Focht Family Blog

Thursday my mother-in-law called to let us know there were large storms with tornadoes around Indianapolis. We told her not to worry because we were well north of that in a little town called Nappanee. Well…. wouldn’t you know that Thursday night the storms were knocking at our door. We were watching the local news and when we saw a large storm cell with circulation coming towards us we left the RV and went in search of the local storm shelter. We got to the church but it was locked. We drove to the fire station and they said that they were just heading to the church to open it. We were the first ones in the basement.

They had a toy room for the kids so they were playing in there and were happy until we heard the words… tornado on the ground! We didn’t have any more information than that and then they lost power so the lights all went out. We sat for awhile until they said the storm cell had past us. We decided to go back to the RV at least temporarily because I was starting to have an asthma attack from all of the animals that were brought into the shelter. Once back at the RV we found out that there was one more storm cell heading for us but it only had hail in it so we stayed put.

The next morning we got up early in case they were going to come and get the RV for service. There were a few RV’s there that woke up and had no idea what had happened the night before. There was no damage at Newmar but down the street a couple of miles there was quite a bit of damage. They had a boil water order and a state of emergency for the town the next day. The weather service determined that the tornado that hit was a F3 and it left a path of about 15 miles of damage.

Embrace the Pace is the motto for Nappanee, Indiana. I have been taking this motto to heart the last two weeks and have not been on here to update on our doings. We arrived in Nappanee last Saturday. We have been here ever since getting small repairs done on the RV. I cannot say enough nice things about the employees at Newmar. The only bad thing has been the early morning wake-up calls. They come and get the RV at 6:00 AM and we have to be out until about 2:00-3:00 PM.

Since being here we have net a nice Amish man who has been working on our coach. He is the one who comes and gets it every morning. He gave us a card for a bookstore that his wife and him were opening last weekend so on Saturday we went to their farm and spent quite a bit at their bookstore, Little Nook Bookstore. It was a very nice, well-stocked store and we bought a couple of books for each kid plus some puzzles and some hand-carved wooden trains for each of the boys. Next we went to the Farmers Market which is a huge wooden barn looking building that was all constructed by hand. AMAZING building!! Then we went to a corn maze that was really fun!! Nathan pulled all of the kids behind him in a cart that they supplied so he was a bit tired when we were done. It was 10 acres of corn.

Last night we were at the Inn at Amish Acres because our RV was being painted so they couldn’t give it back to us last night. During the day we walked over to Amish Acres and fed a bull that was in a fence between the two. Other than lack of sleep we have had a wonderful time here and have had the opportunities to socialize with other Newmar owners.

Thursday we picked up Aunt Sue and headed to the Cleveland Zoo. Timmy wanted to see the sharks so the first thing we did was walk up a very long high hill to where the sharks were. We found out later there was a shorter not so steep path that we could have taken but I guess we got our exercise.

The sharks are also in with the primates and the cats. I couldn’t get any pictures of the sharks but I took a picture of a cute lemur.

When we started walking back down the hill we went past the gorillas.

Next we went to the Australian section. They had kangaroos, koalas, wallabys, wallaroos. They also had a train ride through this section that we took. Here is a picture of the kids trying on kangaroo ears, a picture of me with the kids on a termite hill and a picture of a koala.

Next we wandered around. We had some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (yum) and looked at more of the animals. We found a pool that had a hippo in it. We waited until she surfaced and I got a picture of her head sticking out of the water. They have a section where you can ride camels but they were during season only so we found the camels in a different section.

Some of the animals were not on exhibit because they have torn down a bridge that travels over the zoo. They are in the process of removing the rest of the bridge and starting construction of a new bridge. I took some pictures of the debris and the polar bears that were still out in this area. They had two beautiful wolves near this area as well but due to glare off the windows I couldn’t get a good picture of them. I asked about the wolves and they said they wouldn’t be adding to the pack until the construction was over because it is stressing a lot of the animals.

Towards the end of the visit we found some monkeys to watch. While we were there we saw a monkey on a bench that scared me. It was a statue but it looked so real that I thought one of the monkeys had gotten loose. We took some pictures with the statue and the kids. At the end when we were heading back to the car I finally got a picture of my Aunt Sue while she was carrying Josh to the car.

We have been enjoying Cleveland. We checked into Jellystone during the weekend because they still had activities this last weekend. It has been pretty dead around here since Monday because it is past season. They actually close in another week or so. On Saturday we went trick-or-treating after going to a costume contest. I couldn’t talk Nathan into dressing up but here is a picture of me and the kids.

After we got back to the RV I made stuffed shells for Timmy and we invited my Aunt Sue and Uncle James to join us. We had a wonderful dinner complete with a salad fresh from Sue’s garden. After dinner Nathan put up a sheet and played Happy Feet on the projector. By the time it was done we had kids from 3 surrounding camp sites watching with us. On Sunday we tried to do all of the activities they had. We took the kids to paint ceramics. Here is a picture of Samantha and Timmy with their finished artwork and a picture of Josh that shows where most of his paint ended up.

On Sunday evening my Aunt Sue brought us her car so we could use it for the week. Tuesday night we went out to Sue and James’ house for dinner. Before dinner we met James at the Cleveland Clinic where he works and got a tour of the Prosthetic/Orthotic Department. The kids thought the legs and arms were pretty cool. Nathan’s engineering side enjoyed trying out the machanics of the arms and I enjoyed it because it reminded me of a lot of the Biology classes I took in college. I think the only part that bothered me was seeing the casts for children’s legs and torsos. It makes me realize how lucky we are to not have to deal with anything major with our children. With Josh the absolute worse case scenario would only be him being blind in one eye, which I feel is extremely minor! :)

Wednesday we took Nathan to the airport to fly to Baltimore and then we went to the Children’s Museum. It was very interactive and the kids had a lot of fun. There was a play town where Samantha enjoyed the nursery. She also found an area where she could do a weather forecast on TV.

As always the boys love anything where they can splash in water and play.

The kids also found an area by the water that looked liked waves that you could climb up. The boys didn’t go too far up but Samantha made it to the top.

We finished off the day with an art class where the kids got to paint. Joshua needed a little help so grandma helped him create his masterpiece.

Tomorrow we are picking up Aunt Sue and we are going to the zoo. I will try to post pictures tomorrow night.

Nathan and I and the kids were SO happy yesterday to be back in the RV. It is amazing how quickly you get attached to your space. We would like to give a BIG Thank You to the owner of Alton RV Park for giving us a place to call home for the last two weeks while we were stranded. She was fully booked this week and made room for our trailer in the parking lot of her park. We would also like to give a BIG Thank You to the people at Cummins in Bridgewater. They worked very hard to get us back on the road as quickly as possible. The biggest delay was waiting for the new engine to be delivered. As soon as it was they went right to work getting it in and getting us back on the road.

We decided there wasn’t enough time to go to Baltimore with Nathan before driving back to Indiana so we are staying this next week at Jellystone Park near Cleveland, Ohio. This is the last weekend of their season so they are having a Halloween weekend. The kids and I are going to dress up in our costumes this afternoon and go trick-or-treating around the park. I will have someone take some pictures. Nathan said he wasn’t dressing up but he would walk with us. Mom is going to stay at our camp site and pass out candy (Nathan and I hit a store this morning).

The kids and mom and I will be doing some sight seeing in Cleveland this week and my Aunt Sue is going to join us for the zoo so stay tuned for more adventures and pictures….