I feel like I have enough blog fodder to put together an update (that and my parents genuinely acted like they didn’t know where we were when we spoke on the phone this morning… OOPS!)
We enjoyed our time at home in Colorado. Trista fell right back in with her friends. Unfortunately, John got sick, like pretty sick, which caused us to extend our time at home by a few days. Thankfully, he did not require hospitalization and his doctor had no problem calling in antibiotics to get him fixed up quickly!
Aside from John being sick our time home was uneventful and actually quite productive.
Trista got her aligners installed:
Someday I will pay for posting this picture, I am sure of it! 
For being our fearless adrenaline junky (see Hide Racing along with mutton bustin’ and roller coasters, etc) this girl freaks out at the dentist. She loves normal dentist visits and frequently will ask when she “gets” to go next, but if it is anything out of the ordinary, she totally freaks! I wasn’t expecting it this time, but we pushed through, she did a great job and is well on her way to a new smile!
Here is photographic evidence that Levi did more than play Minecraft during our time at home:
Last fall, we caught an episode of CBS Sunday Morning where they aired a segment about authentic Indian food at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, BUT conveniently along the route we take to get to Dubois!
In the video, the oldest gentleman at 2:28 is the one who took our order. #lameclaimtofame
When we came out in June, we passed through too early in the day for them to be cooking Indian food (after we slept at Walmart about 20 miles from this truck stop). Last week, when we headed back to CO, we stopped at 4:30 on Monday afternoon and the restaurant signs indicated they should be open, but they were not. We even passed our Thai place to get here so we were extra bummed (and hungry). The guys working the truck stop were like, “Yep, they are closed.” The good news is we still needed to use the facilities and they did have those, but this is the absolute worst truck stop I have ever been to. I try to keep my blog G-rated, but this place is a complete and total shithole of a truck stop and their unleaded gas is almost a dollar/gallon more than the place we like to stop in Laramie. Anyway, this has become a thing now and we were determined to get some of this Indian food in our bellies. We stopped again on our way back to Dubois and they were OPEN!! We ordered four dishes for us to share and it took 35 minutes to get our food. They make every single dish to order.
It was so good! I can’t say it is the best in the whole world, but it was incredibly delicious and we ended up having it for lunch for the next two days. It was pretty spicy, but the flavors were excellent! Definitely an unexpected find in the middle of a whole lot of nothing!
As is our usual, we got a late start on the drive back and ended up pulling in after dark, which is something we really try to avoid due to all of the wildlife in the area. Around 930 or so, I dozed off and John kept driving… Remember, driver gets to pick to pick the radio station! I woke up about 1030 and we were awfully close. I was trying to watch for animals and John was rocking to the 80s on 8 on Sirius and it was such an unwelcome assault to my senses… NO one needs that much jazzercise-y music at that time of day. At one point I said to John, “I even like this song, but my circadian rhythm is looking for a shotgun!” We made it without incident and received a warm welcome home from Duke!
While we were gone, our new coffee maker showed up! Poor red is dead…
Earlier in our trip to Dubois, we went to the Opp Shop (we always go to the Opp Shop, we LOVE the Opp Shop) and Levi found a red light saber. It was kind of dirty and it looked like it was supposed to make noise or light up or something, which it no longer does, but it was less than $1 and Levi really wanted it (he has a very similar green one at home, but red is his favorite color). There was this weird little stubby piece that stuck out the back of the handle, which I really didn’t pay much attention to. While we were at home, Levi got the green one and figured out himself how to attach them together with that little piece! I was impressed that he had figure that out and he was impressed that he FINALLY had a double light saber! On the way back to WY, he couldn’t wait to show his grandparents and said, “I’m gonna need Grandma to social distance from my sword!”
Somewhere along the way, bunny met the wrong end of some chocolate milk and needed to be washed!
The rest of the week has been back to “normal” whatever that is. We went to run some errands and at the bank, the kids have learned to roll down their windows and give their best smiles to get candy from the teller.
The kids did some adventuring with Grandma and visited the top of the world!
One of the things that I like about being in Wyoming is that a quick trip to town to stop at the bank and the post office can EASILY turn into the need for 4wd and a quick adventure, which is exactly what we did on a Tuesday afternoon. We ended up going to see where they hold the chariot races. We told the kids to pick a lane and go for it! (As a homeschool family, we call this P.E.!)
I think Levi is playing with aerodynamics…
Trista has spent hours in her ‘office’ aka the garage with a glue gun and a whole lot of who knows what and has been crafting to her heart’s content!
We started our 2020/2021 school year. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, but I have a plan and so far it has been pretty fun. I have tracked all of our activities to make it official. We start every day with the pledge and a memory verse:
We have done several science experiments (those seem to be everyone’s favorite)!
Magnets 
Pendulums
We had a living Bible lesson, How Tall was Goliath?
Math lesson, cash register drawers with play money, working on making purchases and making change. If your bills are not properly faced, you don’t get lunch! This is a very serious issue.
Wednesday was a rough day for Levi (cue violins). We were sitting in the RV when we heard a very loud and unusual sound that made us run to the window… right in front our door, this pulled up and Levi got to go for a ride around the block!
Later that SAME day, he went with Maw Maw to visit a friend, whose son was visiting and he let Levi play with a motorcycle “in my fravorite color” AND rev the engine all by himself AND wear his leather!
On Thursday, I felt pretty solid in my lesson plans. My mother in law gave me a Hooked on Arithmetic set that was for 1st and 2nd graders. Levi has been wanting to learn math and Trista could be quicker in her basic addition, so I figured it would be a great activity to do together. The kit called for using beans to lay out values to add together. I bought Skittles. We started playing this little game and about half way through Levi was like,”I’m done with these Skittles, I am happy to eat them, but the answer is 8. Next.” He was so bored. I gave him the practice worksheet of math problems at the end and at first he was excited to have “my very first math page ever” and then he was bored and had to be bribed (maybe threatened) to finish. He got every single one correct. BUT we do need to work on our handwriting and making sure we don’t write numbers backward. Guess I better cancel my K5 math book and order something more interesting. Curious question… can you use Skittles in precalculus?
Everybody suggests phonics for learning to read, but after Levi flawlessly read one of his Star Wars readers to us at bedtime, I may cancel that book too!
Even though we are already a few days in, I have promised to take first day of Carkeet Collegiate pics, so those will be coming soon…