to me it is 85 degrees outside so we have another outlet for their pent up energy.

We start the morning with devotionals which has always been a huge desire for me but I couldn’t do it before because I leave so early from my long work commute. Now, we do it every day. We pray for others. We pray for the world. And we always thank God for how fortunate we are.

Sure it’s chaotic and messy and imperfect, but I’m really present in the now and thankful for this time with my people.

Love to you all. Please drop me a note if we can be praying for you. We’d love to add your requests to our list.

The Night Before Homeschool

March 22, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

It was the night before homeschool,
And all through the house,
All the creatures were stirring,
Including the mouse…

Our proposed schedule which we’ll probably ignore

Well, I guess I’ll write.

Tomorrow, we start the experiment called “distance learning” for three Vincent fourth graders, a/k/a The Vincent Homeschool.

We came back from vacation early, more on that in another post, and I was doing well all weekend. Grateful to be home. Grateful to be safe and have a home and food and the ability to work from home – fully aware that so many cannot check off all of those boxes.

Little bit and I cooked and cleaned and set up a homeschool area in the dining room, and we stayed upbeat and cozy. We are introverts after all. The boys took a day away to the socially distant ranch.

Then, we got the plan for our distance learning from our precious teachers. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wrote this on Facebook:
I was good all day. Little bit was a wonder! She organized our bookshelf, Stanley’s shelves, and so much more.
I made two dinners for this week and dug out of work emails.
Then we got the emails from our school teachers with our distance learning plan and it hit me and I started crying. Up until now, we’ve just been back from Spring Break.
But now the reality of how you work full time and implement a 4th grade distance learning plan for weeks on end feels overwhelming and also really sad. Hang in there friends.

I was so sad for my kids, for their fourth grade year to end like this and for them to be away from such dear friends.

I was selfishly sad for me as the idea of juggling a really intense work load, constant conference calls, and teaching my kids all this material seemed like more than I could actually do.

I was sad for all the teachers, and for the parents who have to be at their jobs, and for the seniors, and really just for all the people.

I absolutely see so much good in this. It’s like we all DESPERATELY wanted to slow down but we could not do it no matter how hard we tried. There were all these books being published about being present and saying no and being still and stepping back from all the things. Well, now we have no choice. We’re eating family dinners and taking family walks and coming up with baking plans and movie nights. Just us.

We have been forced to SLOW DOWN.

And we needed that.

We, the world, needed that.

But oh my this is hard.

I had so many working momma friends text or IM me in response to my post. How they are working a thousand hours because of this crisis and have all these different grades of school kids in their house and HOW IN THE HEAVENS is it doable. This was all smack dab in the middle of Spring Break season when everyone thought they’d get a little time off or away and that rug just got pulled out.

I’ve also read a thousand posts from people who are going about this totally different ways. Wonderful and fun parents who say everything from let your kids be bored or let your kids watch t.v. or follow this super detailed and super educational supplemental schedule or give your kids emotional support.

I love them all. I agree with them all.

How our homeschool of fourth grade triplets will look will be radically different from all of them and incorporate a little bit of all of them. I’ll look different from the parents who are teachers and the parents who are physicists. From the parents who are CEOs and the parents who are nurses. From the parents who have lost their jobs and the parents who are required to go to theirs as an essential service.

We’ll have weird hours because I have a lot of conference calls.

We’ll be patient and lose our temper. We’ll have funny moments and total unmitigated frustration. We’ll eat yummy healthy meals and we’ll eat goldfish for lunch at some point, I’m sure.

So on this night before, I am sad. And a little bit hopeful. And we’re all just praying for a cure. We’re praying for our friends and our teachers and our neighbors.

I love that one of the things that seems to have come out of all this is a lot less judgment and a lot more kindness and tolerance. I’m a huge fan of that.

You can be whoever you want to be and your kids can too, and we’re going to teach them that we’re all in this together. The world. We’re in it together. They are home just like the school children are in China and in Germany and in South Africa.

Good luck friends. Godspeed.

28 Days: Day 28, Bones

February 28, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

Little bit has been obsessively listening lately to some recent songs by Maren Morris. We’re excited to go see her at the Houston Rodeo next Saturday.

There’s one song that’s been playing a lot in our house called Bones.

I actually stopped this week and listened to all the lyrics:
We’re in the homestretch of the hard times
We took a hard left, but we’re alright
Yeah, life sure can try to put love through it, but
We built this right, so nothing’s ever gonna move it
When the bones are good, the rest don’t matter
Yeah, the paint could peel, the glass could shatter
Let it rain cause you and I remain the same…
The house don’t fall when the bones are good

It’s been a glass shattering few weeks.

Some really good stuff in the middle of the hard but the hard has been the baseline.

I’m tired. And I’m detaching because I’m tired of fighting a thunderstorm with a broken umbrella.

There’s a much older version of Maren Morris’ Bones written by Matthew in the Bible. It’s a story of two home builders – one who built a house on the sand and it fell apart in the middle of storms and one who built his house on a rock and it withstood the winds and storms.

You know though, even when you’re standing in a house on a rock, those storms sure feel like it’s going to send your house collapsing down around you.

But the bones are good.

The house stands.

And everyone feels braver and safer when the next storm comes because you know you can weather it.

Sunday morning, the kids and I will help lead in worship at our church. How appropriate on this first Sunday of Lent, we get to stand up there, broken and weatherbeaten, and encourage people that we’ll all get through the storms when we’re in a house built on the Rock.

28 Days: Day 25, On Winning and Losing

February 25, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

It was a day for winning and losing.

The boys were in the semi-final round of their basketball bracket. Of course, when they won their game on Saturday, we had to cancel our Mardi Gras dinner plans to make it to their big game on Tuesday (because I only get to do games for 8 more years, a fact I constantly think about).

They knew it would be tight. The opposing team was ranked 1. The boys team was ranked 5.

These games are the best ones because they are close and action packed. The boys team led the first half. But they fell behind in the third quarter. The fourth quarter was back and forth with the five best players on each side playing their heart out.

The clock sounded the end of the game and it was tied, 43-43. In playoffs, overtime is mandatory.

The boys team scored, then the other team. At the end of the first overtime, 45-45. Another overtime was necessary.

All the boys were wiped. Playing hard with each side wanting the victory to head to the championship Saturday. The other team scored. Our team missed the basket. The boys ended their season with a one basket loss and the eldest with a badly jammed pointer finger.

There were tears. They play with their whole heart, one of the things I love so much about them. The players hugged. We talked on the way home. What a way to go out! Isn’t it better to fight well to the very end than get blown out?

Regardless, it still hurt.

On the very same day, I had the opposite result professionally.

I’ve been working incredibly hard over the past couple of months and one of the issues I was working was intense and complex. One possible resolution was a long shot. Small odds of winning but it would completely resolve the big challenge.

And then, in a completely unexpected turn of events, we won yesterday. 3-2. Also close result, just different winner (in our home at least).

I was so excited I actually yelled in my office. Then I called my client and yelled with him. And because it’s sort of a hard thing to explain, I didn’t get the same level of thrill and excitement at home when I reported the news nearly jumping up and down. But for me, it was a good day.

So after the boys game, I came home and opened a very nice bottle of wine I’d been saving for a special occasion. It’s not exactly a parade on Main Street, but a big win is still satisfying.

What I’ve learned is there will be days with big wins or big losses. Days with little wins and little losses. Days with both.

But play hard. Do your best. On the days with losses, let yourself be sad, but then get ready for the next game. On the days with wins, celebrate. You never know when the next one will be.