Focht Family Blog

Obviously I am behind AGAIN! :)

Between Vermont and Boston we had a couple of stops. One of them was a visit to one of the Garnets, Stefanie, where she taught Samantha about horses and caring for them. Here is Samantha watching one of the horses, Jezebel…

Stefanie had Samantha help her feed the horses and muck out the stables and lead the horses in and out of their stables. Stefanie’s son Diego decided he was going to show Samantha how to take the manure out once the stables were mucked. Here is Diego with his own wheelbarrow…

Here is Samantha learning how to brush the horses… I think this was Lacrosse…

And a picture of Samantha and Stefanie leading one of the horses to the corral…

Thank you Stefanie for such a great day full of education! :)

Today I had the pleasure of meeting another Garnet. Kristi drove over an hour to spend some time with us while her two older children were in school. Kaia is her Garnet baby and she has a little boy named Brian as well. Here is a picture of all of the kids and also one of Kristi and me with the kids…

This is Joshua waiting to go into the pool…

And Timmy and Joshua playing in the pool…

And my last picture is of Timmy walking back to the RV…

We have been having a lot of fun. We looked at going to a couple of the local museums but we have decided that tomorrow will just be another day at the pool because after we leave here we drive for four days heading to Iowa. It will be quite awhile before the kids have a pool to swim in again! :)

This morning we got up early and went to Jelly Belly to meet one of the Garnet moms, Jill. We decided to go over the Golden Gate Bridge to get to the Jelly Belly Factory. Here is a picture of the bridge as we were getting on it and one as we were going over it.

We arrived a little bit early at Jelly Belly so I took some pictures of the artwork in the lobby…

These were pictures that were created like mosaics with Jelly Belly beans.

Samantha, Timmy, and Josh decided to sit by the stairs while we waited…

We were not allowed to take pictures on the tour but here are the boys right before the tour began…

After the tour was over we did a bit of shopping (of course) and now everyone has Jelly Belly beans to last for months. :) We decided to skip the cafe at the factory and instead went to a nearby mall and ate at a Red Robin. Here is a picture of Jill and I with all of the kids outside of the Red Robin. Her Garnet baby is Leah and she also has a little boy named Nolan who is a little older than one.

Joshua and Leah played a game of chase around a pillar. I couldn’t manage to catch them both in the same picture but here is Joshua running around the pillar after Leah and one of Leah waiting for Josh to come back around the pillar…

We had a great time. Tomorrow we will go and do the San Francisco tourist thing and ride the trolley and go to Fisherman’s Wharf. I will post pictures tomorrow night.

We decided to go into the city on Saturday because Nathan could come with us. I am glad he did because I don’t think I could have waved down a cab to save my life. :)

The campground we stayed at was a five block walk to a PATH train that takes you into the city. Here is Nathan and the kids sitting waiting for the train.

Our first stop was Build-A-Bear. I promised the kids lunch at the Eat With Your Paws Cafe. We started out trying to walk and apparently I remembered the address wrong because we walked about 5 blocks and finally called and found out we were about 20 blocks away from the store so Nathan waved over a cab and we had the cab drive us. Here are the kids sitting at lunch. The straws are bear faces.

The kids all got to choose a new animal to be stuffed. Samantha chose a beagle, mostly because it had a matching puppy that grandma bought her. Here is her beagle being stuffed.

Timmy chose a Pteranodon (sp?). It is a flying bird dinosaur. Grandma also bought him a baby version. :) Here is Timmy’s being stuffed.

Joshua chose a Cheetah. This is his first Build-A-Bear animal. He thinks it is baby Jaguar from Diego. Here is his Cheetah being stuffed.

After lunch and shopping, Nathan waved over another cab and asked to be taken to FAO but the cab driver didn’t understand or didn’t know where it was so the next stop was the 4 story Toys R Us in Times Square. Here is a picture of the Ferris wheel that is inside the store and a picture of Nathan and the boys in their car.

After spending more money at Toys R Us the kids were starting to get tired so we decided to skip FAO. Nathan decided to take one more stop at American Girl. He figured it would be fun for Samantha to go to all of the American Girl stores. While there I bought the boys Bitty Twin boys. Timmy got a blond boy and Josh a brunette. Timmy was upset that he doesn’t have pajamas to change his into so I guess I will have to get him some while we are in Atlanta. :)

The next two days we hung out at the RV while Nathan worked. We had a visit from one of the “Garnet Moms” while we were there. Joy lives in New Jersey about an hour or so away from where we were staying. She has five kids. She brought her two daughters, Katie and baby Emma as well as her Garnet Caleb (same age as Josh). Here is a picture of all of us together.

Unfortunately my health was getting worse so we decided not to go back to upstate New York and just go home so I could get in with my doctors in GA. I met with the allergist and he agrees that I need shots but is worried I will have a hard time finding doctors to give them to me. In college I had two vials of serum, I am now up to 4!! So for the first year I will have to get 4 shots once a week and then it decreases over the next four years. He says that at the end of five years I will not need any allergy medications. We will see.

I am also waiting to meet with an endocrinologist because although my thyroid levels are within normal range they are at the low end and I found lab results from 10 years ago that show my level was twice as much as it is now then, so we will see if that can get settled as well. Mom meets with her doctor on Friday to find out if he feels like she needs surgery or not. Misty is still having diarrhea although she has been on medicines since we have been home. I am hoping we all feel better soon.

We finally made it to Louisiana! Timmy has been very upset that we had a missing state on our map in the middle of all of the other states. We came into Louisiana last night and had dinner with one of my “Garnet sisters”. When I was pregnant with Josh, I started posting on Babycenter with a group of girls that were all due within the same week. Eventually we split off and formed a group on yahoo and we have been typing to each other for 3 1/2 years. I am going to try to meet them if I am near any of them. My first picture is of Lanette with her two children, Caroline and Carson with me and our three.

After we had dinner we drove for about an hour to a Cabela’s because they have RV parking and we were curious about them and wanted to walk around the store. They opened at 8:00 and we went in with the kids and walked all around. The animals displayed were nothing short of artistry on the taxidermist part. They had a section that was just African animals and had it set up so they looked like they were doing things that were natural for them. There was even an elephant and a white rhino. Here is a picture of a lioness attacking her prey.

There was another area that had bears and mountain type animals. One of my favorites was the timber wolf. I have always loved wolves.

Here are two pictures I took that I just can’t believe they were able to do. The goat is not touching anything but the bear’s mouth. The mountain lion is not touching anything but the deer’s back (with one paw).

And finally… before leaving the parking lot we had to put our new sticker on….

We drove through Houston today. We were trying to get to the Forbidden Gardens in time for the last tour but we were a little late. We decided to park for the night at Camping World and we will go on the first tour in the morning before heading to San Antonio. While here, Nathan had my mom buy her tube that she wanted so that she could have a septic hose of her own again. So here is Nathan installing it in the parking lot with his little helper.