So What Else Is New?: North Carolina trip

We just finished a trip to Mebane, North Carolina to visit Nate's brother Aaron and his wife, Joy. They came out to visit us about a month ago, and the kids had a blast playing with them. They were so excited to go see Aaron and Joy again.

We drove out on Sunday. It took us about ten hours to get there. It should've been shorter, but we hit a brand-new section of the road that the GPS didn't recognize, and so it had us take a 45-minute circuitous detour. The drive otherwise wasn't bad. The kids were really good in the car (thank goodness for portable DVD players!), and even Sean did pretty well. He started crying right towards the end, but after that long in the car, can you blame him?

On Monday, we decided to drive to Raleigh, about 45 minutes away from Mebane, to go the Marbles kids museum. 'Marbles' is the name of the museum, not that it's a museum for marbles. Unfortunately, the museum is closed on Mondays. Oops. We went to a natural science museum that was only a few blocks away instead. It was nice, but didn't hold the kids' attention as long as we would've liked. After that, we decided to get something to eat, then try another museum between Raleigh and Mebane. That's when disaster struck. We were driving along, and the engine thermometer light went on--the car was overheating. I turned off the air conditioner, and the temperature went down somewhat--enough that I felt comfortable driving it for a bit longer. We were almost at the restaurant, so we went ahead and ate and let the car cool down before Nate went to check it out. All the engine coolant was gone. Luckily, there was a car dealership about a block away from the restaurant. We bought some coolant and that got us back to Mebane--I was even able to turn the air conditioning back on--which was a lifesaver, because it was in the 90's. The kids were so hot that their faces were all flushed and we were all sweating until we got the air back on. After we got back to Mebane, we unloaded the kids, and then Aaron and Nate took the car in to a repair shop. The annoying thing about this whole situation is that the same thing happened to our car about a month ago, and we just paid several hundred dollars to have it fixed. Our mechanic told us that a pump was broken, and that did seem to take care of the problem. Of course it broke down 800 miles away from home where we couldn't take back to the same people who 'fixed' the problem before. We thought about just continually filling the tank with coolant on the way home, so we could take it to our regular mechanic, but I was worried that we'd make the problem worse or burn out the engine or something, and the thought of getting stuck on the side of the road with the kids in that tremendous heat made me really nervous. So, off Nate went with the van to the mechanic.

We had originally planned to head home on Tuesday, but the breakdown nixed that. On the flip side, though, we had more time to spend with Aaron and Joy, and we got to go to the Marbles museum after all. It was a great place. I'd recommend it to anyone with kids who was in the Raleigh area. The bottom floor had some life-sized games like connect four and chess; a huge play area with play food and life-size cars to climb in, dress-ups and a stage and several train tables; a water table; and a huge pirate ship. The second floor had a workshop where you could actually build stuff out of wood (they had saws and drills and everything), watercolor pencils, a ball pit that was being emptied by several employees because some child had an accident in it, and a mini hockey rink. Bethany spent the entire time we were there at the water table and the hockey rink, while Meagan migrated around to several spots. We had a great time, and only left because they were closing.

By the time we left, our car was done, so we picked it up on the way back to Aaron and Joy's. It turned out that the radiator tank was cracked, so it had to be replaced along with all associated hoses. We'd also been having trouble with the car vibrating whenever we braked, and it was getting worse, so we had that looked at at the same time--I figured it was already in the shop, we might as well get everything done at the same time. We ended up having the front and back brakes done, along with the rotors and calipers. Sooo, $1300 and an extra day later we made it home. In spite of the craziness, we had a great time.

Meagan at the giant chess game. She's holding a fishing pole that she picked up at a game upstairs, and kept hauling around with her.

This was part of an area showcasing places all around the world. This part is Alaska, of course. Behind Meg is a place to build an igloo and off to the left is a place to "fish" in an ice hole. This is where Meagan stole the fishing pole from.

Sean kept sticking his toes in his mouth. I kept trying to get a picture, but he pull them out just when I'd hit the button. Oh well, he's still cute.

Bethany at the water table. It took a great deal of persuading to get her to move on from here. In spite of the smock she's wearing, she still got soaked, even her hair.

Meagan and Bethany at the water table.

Bethany and Nate in the hockey rink. You can see the water line on Bethany's pants from the water table. It didn't seem to bother her, though, she still had a great time here.

Bethany collected four pucks that she decided were hers, and she kept them away from all the other kids. There were plenty there, though, so it wasn't a big deal.