Focht Family Blog

This is my last update before I go to bed. I think I am finally caught up on the blog and I learned how to resize the photos so it shouldn’t take so long to load the blog now. I also set it so it only shows the most recent 5 posts to aid in load time. Anyway, we are in Indianapolis until Monday morning. We will be going on a field trip on Friday to a place called Connor Prairie where the kids can experience life from the frontier days. I will post with pictures soon after. Tonight we went bowling for Timmy’s birthday. His birthday is on Monday and I asked him what he wanted to do and he said go bowling. So I looked for a local lane and they had a family deal on Wednesday so we went tonight. I will bake him a cake and take him out for a special meal on Monday to celebrate his actual day. Hope everyone enjoys catching up with our adventures.

Well… we did make it most of the way to Indy before stopping for the night. However we probably should have stopped before we did. The kids were already in bed for the night and we drove until ablout 10:00 or so before looking for a Walmart to crash at. At around 9:00 we started smelling diesel fumes but didn’t think much about it. Note: If you smell fumes, pull over and investigate.

We got off of the freeway in a little town in West Virginia called Cross Lanes. We knew we were low on fuel and decided we needed to get gas before going to Walmart so we would have enough for the generator to run all night. When we stopped we realized that we were leaking diesel at a fast rate. We pulled over to the side of the gas station and called our Good Sam ERS to have us towed. They said we would have to be cleared by a fire department before they would tow us so they called the local fire department for us. This was a volunteer department and I cannot say enough nice things about them. A young man in a pickup was the first to get there and he called it in. Next 3 more men on a fire truck showed up.

They said we needed to get the kids out because of the fumes so we took them out and put them in the trailer until we figured out what we were going to have to do. The firemen knew my cell was dying so they called all of the local hotels to find us the last room in town (big football game that weekend). The chaplain came and he drove my mom, me and the kids to the hotel where we checked in. Nathan stayed with the RV and trailer to get it towed. The trailer ended up getting towed to the hotel parking lot so we could let the dogs out every few hours (hotel did not allow animals).

Nathan had problems getting someone to tow the RV so finally at 6:00 in the morning he drove it to the local Cummins shop (luckily there was one in town). They diagnosed that a rail had a leak in it and it needed to be replaced. They didn’t have the part in stock but there was one in Louisville, KY that they could have overnighted on Monday. Unfortunately we needed to be in Indy by Tuesday so Nathan got creative with a solution. We rented a car and drove to Louisville, picked up the part from the distribution center and drove back. We dropped the part off at the shop so they could fix it first thing Monday. They had everything fixed and we made it to Indy by 9:00 Monday night.

There are still a few fumes in the bathroom because the diesel is still burning off of the engine from where it had spilled but it is getting better everyday.

Okay… I remembered the camera this day. We decided since we weren’t too far away from Williamsburg that we would head there on our way to Indianapolis so we stopped on Saturday and spent the day.

When we first got into the visitor’s center we saw a sign for costumes that you could rent for the kids. The kids wanted to so we rented them costumes.

With the costumes came a letter for each of the kids asking them to do chores for the author. The girls get to learn how to do a proper courtesy, plant some seeds and pick up a letter at the post office and deliver it to the printer. The boys get to learn how to be in the military (was closed when we were there), plant some seeds, and pick up a letter from the post office and deliver it to the printer.

We went to the garden so the kids could learn how to plant seeds. The gardener let Samantha hoe the line while the boys supervised to make sure her line was straight.

Next the gardener gave them all some cabbage seeds to place in the line.

Next Samantha had to hoe the ground again to level the dirt back over the seeds. While she was busy doing this the boys went with the gardener and fetched some water to water the seeds with.

Next we went to the post office and printers. We spent some time walking through the town and learning about the various shops and jobs. We samples some items from the bakery and listened to the fife and drums.

Next we took in a play and then on the way out of town we showed the children what would happen if they misbehaved.

Needless to say we had a fun day but we were all tired from the walking so we headed out hoping to make it most of the way to Indy before stopping for the night.

Nathan had work to do in Portsmouth so we found a commuter lot and parked for the day. Now the fun of the day was it took me 2 hours to figure out what town we were in so we could decide what to do for a field trip. I was convinced we were in Norfolk so I was ready to walk to the zoo. Thankfully we figured it out before we started walking the streets aimlessly. :)

So… we found a fun Children’s Museum in Portsmouth. My absolute favorite was the bubble room. I could have spent the whole day there. They had these mats you stepped onto where you could pull a rope quickly and a bubble came up around you and you were literally standing inside a bubble. It blew my mind. Also, their bubble stuff was amazing and blew HUGE bubbles. The lady there told us that they used 1 cup Joy to 1 gallon of WARM water. Apparently the water temperature is the trick.

There were also stations full of trains, legos, places where you could test your balance and stretching abilities, learn about science and pollution and vibrations. It was a very cool place and I would highly recommend it to anyone with kids traveling in the area. Almost the whole place was interactive which made it a great day for the kids. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so you don’t get to see me and all of the kids in giant bubbles. :)

For those of you who check this blog regularly, I have added pictures to the last two posts.

We picked up our new “home” yesterday. We have most everything put away that was with us. We still have a lot of work to do to get the RV all put together. These pictures are still quite messy but it gives you an idea of the RV.