Day 1

We made it to St Louis without incident. We didn't get here in time to see the arch, so we will do it in the morning on our way out. Thankfully, there is a Red Robin right around the corner. They have gluten free buns. :)

Call me crazy....

I'm about to do something I've never done before. I'm going to drive 21 hrs with four kids under the age of ten....all by myself. Since John is busy with the harvest right now and will be working long hours and six day work weeks, the kids and I have decided to go spend some time with my parents in Florida. We are going to stop in Mississippi on the way there and on the way back and spend a little time with John's family. We're going to be gone for the majority of the month. I figure if I'm going to drive all that way, I better stay for a bit. I'm sad to be away from John for that long, as it will be the longest that we have ever been apart in the last ten years. But we are excited for warm weather, pools, beaches, and seeing family. My parents decided to move to Florida earlier this year. Their house sold quickly, so they were gone four months after they told me they were leaving. I have not gotten to see their new house yet, so it will be nice to see where they are living now. My younger brother lives less than an hour from them, so it will be nice to see him too. Mom has two siblings who live in FL now, so we will get to see them too. And it turns out that John's cousin lives two miles away from my parents' house, so we will see her too.

I'm going to break up the driving and take my time getting down there, since we have plenty of hotel points I can use. We will go 6.5 hrs to St. Louis the first day. The kids don't know it yet, but I will take them up in the Arch. If we have time, I will take them to the zoo there. It's free and they have elephants. Hannah has been begging to see zebras and elephants and the zoo here does not have elephants and the zebra exhibit is closed until fall 2015. So we may just go see things that we can't see here. The next day, we will drive 4 hrs to Memphis. As we head down that way, we will stop at an Indian mound dwelling and go inside to see what the city inside looked like. We will learn about those later this school year, so I thought it would be cool to have actually seen one. We will have time there too, so weather permitting, we will go and see a 5 block replica of the Mississippi River. Hopefully, we will have some pool time at the hotel too, so we can get some energy out. The third day, we will go 5 hours to my mother and father in law's house in MS and spend two nights with them. Then on the 5th day, we will drive the final 9 hours to my parents' house. My kids are pretty good little road trippers, so I think that since I'm breaking up the drive with fun stuff, they will do fine. We will stay at mom and dad's for a week and a half and then head back home. On the way back, my father will drive with me the first six hours. I'm going to stop and see John's parents again on the way home and my sister in law will be meeting me there to join us for the remainder of our drive. So I'll only be without another adult for three hours on the drive home, which I am pretty excited about.

My kids decided to get colds over the weekend, so pray they are all better by the time we get to MS on Friday night. I really think that they should be. I hired a sub to teach my Classical Conversations class for me, since I didn't think they should go. I'm making sure they get lots of vitamins, herbs, rest, and bone broth. It seems to be working. We don't usually stay sick for very long, and I think it's due to our healthy diet.

Please keep us in your prayers for safety and health! Pray also for safety for my husband (those farm machines are quite dangerous!!!) and that the Lord will really bless the time that John will have to himself. I'm praying it will be a fruitful time for him. Tomorrow is packing day, so I better get to bed now.

Have to say....

My Mississippi State Alumnus hubby is a pretty happy boy right now. They are #3 in the rankings for the first time ever!! I think he would trade a lot of things to be at the football game next Saturday. Funny that I will actually be in MS that day.
#HailState

Harvest Time!

The culmination of what John has been learning to do this year is finally upon us. It's harvest time! They started harvesting corn last Saturday. They got in two and a half good days and then yesterday it poured, which has put the kibosh on harvesting for now. (The corn needs to be dry for the combine to be effective.) We got 4.5 inches of rain yesterday and the fields are a slippery, muddy mess. We are supposed to get more rain tomorrow, so I'm not sure when it will be dry enough for them to start back up again. But before the rain came, the kids and I got a chance to go out and see the men and the machines in action. It was a fun outing for us. We met John at the grain bins, where he was in the middle of unloading his last load of corn for the night.You can see the corn coming out of the auger and falling into the bin if you look closely.

The kids were excited to see Daddy drive a really big truck (after all, three of them are little boys). They also thought it was pretty cool to watch the corn come out of the bottom of the truck, fall into the hopper, and then cycle its way up the auger to the bin. They were excited to find little kernels of corn on the ground and wanted to start collections and bring them all home. I'm sure corn kernels won't be as exciting to them once we have been out here for awhile, but for now it's all new to them and everything is fascinating.

After the truck was unloaded, we headed over to one of the fields to see the combine in action. They had all seen the combine last summer when we were out here and had gotten to sit inside of it, but it was turned off and stored away at the time. We saw their great Grandpa driving the combine as soon as we got close to the field. He pulled up to an auger wagon and unloaded the grain that the combine had just harvested. For those of you not familiar with these awesome machines, let me explain what a combine does. As you drive it through the corn fields, it pulls up almost the entire stalk of corn. It then pulls the ear of corn off the stalk, shucks the corn, strips the kernels off the cob, sends the grain (kernels) to one part of the combine, chops up the stuff you don't want (leaves, cob, etc) and spits it out the back (back onto the ground). The kernels are sent into an auger (those long arm spout looking things) that allow the kernels to be unloaded into a truck called an auger wagon. This all happens in less than a minute. It's actually pretty amazing to watch. The electronic equipment is pretty cool too. It keeps track of all sorts of data related to the corn, such as the GPS coordinates of your field, the moisture level of your corn (it needs to be within a certain range), how much grain you have already harvested, and more. (Click here to see a short video on how a combine works) Grandpa's combine can harvest 12 rows of corn at a time! The highlight of the evening came when Grandpa said Luke could ride with him for the next round. I think Luke almost exploded, while Nathanael tried to hold back the tears. Luke loved it and could not stopped smiling when his turn was over. We thought Grandpa was going to be done for the night, but then he said he was going out one more time and asked if someone else wanted a ride. I have never seen Nathanael move so fast in my life!!! It was pretty funny, actually. So he got to have a turn too. Micah and Hannah are both hoping they will be next for combine rides.

Nathanael is saying he will take care of the farm for everyone when John is too old. We will see what comes of that!