Trip to Lynchburg

We've been home from our trip to Lynchburg for a week and I'm finally getting around to blogging. But what a week we've had, both there and back home. Here comes a million pictures.

Grandma and Grandpa were just wrapping up a super busy week of VBS when we arrived on Saturday. Most of the grandchildren were there for VBS minus the oldest (who was busy with the Air Force) and the youngest, Luke (who was busy in preschool summer school). So when we arrived Saturday, you can imagine the level of noise and chaos in the house. I was certain Luke would be apprehensive, but he clung to my leg about 10 seconds and then headed into the middle of the group. Within minutes, the girls were picking him up and giving him huge hugs. And he just grinned, laughed, and ate up all the attention.





All the cousins minus one on Grandma and Grandpa's front porch.


Sunday morning at church Luke sat between Maddie and Savannah (ages 8 and 9) showing off his handwriting skills on his marker board. After church they all headed out to play and I just occasionally checked on him out the window. Simply amazing. Such a vacation for me! It's a small church and with the big kids looking after him, he and I were both so comfortable. Since we've been home any time we've gone to church he's asked to go to "Maddie's church" which isn't actually right, but I know what he means, and he's quite upset when we tell him we're going to our church. I suspected he loved it there and I guess he did. Unfortunately none of his cousins live in the Lynchburg and I'm afraid it wouldn't be the same without them.

So Monday we headed out on a little adventure. Our first stop was the Safari Park. This was recommended as a chance to get close to some wildlife. We paid a small fortune to drive Grandpa's van down a path filled with wildlife. (They charged by person, not by car. But you're not even allowed to get out of the car. Yeah, that makes sense.) We got a small bucket of feed that I assumed we'd scatter to get the animals to come closer to the car.

And then we pulled through the gate and this camel was standing there, waiting on us.

Lamar was sitting in the passenger seat and rolled down his window to take a photo. The camel stuck his entire head in the van and started eating out of the bucket of feed in Lamar's lap. I'm in the very back seat yelling, "Just give him the food." Maddie and Haley made some sort of panicy noises. I can't remember what Grandma said but I'm sure it was hilarious. And Luke is saying repeatedly, "I AM ALL DONE TOUCHING THE ANIMALS!"

We were assaulted by many llamas and a few more camels before we dumped the food and just drove through the rest of the park, which presented it's own problems. Clearly the animals are used to being fed and the llamas were particularly stubborn about moving when we had nothing to offer.

We did get close to some wildlife and certainly enjoyed the animals that you did not feed:

Then we headed just down the road to Natural Bridge. After the highway robbery of Safari Park, we were not excited to pay yet again to see Natural Bridge. I was assuming it would be a free park or something, but no. But Grandma insisted on financing this adventure too so off we went. Boy was it worth the money!

Beautiful stream w/a nice little restaurant just before the path to Natural Bridge.

Stunning Natural Bridge. Pictures simply don't do it justice. It was really beautiful and amazing to see.

Luke was most disappointed to not have his cousins in the photo with us, but I wanted just a couple of the three of us.

Looking for snakes on the rocks below. We saw 4 snakes on our walk. Here they're watching a snake eat a fish or a salamander or something. It was clearly riveting.

Grandpa, Haley, Luke, Maddie, and Grandma

How Luke travelled quite a bit of the path. He called this "swinging" but he's gotten so tall that it requires some creative lifting. Sweet sweet cousins to humor him.


Big walking across the bridge to see the old mining cave.

Lovely scenery on the path to the waterfall.

Creek we crossed to get to the waterfall.

Walking walking walking. Always holding hands with the cousins.

Maddie carrying her new animal, Aqua, and Luke with his new friend, Wolfie. Grandma suggested we name Luke's animal Foxy until we pointed out it was a wolf. Notice Wolfie is upside down.

Finally at the beautiful waterfall.



Check out all the reinforcements making sure Luke doesn't go for a swim. I am certain he wouldn't have jumped in. But he might have slipped.

So very tired for the walk back. But still happy. It was so fun to see how much he enjoyed this, being with family and nature. Such a blessing.

The bus ride from the base of the path back to the gift shop. The first time Luke's ridden anywhere not in a carseat or booster. Luke asked if we could ride the bus back to Grandma's house.

Back at Grandma's house, Luke and Maddie headed to the creek in the backyard to play.

Throwing rocks into the creek.

I promise Luke had a ball playing in the creek, but somehow I captured this photo:

And I'm including it because I think it's just extremely funny and kind of looks like something from a horror movie.

On Tuesday afternoon we headed to the mall for some shopping. There was a place there with three large inflatables and no children playing. Luke asked repeatedly to go (he's normally afraid) and he and Maddie jumped for hours. I don't know if because it was not crowded, or because his cousins were there helping, but Luke was amazing. He did the slide with no fear and by the end was climbing up the slide like Spiderman. He did the obstacle course where he squeezed through the rollers, weaved through the columns and climbed the hill to go down the slide. I have no photos because I didn't take my camera to the mall. I didn't expect it to be such a monumental trip.

Tuesday night we played mini-golf. This was Luke's first time to play. Lamar played on this same course as a child. It's so well maintained and just a classic mini-golf course. It was really fun.

Heading out for mini golf with Wolfie.

Luke's first hole. Thank you Wii Sports for teaching him the concepts of golf and how to hold the putter. It truly helped him be less frustrated and more successful.

So we took about 100 pictures of mini-golf. I'm sure the other players thought we were insane. I make no apologies. When you spend a couple of years not knowing if your child will be able to do something like mini-golf, if he'll ever understand the concept, have the attention span, or the motor skills to hit the ball, and then at 4 1/2 he can play the game like a pretty typical kid, it's moment to document.

Finally accepting a little help on a difficult hole.

Good form. Too bad the hole is the other direction.

Such enthusiasm for his own success . . .

and for others.


All done mini golf. It was a great first time for Luke. He only had one meltdown on a very difficult hole where he had to hit the ball up a big hill but didn't want help, and we holding up traffic on the course. But we removed him from the hole and after a brief time out to cool down he finished the course with gusto. So proud of him.

So this post has take much longer than I anticipated with all the photos. The story of this past week will have to wait til later. Maddie came home with us for the week and we've had a great time. It's been so wonderful for Luke to have a playmate and he just adores her. And as the week progressed they acted a little less like adoring cousins and more like opinionated sibilings, but that's been a joy to watch too.

The week was not without some of Luke's anxieties. We went swimming at the Y on Wednesday and Luke was really apprehensive in the loud indoor pool where the smell of chlorine was so strong it burned my eyes. But I have some many great memories of Luke with family. Wednesday night after church he and Maddie, Haley, and Jonathan played forever in the church parking lot laughing, hugging, tickling, and them swinging him through the air. I wish I could just capture that moment and Luke could always be that happy and secure.

Our last night there. Simply exhausted from all the fun.

All about the Wii

We had a good 4th. Lamar was the last to be struck with the nasty summer cold we all passed around. To call it a cold really short changes the power of that virus. It made each of us feel really awful. So we weren't able to share in the festivities with our church friends as we'd planned. We did go to Mimi and Papa's and spend a little time with some other family members. Luke enjoyed showing off his Wii bowling skills. Again this year he was not a fan of the fireworks. We did not attempt going to an official fireworks show, though there are many unofficial shows in the area. I don't think the noise bothered him that much, but the unexpectedness just drove him crazy. He fell asleep on the way home and the last words out of his mouth were, "I am all done with the fireworks."

The Wii continues to be Luke's current obsession. I think all children obsess over certain toys or activities to some extent. Well that in extreme is Luke. He truly would play Wii every waking hour. No make that every hour. I'm pretty sure he dreams Wii.

So the other day I pulled out the play dough for a Wii break. Luke suggested we make people. Shocking, since making people is a favorite Wii activity. Here he is showing off our creations.


I think he's the green person at the top, and I'm the red person next to him with extremely long arms.

And here is Luke's photo of his work. That's Erik, Jeanie, and Maggie there at the bottom. He was quite opposed to the two-color people but we were running out of our medium.

I've mentioned before Luke's love for the Channel 4 weather team. We now have Wii characters for Lisa Spencer, Dan Thomas, Nancy Van Camp, and Tim Ross.




He is getting pretty good at Wii Sports. He's mastered the homerun as we documented above.

Then last Friday we had a houseful of company. Grandpa brought Luke Mario Kart and his cousins were happy to show him how to play. I'm pretty sure it's his favorite game so far even though it's pretty challenging. I am not a video game player. As a kid we had a Colecovision (showing my age) and I'm pretty sure I never played a single game. Video games stress me out. But after enough begging, I gave in to Luke's request "Can we do 2 player?" After several disastrous falls off a cliff (because it's a great idea to race cars on a rocky cliff. What are we teaching our children?) I admit I also love some Mario Kart. I couldn't believe how proud I was to narrowly beat Bowser and win the Mushroom Cup.

***

One of Luke's favorite features is some racetracks have an audience cheering you on, an audience composed of all the Wii people he's created. On these tracks, Luke knows exactly where to crash his car so he can scan the crowd and announce who is watching. Yesterday he said, "Look Mom! Nancy Van Camp is cheering!" I'm fairly certain that moment could only happen at our house.

***

Life is typically lots of fun around here and Luke is usually extremely amusing. I'm not thrilled that his favorite activity at the moment is a video game, but it's been a blessing this summer on long hot afternoons. I know it's a phase with Luke, and before long he'll move onto to something else. I'm pretty sure Thomas and Percy have been replaced by Mario and Luigi for now.

***

Luke had a tough day at therapy yesterday in his social group. It's been a long time since he had a rough session. I'd forgotten just how devastating that can be. But experience has taught me that all things cycle with Luke and right now were in a season of him having some shyness and anxiety in a group setting. Just months ago he was the self-appointed lobby greeter at therapy. So we encourage appropriate behavior but don't overreact. Everyone on Luke's team has come a long way the past two years.

***

Impossible to believe but summer school is nearly done. I'm so glad we did summer school. Mrs. Jenny was fabulous and he made a great new friend that will be in his class in the fall. Yesterday I went through his school bag and took out an ice cream cone craft he'd brought home and asked him about it. Luke was giving me all the details, and pointed out the sprinkles. He then told me a little girl in his class (name not given to protect her identity) who poured out all the sprinkles. He said, "And then she went to time out." I said, "Oh no. Did she cry?" And he said, "Yes, she cried." I said, "Oh, did that make you sad for her?" And he said, "No, it made me happy for her." Guess we need to work on empathy.

What have we been up to?

Well, Luke's been picking out his own clothes. He's very fashion forward with his color combos.






And he's been pretending he is a Wii person catching a baseball. (Likely only funny if you've played/observed a LOT of Wii sports.)





And keeping with the all things Wii sports theme, we've played some bowling in the garage. Why the garage? Because the world's flimsiest bowling pins will blow over if there is any breeze at all. And this set was marketed as a beach toy! They didn't stand up 2 seconds at the beach.


Very excited about his four strikes. He's pretty good at Wii bowling, but I think Daddy's feet might have helped a few pins fall.

I am really glad the Wii has introduced him to sports in a way he understands and loves. He's playing or pretending he's playing sports all the time. And he had Superman and the Flash boxing the other day. And this morning the Backyardigans were playing baseball. And it was his idea! I thrilled with where his play skills are right now.

****

And we soaked up the cooler than average temps this week with a mid week trip to the zoo. Tired of zoo photos? Well, here comes some more.



He was very interested in the map this trip and choosing where to go next. Of course he was! Not sure why I haven't showed him one before. He only asks "What's next?" or "What else?" about 1000 times a day! A map with pictures of what's next--dream come true. I thought about cropping me out of the photo but was too lazy. And now all can see my adorable shoes. Pretty sure they still had mud from the backyard on them too. Luke gets his fashion sense from me.

He LOVED the aquarium this time. I think we need to visit a big aquarium soon.

So then Luke asked to go the playground. He was pretty intimidated by this playground the last time we visited (just a couple of blog posts ago). But he was adamant that we go play. The first thing he wanted to do was the bridge. I took him up there and well, I'm not real big on walking on things that move. Luke totally inherited his gravitational insecurities from me. And my fabulous green crocs were sliding all over the place and I was afraid I'd fall and pull him down. So we opted for the swings. Daddy and I traded play duty a few minutes later and Luke immediately asked him to go to the bridge.

So brave. He didn't even flinch when other kids ran across making the bridge shake like crazy. He's made big strides overcoming fears and sensory issues lately. And learned a valuable lesson. Daddy is much better at swinging bridges.

And then Luke led Lamar to these crazy rope net thingys that he called the swings. (I bet that's from swinging with his buddy Cooper on their awesome hammock. This was kind of a giant version of the hammock.) He climbed all over the place.

And to continue showing off he went through the snake tunnel. Tunnels have been very intimidating for Luke in the past. I remember when he was 2 and a therapist trying to get him to crawl through a tunnel. We tried every bait we could think of: toys, remote, candy, with no luck. The therapist left it with us and we worked on it for weeks.

So proud.

We've all been battling a nasty summer cold that lingers and lingers. Lamar is the latest victim and he's completely lost his voice. He's been whispering a lot, so Luke is responding to him with whispers. He told him today, "Daddy, no say it quiet. Say 'yes' medium."

***

This morning I was trying to think of something he would eat for breakfast. The boy has no appetite in the morning which is no big deal when we're having a low key day, but annoying when he has school bright and early. I hate sending him off with an empty stomach. This morning I offered him peanut butter and crackers. He said, "Yes! I want Pete some butter crackers." I laughed. Just recently he's started getting aggravated when we laugh if he's being serious. So he repeated very loudly, "Mommy!!! I want Pete some Butter CRACKERS!"

***

We've had a couple of super fun playdates this week. It still feels like summer is flying by, but we're having fun.