Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

Today was a really fun day. We went to the Marshall Point lighthouse! We call it the Forrest Gump lighthouse, because it’s the one Forrest runs to and then decides to stop running and goes home. It’s a beautiful spot. The lighthouse is just your typical lighthouse, but the view is amazing and the rocky area underneath it is incredible. Beautiful stone patterns, tide pools, crashing waves. Ugh. Just everything. We all explored for a couple of hours and then ate lunch there. Things fell apart when we went into the gift shop though. I just refuse to waste money at every single gift shop we go to here and Clemi wanted to buy some stupid overpriced plush that had nothing to do with Marshall’s Point. I held my ground and told her no and, man, she had a complete meltdown. I was ready to throw her into the ocean, but instead we loaded into the car and went to an Alpaca Farm! It was a cute little spot. The alpacas and the donkeys were really sweet and everyone got to pet them (except me because...

Back on the road! We only had 6 hours to go today, but it really didn’t feel like less time on the road than yesterday. Ben thinks he wants to take the whole 15 hour drive straight to go home. It’s a lot, but I don’t really have a strong opinion either way. I think we should plan to switch off every two hours or so, so that neither of us gets too cramped up or sleepy, but we’ll see what we land on. I really don’t know what we’ll do. Ben started to have some back pain today from driving all day yesterday (we guess?) and also his nerve pain is back SUPER strong. So…wtf. Suck-tastic. But we got to Maine! We’re here!!! We got to the house after a quick trip to Walmart and settled in. My parents were just 15 minutes behind us, so that was great timing. We popped a frozen lasagna in the oven and then hung out on the beach, hunting for cool rocks and sea glass, and unpacking/making beds (me. I’m the only one who did that part). Dinner was great, visiting is awesome, the kids are being intoler...

I got a GREAT sleep last night! I am sleeping alone in a double bed in my own room because there is an extra room and me and Ben don’t want to squeeze into a double together. Well, Ben wants to squeeze into a double together, but I do not. The kids all slept amazingly well and weren’t even all that loud when the woke up this morning, thankfully. We had a bunch of beach and reading time this morning and the weather was perfect all day: cool and cloudy, just how I like it! Sadly, Ben fell this morning though. Like, a really hard fall and slammed his back onto a boulder on the beach. He was already having back pain and nerve pain and now we’re adding this to the equation. Just so upsetting and awful for him. He’s trying to tough it out, but he’s really struggling. We took the kids to Owls Head lighthouse for a little walk and a great view and let me tell you - I wanted to throw three of those kids right off the damn mountain. WHY are they being so awful??? Literally, complaining about eve...

The drive felt so long today. We had a bunch of technical difficulties with the media system in the car, which caused a whole lot of stress on my part. The kids had expectations (and so did we) that were not met, even though the car costs extra because of them. We stopped at our very favorite rest area in Geneva, NY but it was also not great! Normally, where you can stand with your feet in the water, the waves are crashing over your toes and it’s lots of fun. Today, the lake was stagnant and smelly. We usually buy lunch and sit at one of the shaded areas and eat while the kids eat and play on the playground. Today, we were literally SWARMED by bees everywhere we went - on our hands, buzzing around our heads, landing on our food. TWO of the girls threw their pizza on the ground in surrender! But of course the bees didn’t want the pizza and it didn’t stop them from swarming. So…not a great stop. It was a bummer. We ended up not having any stops that were enjoyable, just a bunch of quick ...

Remember that nonsense I posted yesterday about the week dragging? Well, it's no longer dragging. It is suddenly rushing by, with less than 36 hours until we leave, and I AM NOT READY. *face palm* I've been thinking about getting ready for weeks, but actually putting stuff in bags isn't done yet. And then there's all of the things you don't think about initially: hair stuff for the girls, stacks of absolutely necessary books, board games, medicine, nail clippers, extra blankets, extra hoodies, snacks, packing lunch, camera stuff, charging tablets, picking out DVDs, making cookies for MJ's birthday. The list goes on. In truth, I'm probably about halfway done packing. I'm not in bad shape. But I wanted the house to be clean and I wanted to go to bed at a decent time tomorrow. We'll see how it all plays out.  We did school today and it went well. I dropped the bags off to Anne and also handed off a bunch of things that I need to return to people at the ...

The week is DRAGGING! So ready for it to be Friday...and then I'll be desperate for time to slow down. We decided to skip co-op today, which feels a little pointless since we HAVE to go on Thursday. But I guess the less we're around people, the less chance there is that we'll get sick. Still.  I took the kids to Indian Run Falls for a short hike and some creeking, which everyone enjoyed so much. Then we ran to Target to do a quick return and pick up some cereal to last us the rest of the week. I swear, every time I walk into that store with the kids it's an absolute shit show. Begging, fighting, running around, grabbing everything they can get their hands on. I'm so over it.  I need to get us packed up! Is it too early to have the car loaded? :) 

We had a great school day today: started on time, got all subjects finished by noon, and even did French! We'll have tomorrow and Thursday off for co-op, so we need to have two good days this week. I'm getting SO excited for Maine! I can barely stand to wait the three more days until we leave. (I didn't take pictures today, so included some photos from Maine 2017.) I finally cleaned the shoes that have been sitting around and got them listed on fb Marketplace to sell. I cannot even stand how much stuff I have hanging around that needs to be sold or donated. I'll take care of these fall/winter shoes and then start listing clothes, I guess. It seems kind of silly to get involved in all of this when I'm getting ready for a trip, but it also seems like once it's October it'll be getting too late to sell fall stuff. We'll see what I have time for!  Jonas's huge spider bite swelling has gone down a lot today, thank God. I really didn't want to have to ...

Church this morning, while Ollie sat around with me and Ben because of her fever yesterday. It went fine. We didn't stay too long afterward, but I did get time to pray with people and all of the classrooms had enough volunteers. Very much looking forward to getting a break for the next two Sundays! When we got home, I relaxed for a while, played some Zelda, and then cleaned my butt off for hours and hours and hours. All of the camping stuff from the weekend and a deep clean on the main floor of the house. My goal *fingers crossed* is to maintain the clean until we leave early Friday morning. This may not seem unattainable to many people, but moms know that this is a very lofty goal. It may not work. But I really like coming home to a clean house and I know I won't have time to clean again before we leave.  Taking these spooky photos of Ollie got me excited for my Halloween photo series! I have lots of fun ideas in the works and am hoping to do one or two of them while we're...

Sleep wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! I think I've slept so badly on the cot in the past because I was anxious about everyone sleeping in the tent. With the reassurance that we could just go inside if someone was unable to sleep, I actually slept pretty well! I spent most of the day finishing up organizing the garage. We built another shelf for the toys, I hung Ben's bike on the wall, hung our folding chairs, and found space for all of the other things that were on the ground. It's not perfect, but it's so much better than it was.  Ben and I both really wanted to just chill inside in the evening, but we went out and had our chili and bread, hung out with Kwin and Ashley very, very briefly, then had a fire with the kids again. Oh, and can't forget karaoke! I tried all of my fun different colored fire experiments and none of them changed the color of the flames at all. 🤦$35 for all of those chemicals and nothing happened! While the Albinos were here, Ivy ...

Today was a pretty big day. We got a new van!!! Well, it's actually considered an MPV (multi-purpose vehicle), but we all know it's still a mini-van. It's huge though, about 4" longer than a typical van. It's spacious, and comfortable, and has everything we could ever want and all of the things we had no idea we needed. What really sold us on it was the fact that it has those blind spot cameras. Such a game-changer for Ben. We'll be paying way more than we want to for it for the next six years, but Ben and I both feel like it was time and I'm just going to be grateful we have it! We also decided to camp at home instead of with the HC group this weekend. :( We're all pretty sad about it, but the runny noses and coughing made the decision for us. Ben was in SUCH a terrible mood about it for HOURS. So miserable. He'd really been looking forward to this camping trip for a long time. I tried to encourage him to go on his own, but he didn't want to do...

Today, we had our fastest day of homeschool ever. We were done with everything (other than French) by 11am! I was honestly a little annoyed about it, because the kids also finished their chores early, so they just sat and watched tv for HOURS. It gave me plenty of time to get stuff ready for camping tomorrow though, WHICH, btw, it looks like may not happen as planned. Exactly like last year, Ollie is having a few cold symptoms: runny nose, cough, whiny, tired. Such a bummer! Ben is basically traumatized from having to pack up on his own last year, so he can't even imagine having to do it again. I have a whole lot I really want to say about that, but I'm trying super hard to just bite my tongue since it won't be helpful to anyone. Anyway, it doesn't seem like she'd sleep well in a tent. She already needed to snuggle with me for 3 hours last night because she was feeling off. I'll probably take her home Friday night, come back Saturday morning, and then decide if ...

Today was a rough one. I have completely run out of patience for my kids being ungrateful and careless. After a morning of chaos, crying, screaming, fighting, and general mayhem (and school), I took them out to the library to try to reset. It did not work. When we got home, I was so over it all and had to sit down and lecture them for 20 minutes, while imposing some new zero tolerance policies for fighting. Straight into a time out. Because, honestly, I just need more peace in my life. And so do they! Letting it go on this long has been a mistake. Ugh. Not fun.  I spent some time relaxing this afternoon while they were in quiet time, laid on the couch wanting to cry for about an hour, then went outside to take some pictures. It was a long day and I'm looking forward to just getting out of here and doing something different this weekend. Ben is stressing me out about camping though. He is constantly reciting our list and telling me things we can't forget to do. Even though he...