Focht Family Blog

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.

Tuesday we left New York and headed for Hershey. Wednesday was spent at Chocolate World. Here are the kids as we were going in.

The first thing we did was go to the 3-D show that they have. It was very cute with all of the chocolate characters dancing around. Next we went on the tour which is a ride that takes you through a simulated factory that shows how chocolate goes from bean to candy. Here are the singing cows that perform throughout the ride.

After the ride we went to a section where the kids can have a factory experience. They get to fill a container with kisses that come off a belt. Then they put the container together, do a dance and put them on a belt that takes them to the back. At the other end a container comes out with their names on them that are wrapped up in plastic. Here is mom and the kids in line.

And Samantha, Timmy and Josh filling their containers….

After we purchased their containers and badges, Nathan and I decided it would be fun to go to a chocolate tasting. Mom decided she would probably not be able to eat what they were tasting (I think she thought some would have nuts) so she stayed with Josh. Here is a picture of Nathan, Samantha and Timmy at our table and a picture of our tasting mats.

We started out tasting the nibs before they are processed and then went from milk chocolate (either 30% or 35% cacao) to a specialty dark chocolate that s 70% cacao. Nathan and the kids preferred the lighter chocolates but I enjoyed the darker ones. After our tastings we went to lunch and then took a trolley ride around town that gave the history of Hershey and the town. We had a lot of fun.

Thursday mom and I went to the Chocolate Spa for the afternoon. You check in and they give you slippers and a robe and this is what you stay in until you leave. We had lunch in our robes, tried out the aromatherapy room and the steam room. We were then bored (guess I’m not good at the lounge around thing) and we went into the quiet room and looked for magazines to read while we waited to be called. I went back first and mom was called about 15 minutes later. We had a Chocolate Immersion experience. We first had a Chocolate Sugar scrub and then they rinsed that off and followed it with a Chocolate Fondue wrap. After being coated, they wrap you in plastic and blankets and leave you to rest for 20 minutes. This is followed by another rinsing and then a coating of cocoa moisturizer. I got back to the quiet room first and ate some fresh baked goodies that are in the room while drinking a bottle of cold water and finishing a magazine. Mom came back in about 15 minutes later and we went back to the locker room to change and go back to the real world. :)

Everything felt great but since my allergies are in over sensitive mode a few hours later I was covered in hives. Today we are doing laundry while Nathan visits customers. Tomorrow we drive to New York City and we will be there until Tuesday morning when we will head back to upstate New York.

Saturday and Sunday were spent at the campground. Monday morning I took mom into the hospital because she doesn’t trust how she feels anymore. She wasn’t feeling 100% better so she wanted to make sure she shouldn’t be on more antibiotics. This time she was fine. I took the laundry with us and we tried to find a laundromat on the way home. When we finally found one, it was 5:30 and they were closed. The campground has a laundry room but it only has one washer and one dryer. So we came home and did the laundry here. I finally went to bed around 10:00. Mom said she would finish with the drying. She finally made it back to the campsite at 11:30! The dryer doesn’t work very well so although we only had 4 washers full, I think we ran the dryer 6 or 7 times.

Tuesday we went to Niagara Falls with Nathan’s parents. We went through the same fun getting into Canada except this time we were standing outside and it was raining and they wouldn’t let us stand by the door while they were inside. When we finally were parked it was almost noon. We wanted to do the Journey Behind the Falls and Maid of the Mist. The bus from the parking lot left us near Journey so we went there first. Here are the kids in the beautiful yellow plastic coverings they gave us to keep dry.

The first part of the tunnels have two spots that you can see behind the falls. Not much of a view…

The other part is a viewing platform next to the falls where I took a few pictures. We didn’t stay long… the kids were not enjoying getting wet. :)

After the Journey we started walking towards Maid of the Mist and stopped for lunch. Josh decided sleep sounded better than eating. While I was getting the food he took a nap. He didn’t wake up until about 30 minutes after lunch was over.

While we were eating lunch we realized it was getting colder outside and decided that it wasn’t a good day for Maid of the Mist. We decided we would come back in July and do the Maid of the Mist. So we walked up the hill and went on the Skywheel. It is an enclosed air conditioned Ferris wheel. While walking Samantha found some pretty flowers and we also found a very interesting colored squirrel.

After the Skywheel we headed back to the shuttle so we could meet Nathan’s older sister, Vicki, for dinner. I took a few more pictures before getting on the bus. This is a picture of a ship that has been stuck for MANY years. I can’t remember what year the bus driver said but I think it was in the early 1900’s. The other picture is where the water starts going over the falls.

Unfortunately I did not get to enjoy the meal with Vicki. I had the worst headache I have ever had and went to the hospital. I knew I was coming down with a sinus infection and they gave me some phenergan and sent me on my way. They said it would help with the headache. They did a CT scan but not far enough to see the sinuses so they dismissed the sinus pain. The next day Nathan took me to an Urgent Care center and they gave me some stronger decongestants and some antibiotics. Hopefully the sinus pain with start going away now.

Tonight we are finally getting around to having mom’s birthday dinner so I will update with pictures of her cake.

Well… we left Chicago and drove to Michigan to get the oil pan fixed. I took the kids to a hotel for the night so we could sleep in and have somewhere they could keep out of trouble while the oil pan was being worked on. Nathan and Misty stayed with the RV. After the oil pan was fixed, we headed toward Canada. Here is the bridge going into Canada from Detroit.

Here are the kids sitting buckled up on the couch waving goodbye to the United States.

We were sent into the truck lines to pay to go over the bridge so we followed the trucks into the border lines. Here is the truck that was ahead of us in line. We thought it looked like he was floating because his back tires are off the ground.

Getting into Canada was an adventure. First, we were supposed to go through the lines with the cars so we were probably making the trucks behind us mad. The border police kept asking us where we were going, how long we would be there and why. Then we had to pull over and everyone and the dogs had to get out while they went through all of our cupboards and storage bays. Next we were sent into immigration and asked all the questions all over again. Seems like a lot of trouble to put a sticker on the map and go camping! :)

Anyways… the first thing we looked for once cleared to enter the country was a place where Nathan could purchase a cell phone and a month subscription for Canada since his current company did not offer any plans that would give him coverage in Canada. Come to find out that cell plans are very expensive in Canada and they have many places where you have no coverage. So… since Nathan has to have a cell phone for work we decided to have dinner at the Applebees at the shopping center and review our options.

We decided that our options were limited so we crossed back into the USA. We thought we would have a problem but I guess having passports they decided we were okay because the USA border police came in and asked us a few questions and sent us on our way without anyone having to get out. Here is the bridge again… this time coming back into USA.

We decided to surprise Nathan’s parents and spend the time we would have been in Canada in NY at the campground that they summer at. We spent the night at a Cabelas in Michigan that had dump and water and then made it into NY by early afternoon on Friday. We will stay here until next Tuesday when we will head to Hershey.

This week has been long…. it started off with Nathan’s birthday. It was our last day in Wisconsin. The kids and I got up, did the dishes, cleaned the house, baked a cake. Then I left to pick mom up from the hospital. After getting her out and filling her prescriptions we stopped to pick up a box that came into town for Nathan. He ordered himself two new hats because the kids hid his and he couldn’t find it. So instead of just a brown hat, he ordered a brown and a black hat. Mom and I got home and I made Nathan lasagna and did the laundry while it was cooking so we would be good for boondocking for a week in Chicago. Here is a picture of Nathan’s cake… the kids decorated it.

Thursday morning was filled with pouring rain and thunderstorms. Always fun for packing up and leaving. We made it to the hotel parking lot by lunch and Nathan went to visit a customer. While he was gone security came by to tell me that we were parked on the wrong side of the hotel so as soon as Nathan got back we had to move everything to the other side of the hotel. Then Nathan and I left and drove 20 miles in about 1 1/2 hours into Chicago to meet a couple for dinner. I realized I am not made for staying out late anymore. By the time dinner was done I was exhausted and ready for bed. Maybe once the kids are grown I will have more energy. :)

Friday we took the kids to the Choo Choo. It is a restaurant I found that has a train that delivers your food. There was a line out the door when we got there. It is a small diner and only has 27 seats that are on the track so we waited for a booth on the track. The food was actually very good. They opened the restaurant around the same time as the first McDonalds (which is right down the road). All of the equipment, including the cash register looked like the originals. I didn’t get a picture of our food being delivered but here is the kid’s dessert being delivered.

Here is Joshua trying out his train whistle that came with the cupcake.

Funny note on Nathan’s hats. He was going back and forth trying to decide if he should order a second hat. He must have clicked on the black hat and didn’t check what size was the default because he has found his original brown hat, he has a new brown hat, but the black hat came in a size small so here is Nathan and his mini-me….

Here is Samantha playing with her whistle while mom finishes her drink before we left.

After we got back to the hotel parking lot, Nathan had to start his week of working all hours. We drove out to get some dinner and ended up at a large shopping area. Samantha was talking about wanting to go to a Rainforest Cafe (why I don’t know) and I looked up food in our new GPS and there was one across the street so we had dinner there.

The kids had a lot of fun although our booth was by a waterfall so it was a bit wet. All of my other pictures didn’t turn out because of the mist. When we left all of the kids ended up with soft stuffed snakes and we bought a couple of Seuss books that had to do with insects and rainforests. Most of the rest of the time while at the hotel was spent dodging thunderstorms and watching radars for tornado warnings. Monday morning we drove to McCormick center.

Nathan took the RV and went ahead. Mom and I drove the truck and camper with the kids and drove to the company who makes her jacks to get them repaired. The problem ended up being a controller issue so they were able to just switch out the controller. She had one jack that wouldn’t stop moving so balancing her was becoming a fun dance of plugging and unplugging jacks. Then on our way to the McCormick center we stopped and took the kids to see Kungfu Panda. They had been wanting to see it and they always enjoy a lunch of popcorn. :)

Tuesday I took Samantha out for a girlie day. We had reservations to go to the American Girl store. She dressed up, put on makeup and made sure her doll was dressed as well.

We checked in at the cafe and were seated at a cute table just for two. The napkins each had a scrunchy on them that we got to keep. We put one in her doll’s hair and one on her doll’s wrist.

There was a special seat for her doll and if you didn’t bring yours then you could borrow one. They brought us cinnamon rolls and a fruit plate before serving lunch and then brought us a dessert plate that had chocolate mousse in flowerpots with silk daisies we could keep, an angel food cake heart and a flower sugar cookie. After lunch we went downstairs to the theater and watched the broadway style Revue. After the show, we shopped. Samantha ended up with an outfit and two pairs of pajamas (with matching clothes for her doll) as well as a mini doll and a hairbrush for her doll.

Nathan has been very busy and we haven’t seen much of him this week. Tomorrow we leave for Michigan once his show is over. We have an appointment Thursday morning in Michigan to get a new, metal oil pan. We have had two of the composites and we are still leaking. After that we head into Ontario for a week and a half and we will not have internet on our aircard at all so updates will depend on how good the wi-fi is at the campgrounds. :)