Why do bad things happen to good people?

I don't have an answer to that question, just an example.

I recently learned that the 2-year old son of Firstborn's 5th grade teacher is going through treatment for leukemia. This man was just wonderful for Firstborn last year. Firstborn couldn't have gotten a better teacher for his first year in Ohio. So, I'm putting out the word to all my Ohio friends. There will be a marrow doner drive on Saturday from noon to 4PM.
Location: Beavercreek Family Care
2510 Commons Blvd # 220
Beavercreek, OH 45431
Near Fairfield Commons Mall

And for those of you who don't live in Ohio, you can still help. The national bone marrow registry has a very easy test they can mail you. All you have to do is swab your cheek and send the swab in to the lab. Even if none of us are a match for little Nathaniel Bouchard, maybe we can be a match for some other deserving person.

You can support Nathaniel and other children with pediatric cancers by going to: www.marrow.org

Select the tab "Join the Registry"
Select "Join Now"
IF YOU MEET THE CRITERIA, please follow the instructions. A kit will be mailed to you. Send the kit back A.S.A.P. and you increase Nan's chance (and others just like him) of a good match.
There is a bone marrow typing fee associated with this process. It is tax deductible.
Finally, should you want to make a contribution to our outreach efforts, please send your donation to:
Jason Bouchard
357 Park Lane, Springboro, OH 45066
Please write "Be The Match Fund" in the memo line of your check
In an effort to save lives, please contact everyone you know and share this information with them.

Back East

For spring break I drove back east with the kids to visit Grandma.

We left on Friday morning since the teachers were having one of those convenient development days that lengthen holidays and long weekends. It was nice to travel on a weekday and avoid the mid day traffic of the weekend, but it meant that we had to deal with rush hour.

The trip out from Dayton was nothing but fog. Firstborn was learning about wind farms in Science class and I wanted to point out the many wind farms we have here in Ohio, but we couldn't see anything off the road. It was truly a pea soup fog. Very tiring to look at nothing but white and the small bits of road lines that I could see. The boys were happy in the back of the car doing their video games and watching movies.

We did a layover in New Jersey before starting out again on Saturday for New England. Our first stop on Saturday was to Tewksbury to see friends. Firstborn had a get together planned with his friend V. I guess we can't call them play dates anymore, though they did play the whole time.

I called Remcat and was happy to hear that she was available in the afternoon. So, Lastborn and I killed some time in the Tewksbury playground before we went to her house. The weather was beautiful and the park was almost as full as it is every fourth of July. And what was that we spied in the back corner of the parking lot?

Yes, that's snow. They still have snow in Massachusetts. OK. So the snow was left over from what the plough had dumped in the corner of the parking lot, but it was still snow and we revelled in the fact that we are so past that in Ohio.

Lastborn was not too into playing because he didn't know any of the kids there. A few of my friends stopped by and I was able to chat, but their kids had all gone to different elementary schools from Lastborn. So, he didn't remember them much from the toddler playgroup days. He spent most of his time hiding in this tube scaring the toddlers.

But we very much enjoyed the sunshine until Remcat called to tell us she was home. That was where it started to get fun for Lastborn. Remcat has three boys, 9, 7, and 3. Lastborn was able to play inside and outside with them while Remcat and I talked. It was good to talk to old friends again and her dog decided that I was missing Nova and climbed into my lap giving me kisses the whole time. Remcat and I talked until dinner time and then I went to find the boys dinner and drive down to the cape to visit with my MIL. The Garmin sent us through Boston on the expressway and the trip seemed to go really fast that way. It was a Saturday night and there wasn't much traffic. So it probably was the best way, until we got to Bourne. Grandma's place on the cape is north of the canal. We should not have to cross any bridges. But the state had recently finished a big construction project around the Bourne Bridge and they had decided to change all the exit numbers. So we ended up going over the bridge. Then when we turned around the rotary to go back over the bridge, the Garmin got confused again and sent us back over the bridge. We were in an infinite loop! Added to this situation was the fact that Lastborn had to gooooo. You know. Kids always have to go when you are lost. So we eventually stopped into the Knight's Inn in Bourne and asked to use their bathroom. They were nice enough to let him and we continued on. At this point, I figured out which exit we were supposed to take in within 5 minutes, we were pulling into Grandma's driveway.

Hugs all around and some visiting before bed. We had wonderful accommodations though the boys had to share a bed. Always harder on Firstborn who doesn't like to touch than on Lastborn who is extremely cuddly. We could hear the boys giggling until almost 10 o'clock.

On Sunday the rain came in and the boys spent the day playing computer games. Not much fun but at least they had that to entertain them.

On Monday, I got together with S and Remcat at the Barnes and Noble in Burlington and we talked over coffee and chocolate cheesecake. Mmmmm. The boys were with Grandma and P doing some final cleanup on the house they had just moved out of. Can you believe Grandma allowed us to stay with her the day after she moved into the newly remodelled house on the cape? What a wonderful grandma and we were amazed at how moved in they were.

We all got back to the house at around 7pm and the boys settled down for some TV watching when Eddie fell asleep.

He must have been exhausted from the nights of late-night whispering with his brother. I finally laid him down on the floor because he was threatening to fall down between the chairs and knock his head. His head probably would have been fine, but it would have left a dent in Grandma's newly installed hard-wood floor.

Tuesday was our one and only fairly nice day and I insisted that the boys spend some time outside. We walked the smaller beach in the cove near Grandma's house and looked for shells and sea glass. The beach was littered with many shells some of them even nice ones. We went back home at one point to pick up some plastic bags to carry all the shells and neat beach rocks we found. The boys loved that though Lastborn kept asking for food.

I decided that since Grandma and P had a meeting all day on Wednesday, that we would make Wednesday our tourist day and we would try to do lots of tourist things. We headed out first to the other side of the Bourne Bridge because I wanted the boys to see the glass blowing at Pairpoint Glass company. This is something DH and I did on our honeymoon and it is quite a sight to see. Unfortunately, they did not blow that day because their furnace was not working. But we picked up a glass swan for my friend T who was watching Nova with her husband and I picked up a piece for DH.

Lastborn was like a bull in a china shop. He simply can't stand still, and the more you try to make him stand still the more he has to move. I finally sent the boys out to the car to play video games while I selected the pieces because I could not concentrate while trying to keep him away from the many shelves of glass. We nick named him GlassCrusher.

Next, we moved on to the Sandwich Boardwalk over the marshlands.

Picture courtesy of the Sandwich Boardwalk webpage.

We walked the length of the boardwalk over the marshes, up a large sand dune and down to the beach. I was a bit nervous as the boardwalk had no railings except where it crosses a creek. Remember lastborn who can rarely sit still? Well he finds equal trouble in walking a straight line and he seems to think the rules of gravity do not apply to him. The whole walk I was waiting for him to fall into the smelly mud of the marsh.

I'm really sorry I didn't bring my camera because it was really beautiful. Firstborn walked faster than Lastborn and I and he crested the sand dune first. He announced to the group that it was well worth the trip.

Lastborn replied, "Why? Is there food up there?" This is becoming a theme with him.

On the crest of the sand dune, the view of the ocean and back to the marshes was spectacular. This is why we come off season. The sky was full of puffy cl0uds and the wind was blowing in a menacing way as a new front came in. The waves were high and choppy and seagulls hovered over the shore looking for food. No one else was around.

The boys ran down to the beach to look for shells and rocks. They explored tidal pools and threw things into the water. The tide was coming in. So, I warned them to keep lots of room between them and the waves so they wouldn't get wet. We were lucky if it was 40 out that day and I didn't want to deal with wet cold feet. Sure enough, on the second wave in, Lastborn was covered almost to the knees. Sigh.

After an hour on the beach we were all getting hungry, so we headed out to Marshland's restaurant. The locals had recommended it. Wow. We all ordered a different fried seafood and shared. Clams, scallops, and shrimp. Firstborn was a bit put off by the fact that the shrimp still had their tails on. All three boys finished everything on their plate and then had huge desserts. Better to give them energy for the rest of the site-seeing day.

Next we were off to the Sandwich Glass Museum. This time, the boys got to see glass blowing and they thought it was soo cool. They were the only people in the demonstration, so they got to ask all the questions they wanted to and the artist allowed them to use the glass press machine to make a sun catcher. She even gave them each one that had been cooled a day to take home. The museum had other interactive shows that the boys liked a lot too and they had a great time.

The boys enjoy one of the interactive shows on the history of life in Sandwich.

But we weren't done yet. Now, we were off to the Heritage Village Museum. We toured the car museum, we walked through the gardens, the boys tried the maze (though it was not much being made of deciduous shrubs), and they tried the labyrinth. Firstborn, pedantically walked through each turn and curve of the path, while Lastborn ran across the rock path markers to race to the center. They both meditated in the center of the labyrinth.

Then Firstborn ran out of the maze following the path while Lastborn repeated his own process in reverse.

While all this exercise was great for both boys, there were times when Lastborn didn't have the energy to make it any farther.

We continued on the Lake Path, stopping for a rest at the lake.

Then it was on to the History Museum. All the boys were willing to do was ride the carousel though. And the only thing that kept them going was the promise of candy at the end of the ride.

It was time to go home and rest.

Thursday, P tried to help me find more things to do with the boys since the rain had returned. We tried to go to the Aptucxet Trading Post, but it was still closed for the season. We tried to go to a ticky-tacky tourist store, but you had to get the guy at the bait shop to open it, so we gave up. Finally, we ended up at Marshlands again for lunch and I let Grandma go home. She doesn't like site seeing.

I headed out with P to find another ticky tacky tourist shop and to find a special liquor our neighbor wanted me to pick up. We stopped at 4 package stores and never found it. But I was able to get some tourist trinkets for me and the boys and their friends.

Early on Friday, we ate breakfast and headed out for home. The boys wanted one more stop on the beach and so I brought them to the main city beach in Onset. We spent about a half hour looking for shells and throwing rocks into the surf and then climbed into the car for a very rainy ride home.

The weather cleared when we hit the Pennsylvania border but then we hit traffic west of Harrisburg. After a two hour traffic jam, we stopped for dinner. So did everyone else who was stuck in traffic. We beat the crowd by just a little and then headed out again to drive as much as I could before stopping for the night. Unfortunately, a cold front was moving west to east and it packed some very high winds. I was only able to drive till about 9 o'clock before I had to give up and rest in Somerset PA.

Again, we woke early on Saturday (much to the pre-teen's dismay) and headed out. Again, we got stuck in traffic, this time in Columbus, but we finally made it home.

We had fun and thank Grandma for her patience putting up with me and my boys for a whole week.