October 26, 2018

(click here for today's pictures)

• The alarm first went off at 6 this morning which reminded me why we homeschool. I was not too pleased about having to get up at the crack of dawn this morning. I just am not too sure how real people do it!
• Now, my kids sure don't mind getting up when they have some place to go. Reagan was sitting in the floor of her room curling her hair and Graham and Anderson were also stirring when I went up the stairs to wake everyone up. 
• Campbell and Keaton were a bit more difficult to wake up. And waking Whitman up was nearly impossible. He had laid in bed with Robby for a bit. Then when Robby started to wake him up, he had not much luck. Robby ended up putting his clothes on him while he was sound asleep.
• It wasn't too much longer until we were in the car headed to the Air Force Base. The ride was pleasant. The kids were quiet; I ate my bagel while we listened to our book. Traffic getting onto the base was stop and go, but soon we had found our parking spot and were climbing out.
• And that is when someone said, "Whitman doesn't have any shoes." This did not go over well at all. How do you get in the car with no shoes? How do you ride 45 minutes beside someone and don't see that they don't have shoes? I had decided that he would just have to walk around all day in sock feet when Candice appeared with a pair of shoes for him to wear. I had never seen anything so glorious in all of my life!
• It was a good thing that boy didn't have to walk in his sock feet because he would have froze to death today. It was overcast and incredibly windy. So even if the temperature was decent normally; today it was just cold. I had to break into my clothes that I had packed in the car for tonight. It was near being a tad bit miserable.
• Today at the Air Force Base, they had a science day for school kids. There were supposed to be 15,000 kids there. That sounded like a lot until we heard that they were expecting 250,000 people tomorrow. We were scheduled to be some of the first people to arrive, and that really worked out perfectly.
• Not only was our parking spots on the very front row, but we had a few minutes with no lines for things. Campbell, Whitman and Anderson were able to do a huge simulator. Then our whole group toured the air traffic control tower. That was really impressive, and I think that it was a fairly rare opportunity.
• Next up, we walked around some of the exhibits. We watched them release a weather balloon and sat through show from the Museum of Discovery. There was an exhibit with Legos, drone races to watch, paper rockets to shoot and the list went on and on. It was pretty overwhelming. 
• Around lunch, we went back to our cars to eat and warm up. Quite a few extra kids ate their lunches in my car, but the kids were super quiet. I think that they were happy to be still and warm for a few minutes. 
• After we ate our lunch, we braved the elements and went back in. This time the highlight was the kids getting to get in an inflatable raft. Then about 6 servicemen lifted and bounced the raft over their heads. They all loved that!
• During the morning time, there had been a few planes flying overheard practicing for tomorrow's air show. The original schedule had been for the planes to practice again from 1-3. So around 1:15, we walked back to the cars to watch them practice. There were not a ton of planes practicing but it was still interesting. It was too cold to sit out and watch so we just sat in the cars watching the planes.
• At 2, we headed on back to Little Rock. Reagan, Anderson and Graham had their library class this afternoon. We all snacked the entire way back to town. Once at the library, the big kids went to class. They talked about website development and coding today.
• I worked with Whitman for a minute or two with his reading book-we are so close to finishing. Then Campbell and Keaton took Whitman downstairs at the library to explore their exhibits down there. Soon Robby arrived to take those 3 to Dana's house for the evening. 
• They went to a chili supper and are even getting to spend the night at Dana's house. Sara's kids left the library with their daddy so that left her and me at the library with no kids to watch. We struggled to stay awake after our long day. Once their class was over, we jumped in the car and headed to church.
• Robby had bought us a pizza just in case there wasn't any supper for us. The church also had pizza so we ate some of both. Camryn met up with us so Camryn, Reagan, Anderson and Graham worked in the preschool game area. I don't think that they had too many takers tonight during GSFest. However, the area was full of their friends so they had a pretty good time. 
• I think that the crowd was a bit lighter than expected tonight, so that makes me worry that tomorrow will be full of folks. Hopefully, it will not be too bad. Robby and I worked checking in volunteers so our job wasn't bad at all. We had time to walk around and even bought hot chocolate, steak tacos and tamales to munch on while we worked. 
• Our shifts were all officially over at 9. Robby told the kids that they could play until 10 so off they went. Alyssa was added to the group so she hung with the kids. Robby then extended their time to 10:15. They were able to do quite a few things-enough that Anderson said he was feeling sick!
• I left around 10 and headed home. Anderson did come home with me, but he was feeling fine by then. I worked on unloading the car and putting everything away until Robby and all of the others came home. 
• Once home folks took showers, mainly just to warm up. Then it was shortly bedtime. I probably have a ton of typos on my blog, because I am rushing through so I can hop in the shower and warm myself up! The day was a success even though we were gone for over 15 hours.