Thanksgiving 2021, plus 14 Ways to Survive a Hotel with Bored Children

We celebrated Thanksgiving weekend with family in Virginia. When we talked about the things we are most thankful for, relationships with God and family kept recurring, reminding me how richly blessed I am to have an amazing God and so many stellar people in my life. 

Our Thanksgiving weekend included a traditional turkey (shared with an Indian)...

Bird Song has one talented seamstress for 
a grandma.

...and a not-as-traditional Thanksgiving turkey (not shared with an Indian). 

On Saturday, we visited Sea Quest and hand-fed animals like wallabies and iguanas and parakeets. If your children ever want something to do in Lynchburg, look up Sea Quest, a hands-on zoo aquarium. 

We made new friends and visited old ones. 

On the way home from our happy weekend, our van began having internal issues and showed its discomfort by puffing clouds of steam from under the hood. Following the advice of my mechanic-dad, we abandoned the idea of limping home and checked into a hotel at 10:30 pm. In the morning and three garages later, John found a merciful mechanic who squeezed us into his hectic after-the-holiday-Monday. 

Meanwhile, I stayed at the hotel with three children, no paper, and no games except those of my own making. My better boredom buster ideas are posted below in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation. 

1. Eat Breakfast. And take your time about it because when people are eating, they are not dying of boredom, thirst, or starvation, three conditions which can happen simultaneously and on short notice, depending on your age. 

2. Play 'Hide the Dog'. We didn't have a thimble but had an almost-thimble-sized dog. Hide the Dog worked well for seven rounds until the Child Wearing Shoes accidentally stomped on the sore toe of the Child Not Wearing Shoes. A wild holler of pain scared the fun out of the game entirely and had me cringing lest we be reported to the front desk.

3. Watch "The Most Dangerous Ways to School." We followed the journey of four young children in the Himalayas as they walked 100 km on a partially frozen, partially rushing river to get to a boarding school. Incredible. Afterwards, I told my children that if we lived in the Himalayas, they would have to content themselves being sheepherders and farmers because I cannot imagine sending them on a week-long journey that risks their lives.

4. Play word games like, "How many words can you think of pertaining to traveling?" And, "How many words can you think of that rhyme with car?"

5. Move children and luggage to the lobby at check out time. Offers a diversion, even though all of your antics are now public. If I had thought about it before we checked out of our room, I would have left the luggage behind and rode the elevator to the top floor for a good view of the town. 

6. Have your youngest imitate how different animals walk. And walk with his hands on his head. Hands on his knees. Walk backwards. With his eyes shut, but don't...eeks...hit that...lamp! Game over.

7. Do a scavenger hunt. Give them a list of ten things to take pictures of. This was my list, written on the back of a paper in my purse.

 

8. See how much luggage one person can carry (not pull) across the lobby. 

9. Skip a tile when you walk across the foyer. Now two tiles. Now three. And now four. Five? Not happening. 

10. Span the carpet. 

11. Sing Christmas carols. 

12. Nix wrestling. Nix playing on or with the luggage carts. (Trying to avoid eviction.) Nix the older sending the younger alone in the elevator to the sixth floor. 

13. Talk to people who come through the lobby, including the curious who want to know if you are Amish. "Ma'am," she said, "I just want to tell you that your babies are beautiful. The way you dress is so beautiful. Don't you change." My babies missed all she said except that embarrassing word--babies. 

14. Send a group pic to the aunt who asks, "You on the road yet?"

(What an hour and a half of being in a lobby can do to you.)

Somehow, we left the hotel in good humor, a testimony to the truly extraordinary children I have been given.  

There is Always Something to Be Thankful For

If I were to describe Thanksgiving 2016 in a couple of words, I would choose therapeutic and life-giving. At the time, our little family lived on the edge of Accra, Ghana’s esteemed capital. Ten fruit trees and a rectangle of grass grew on our property, but otherwise, the rest of our premises was man-made: a cement house, large gray brick courtyard, and a high wall that outlined the perimeter of our property and obstructed our view of the neighborhood. When I left our courtyard, it often meant going deeper into the city where there were, of course, more cement buildings. Tall ones. Unfinished ones with rebar poking crookedly from second stories. Buildings with crumbling concrete or brilliant paint. The streets were clogged with the chaos and commotion of too many cars and too little parking.

On Thanksgiving weekend, we traveled four hours to celebrate the holiday with other Americans. Our hosts’ home had a spacious backyard that ran in grassy exuberance up to the Atlantic’s rocky shore. The expansive ocean was wonderfully therapeutic to my city-sore eyes. The salty breeze that blew inland brought a welcome change from the stale air stirred by our lazy ceiling fans.

On that Sunday morning, a group of us gathered beneath a red-and-blue-striped canopy. I listened to the message, truly. But at first my attention was glued to that majestic ocean. I could see miles of surging water between me and the horizon. Hand-crafted fishing boats that carried men to prime fishing spots bobbed on undulating waves. A mast from a sunken ship poked tenaciously above the water, then disappeared beneath higher crests, adding mystery and intrigue to the scene. Nearer to me, waves crashed against the rocky shore and exploded into liquid fireworks.

All I saw thrilled me. I tried internalizing the view, knowing I would want to drink from its beauty many times after we returned to our cement-clad home.

But the scenery wasn’t the only thing I would carry away.

The speaker that morning was a stranger to me, a visitor named Leonard Meador. He and his wife were traveling with an aid organization and happened to be in the area for Thanksgiving. In his message, Leonard told us that he received a cancer diagnosis and a grim prognosis several years earlier. At the moment, Leonard’s life was no longer threatened by rogue cells, thanks to successful treatments, but he spoke candidly with no noticeable self-pity of those difficult days.

“When I awoke each morning, I chose thankfulness because I knew that regardless of my circumstances, there is always, always something to be thankful for.”

Thankful? When his world and maybe his very life was crumbling? I forgot the waves and the ocean. These were not empty platitudes spoken from pharisaic lips. They were words coming from a man who had chosen daily gratitude in the face of death.

Leonard continued. “I knew I always had something to thank God for because of these absolutes:

1. God is still on the throne. 
2. Jesus is preparing a place for those who love Him. 
3. Our God, unlike the gods of other religions, loves us and wants a relationship with His children.
4. Jesus saves us from our sins." 

I pocketed the crux of Leonard’s message and carried it with me to Accra, through the end of our term in Ghana, and eventually back to America. Especially during Thanksgiving season, I remember this message and consider the absolutes within it again. Regardless of my disappointments and unfulfilled dreams, regardless of failure, regardless of kidnappings and political unrest and pandemic complications that can unsettle me, there is always, always something to thank God for.

90 Minutes on the Appalachian Trail

I wish you could meet my mother. On first sight, she looks like any Mennonite housewife who bakes killer cinnamon rolls, keeps her house spit-shined and spider-free, and quilts by the mile. But it doesn't take long until you find a fun, unorthodox woman lurking behind the stereotype. 

She's the one who asked a cashier if his green hair was natural, and didn't bother explaining that she already knew it wasn't. The poor cashier probably still thinks Mennonites believe green hair happens to the babies of kale-eating mothers.

Mom also was the leader in our family's legendary Follow the Leader game. I'll preserve the remaining shreds of the participants' dignity by not disclosing names and details--except to say that somewhere beneath the neighbors' trees, my sister had enough and ran for home. But the grandchildren loved it and still laugh over the fun of the memory. Not, I say, a boring grandmother. 

I haven't heard that hiking the Appalachian Trail reached the bucket list of Mom's peers, but it was on hers. She wasn't interested in doing the whole thing, but dearly wanted to hike at least a section of the trail. "It has to have rocks," she told us emphatically. "I want to clamber over rocks." 

Fortunately for her dream, three of her daughters live in Pennsylvania near a rocky section of the AT. It wouldn't be difficult to give her the experience she desired. So, late in September when she came to visit us, we went on a mother-daughter hike.

The trail was all she hoped it would be with rocks to pick your way across and good views to stop and enjoy. 

Standing on the trail itself. Rocks? Got 'em.

We spent part of the hike finding the perfect rock she could add to the collection she has gathered from significant destinations. She has a rock from an Alaskan glacier, for example, which my son has had his eye on. And now she has a rock from the Appalachian Trail which looks exactly like the shape of Pennsylvania if you squint one eye, close the other, and hide part of the rock in your skirt. But it is small enough to fit in one hand, unlike the boulders that were suggested to her along the way, and it comes from the right trail. 

We didn't meet any through-hikers but we did meet a seedy character who added interest to our experience and speculation to the rehashing of the hike on our way home. Why was he concealed by the rock when we came around the corner and met him for the second time? And why did he act so surprised when he realized there were four of us? "Oh," he had said, straightening, and abandoning the fumble in his backpack. "There are more of you than I thought."

Back home in Indiana, Mom told her family doctor that she hiked on the Appalachian Trail. Most doctors like knowing their patients are staying fit and healthy while fulfilling dreams, and this doctor was appropriately impressed.

"How many days did you hike?" 

I wish I could have watched this conversation. I know the look Mom gets when she is trying to keep her face straight, the way her eyebrows raise. "Days? We hiked for 90..." She paused, she said, hoping he would be thinking miles. "...minutes." 

The good doctor threw back his head and laughed with pure enjoyment, then turned to his nurse. "She didn't hike the AT. She just looked at it." 

His long-standing relationship with my family allowed him to get away with laughing at Mom with no offense taken. But regardless of what he called the hike, Mom's feet walked the Appalachian Trail. 

I call it a dream fulfilled. 

My mom. One of the World's Best People. 

Native American Day

Last year we remembered Columbus Day with a corresponding art project. This year I decided to focus on Native Americans since my national day calendar lists both Native American Day and Columbus Day on October 11.

We started school by choosing Native American names for ourselves, then coming up with a system to fine anyone who used the wrong name. It is hard to teach old dogs new tricks, my friends. Abooksigun, in my experience, is infinitely harder to remember than Tyler. 

Bird Song, holding Singing Waters

John was at work when we chose new names, so the children kindly volunteered to help him out. Last suggestion I heard was Long John. 

Every time we forgot to call someone by their Indian name,
we had to pay the offended person in bead money.

I love our creative writing tablets because I can incorporate national days into the school day with little effort. This time, they copied Native American symbols into their tablets.

We used the same symbols when painting buffalo hides. To make the buffalo hides, we crumpled brown paper bags, smoothed them out, then painted symbols or pictures, using just a few colors. Detailed instructions are found on this website, where I sourced the idea.

Well, some of us painted symbols. One of us
just painted. 

Themed menus are a fun way to make any day feel celebratory, so I looked online for Native American recipes. Some of them were impossible to make since I didn't have a good source for bear grease or buffalo meat. Lacking those key ingredients, I knew our food would be inferior to the real deal. Despite its shady authenticity, our dinner menu suited our purposes nicely. 

Fry Bread

Fish

Succotash

Sweet Potatoes

Jerky

Nuts & Seeds

Nasaump, a cornmeal and berry porridge

It was a satisfying ending to a great day. 

Making DIY Ink

Ever since I heard that it is possible to make ink from natural substances, I wanted to try it with my children. Yesterday Tyler triumphantly brought me pokeberry ink that was nearly ready to be used. He had pounded the berries with his mortar and pestle (plastic cup and a stick). I strained the liquid and mixed in vinegar and salt to preserve the color. 

Today in the children's creative journals, I assigned the children to write a message using a quill and pokeberry ink. 

But if one color is good, more is better, right?

We looked for things in nature that stain your fingers. Walnuts. Leaves. Flowers. 

To get green ink, I collected a wad of green leaves and blended them with a little bit of water. Walnuts shells needed to be boiled for 15 minutes, as did the vinca petals. Once I had highly colored liquid, I added salt and vinegar to each color, which supposedly preserves the color. 

Boiling yellow mum petals failed to make yellow ink, but I remembered reading about turmeric being a good choice. I ran out of time and patience in waiting for the turmeric to fully dissolve in water, so we used it prematurely. If we were going to paint canvases to sell, I would have wanted to find a way to have my yellow less watery.

But the yellow paint worked fine for our purposes. We used the quill to do smaller spaces, words, or outlines and brushes for everything else.

Maybe someday I'll experiment with more kinds of berries, onion peels, dirt, chili powder, and purple cabbage. I'd also like to try mixing paint colors to see the new combinations we can come up with. But for now, my desire to make natural ink is fully satisfied. 

Curing Destination Disease

Ever travel with a person stricken by Destination Disease? If you have, you know what it is like. No unnecessary breaks. No avoidable waypoints. No relaxed meals. Just get in the car and drive with bug-eyed determination to your destination. 

Steve Gilliland, a motivational speaker, calls that hammer-down traveling style the Destination Disease. Unfortunately, John and I have been guilty of that, at least to some degree. Grandparents live a day's drive away which means we start driving in the morning and muscle through boredom and travel-weariness by watching mile markers slip by the windows. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can start having fun. This past weekend, though, we decided to take Gilliland's advice and enjoy the ride. 

We broke up an 11-hour drive by stopping at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia. 

Each house, with exception to the West African replica, comes from the country it represents. The buildings were torn apart in their native homelands, their bricks numbered and marked for correct position and orientation, and the buildings were reassembled at the museum. For my LEGO-loving children, this sounded like the biggest LEGO challenge ever. Each house represented the kinds of homes the early American immigrants would have had (or desired to have) in their homeland. 

English house in the 1600's

One room of the English house

Irish farm from the 1700s

Many of the stops had friendly, informed volunteers who told us about the era and answered our questions.

A German man cooked era-appropriate food in the
German kitchen. He apologized for not being able to share 
the food with us. The best he could do, he said, was to let us smell his
breath after he finished eating, if we were interested. We weren't.

The tinsmith

One of the favorite stops for all of us was the African compound, probably because we could easily imagine we were back in Ghana. We recognized the woven fish trap (hanging beside the pole on the left side of the picture), the food, the gourds. They even had bamboo and banana plants growing nearby. 

But best of all was the family time. To humor our ride-loving threesome, we rented a golf cart instead of walking two miles around the premises. Walking would have made the most sense, considering we were breaking up a road trip, but the fun of a golf cart easily offset the missed exercise. We drove from one house to the next, happy to be together on a stunning September day.

Waiting in the shadows for the forge's volunteer
to return from his lunch break

Our success in breaking up the journey to South Carolina with the museum and a hotel for the night made us appreciate Steve Gilliland's advice to enjoy the ride.

With that insight freshly impressed upon us, John and I asked the children if they'd like to stop for the night to break up the 11-hour drive home. But anticipating a school holiday the next day, they opted to drive hammer-down with bug-eyed determination through travel weariness and boredom and get home yet that night. 

We humored them. I suppose this means none of us are completely cured of Destination Disease.  

But perhaps we are on the road to recovery. When we only had a few hours to go, our youngest said, "Mommy, I need to snuggle with you." The van needed fuel anyway, so we stopped and fueled up, then sat in the parking lot an extra ten minutes for no better reason than to let the youngest snuggle with his best mommy.

I call that enjoying the ride.

The License Plate Map

Starting point: Lancaster County, PA

Destination: Greenwood, SC 

Our maps app said it would take 9 hours and 52 minutes to drive that distance. But if you add in the inevitable road construction and the child who needs to visit rest stops with shocking regularity and occasional meals to stave off starvation, ten hours wasn't going to get us to the wedding in Greenwood. I knew we would need something to entertain the children along the way. 

We have Scribd, that wonderous library of audiobooks which we listened to by the hour. And we have an endless store of music that we listened to or sang with.

But my stroke of genius was taking along a blank map of the US so we could color in the State of each license plate we saw. John was already locking the house door when I decided to print one, so I begged his pardon and dashed back to the school room long enough to print a blank map. At first there were many spaces to color. But as the trip wore on, coloring in the spaces of much-needed states gave the same rush as fitting in the last pieces of a puzzle. For a long time, Kentucky and Vermont were the only two we needed to finish coloring the eastern half of the US. We dearly wanted them.

I suggested to John that he drive through a rest stop solely so we could read the license plates on the semis. He humored me, but just when we slowed on the ramp of the rest area, the child-with-the-mouse-like-bladder needed to go potty which meant we parked with the cars instead of driving through the corridor of trucks.

Even without a nest of truck plates to aid us, we saw a car from Kentucky in South Carolina and a Vermont tag in Pennsylvania after dark, less than two hours from home. The children were sleeping, so I colored in Vermont with deep satisfaction. 

Our map at the end of our trip

If you want to use this idea, I suggest you consider: 

1. a map for each child. We had one map and while it made the game a fun family event, it also created the question of who gets to color in the spaces. With only two children who wanted the pleasure, it was easily resolved, but larger families might run into larger issues with this.

2. a blank map instead of a labeled one. If I had thought of this fast enough, my children would have honed their map skills along the way. 

3. a map with Canadian provinces as well. After we saw a plate for the third province, I drew them onto the map and hoped no Canadian or cartographer would look at my sketches too closely.

4. coloring each state every time to you see it. This would make commonly seen states dark and infrequent ones much lighter. We considered coming up with a plan for this, but decided against it lest we wear holes in the page for the states we traveled through. But I still think it would add interest to the map of an older child. Color the state black after seeing it ten times, if you don't mind keeping score. 

All told, the map was great entertainment. Even for the mom.