Indiana

Sam Time

Dear World,
This weekend I played with Addy, Brooke, and Delaney.

*End of Sam Time*

Everyday when I come home from work, Sam immediately asks me if we're going to blog. He always says, "I have the first line! Dear World..." It is possibly one of the cutest things that I have ever experienced. This past weekend Dr. Zook, Sam, Susan, and I went to Indiana to visit their friends Julie and Steph. Julie and Steph have three kids; Addy, Brooke, and Delaney. Addy is the oldest and Brooke and Delaney are twins. Sam and these three girls play so nicely together. There were also three more kids at the house this particular weekend, Kaleb, Nathan, and Anna. The ages ranged from 6-9. I was really surprised at how well they all got along considering that most of the time with children this age, there is bound to be a fight.

Dr. Zook and I left work a half day early on Friday so that we could get home and load up the car. We left Berea around 2:30PM. We were going to Remington, Indiana which is about five hours from Dr. Zook's home. As soon as Sam found out that we were going to see Addy, Brooke, and Delaney, he got incredibly excited and continued to ask how far away we were about once every fifteen minutes. At this point in time, I'd like to apologize to my parents for every time that I had done this when I was a child.

About 45 minutes away from Remington, IN is Lafayette, IN which is Susan's hometown. There, we stopped for dinner and met her friend Andy (who had been helping us work on the house the previous weekend) and his wife for dinner. The food was delicious however, about halfway through Sam started to get a little bit grumpy because we hadn't left yet. The waterworks began and we waited it out. After dinner we hit the road again.

Before we got to Julie and Steph's house, I saw one of the most interesting things that I have ever seen. The area in Indiana where we were going is in the windiest county in the United States. Because of this, they have windmills set up in order to generate wind power. There were hundreds of windmills that stretched out for miles. At night, every other windmill has a flashing red light on it so for miles it was all you could see. My childhood instincts kicked in and I felt like a sniper in a game of good ol' N64 Goldeneye.

I had noticed that as we were driving I kept hearing tapping on the exterior of the car and just assumed that it was pebbles or what not flying up from the road. It was then that I noticed that Susan's windshield wipers were on. Incase you didn't know, Indiana is possibly one of the flattest states that I have ever been to and therefore is a great place to grow crops, particularly corn. As we were driving through cornfields, bugs were hitting the windshield and splattering. This explained both the windshield wipers and the noise. After I look up through the front of the car, I managed to control myself before I vomited up my dinner. I am terrified of bugs (which is an irrational fear I know considering I am a couple hundred times their size) so this was difficult for me to witness.

Soon we arrived at Julie and Steph's. Sam was so excited he could hardly restrain himself. He jumped out of the car and said hi to his friends. After I was introduced, we went inside and I began to take everything in. Sometimes I forget what it is like to be a little kid and live in that sort of environment again. Being the youngest in my family, it is easy to forget. Julie and Steph live on a farm so they have a lot of animals. They have four dogs and, I believe, around fifteen cats! I love animals so I was in heaven.

The next morning, I was informed that Addy loved to play the piano. Being a pianist myself, this excited me. Dr. Zook and Susan had me play for everyone and Addy told me that she wish she could play like me when she got older. I was very impressed with her considering she had only been playing for six months and was already capable of playing with two hands and reading music at a decent rate. She was struggling with two songs so I decided to help her. This brought back memories of when I initially thought that I wanted to be a music teacher. Seeing her eyes light up when she realized that she could play something correctly was such a good feeling and I was so fortunate to be able to help her. After we had gone through the two songs, Addy asked me where I lived. When I responded that I was from Baltimore, MD, she grew quiet and looked rather said. I asked what was wrong to which she responded that she was upset that I lived so far away because she wanted me to be her piano teacher. This was probably one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me.

We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out, watching TV, and playing with the kids. It was so relaxing and calming just to take some time to do nothing for a while. One of the things that definitely threw me though, was the fact that Julie and Steph live on the boarder between the eastern and central time zone. I could look at my phone at one of their house and it would say that it was 8:00PM and then I could walk to the other side of their house and it would say that it was 9:00PM. This was particularly confusing int he mornings when I was in a half drunken state trying to wake myself up. I set my alarm for 8:30AM. When I initially woke up without my alarm, my clock said 8:27AM so I figured I had about three more minutes to sleep. After falling asleep and waking up what felt like some time later, my clock read that it was 8:02AM. I felt like Marty McFly in back to the future or perhaps that I just walked into a Stephen King novel.

Julie and Steph are possibly two of the nicest people I have ever met and I was so fortunate to get to have them in my life for the weekend. There are some people you meet who are just good people and these two were definitely part of that category and so were their children. I hope that our paths cross again sometime in the future because two people like that are not ones that you're going to want to let go of.

Until next time,
~Wacko Jacko~