Day 7: Tent City
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Copyright(c) 2014, Jim Beachy
Our guest room has been populated with tents. Brotherly love prevails as Carter and Brenham, aged 5 and 3, decide they want to inhabit the same dinosaur tent for the night, while Danica is comfortably housed in her own princess tent with an awesome inventory of stuffed furry friends.
This seems to work out splendidly until 2:37 AM, when there appears to be some invasion of personal space within the dinosaur tent. This incursion is vigorously defended and somehow the concept of two-brothers-sharing-a-dinosaur-tent seems a little less attractive from that point on.
And by 7:12 AM, our room has become a certified Tent City.
Kevin is the lead pastor at Gulf Coast Worship Center (http://www.yourfamilyplace.com) and it turns out we've invaded an unusually busy weekend. We try to keep a low profile and help out as best we can.
Back at the house after lunch, all the kids are clamoring for motorcycle rides through the neighborhood. The youngest needs to accompany Kitty as a second passenger, squeezed in between Kitty and me on the seat. They all think it's cool to be able to talk through the headsets. "You sound like you're on the radio," says Carter.
Kevin is off to church for a special event, and later, after the motorcycle rides, the rest of us head to the beach. The water in the Gulf of Mexico this early in May is warmer than the East Coast in early July. It's a calm and serene sunset with nobody around but us and a great blue heron
Kevin meets us at the beach after his church event. Following a quick pizza stop for dinner, by now it's late, way past the kids' normal bedtime, and tomorrow will likely prove to have an interesting early start.
"There will be no Tent City in Nona and Papa's room tonight!" decrees Kevin.
Tomorrow we've scheduled a 300-mile day on mostly two-lane country roads and expect to be in Louisiana near the Texas border by evening.
The realization that we'll need to reverse-morph into bikers tomorrow comes with a little jolt. But Kitty has a sign in our bedroom at home that says "When a child is born, so is a grandmother."
Wherever we are, whatever we do, we'll always have that. Always be that!
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