Trip to Arkansas: Caleb's Perspective (Part 1: August 11, 2008)

Dear readers of this blog,

Several of you have inquired of us about our recent trip to Arkansas. Well, below is my perspective of how this trip went.

Oh, and Mr. Amos, thanks for being patient with me. Yes, I know. It has already been 3 weeks (!!!) since we returned from Arkansas to the day (8/28/2008).

{Happy Birthday, Phoebe! May God bless you on your special day! We love you and are amazed to see how the Lord has been molding you into a godly young lady, and is giving you a greater desire to become a Proverbs 31 Woman more and more (See Proverbs 31:10-31)! Sincerely, C. Nathan Kautt}

Enjoy!
Caleb Nathaniel


P.S. Abby suggested I post this in several posts. So, I will divide it up by the days that we were there; August 11, August 12, August 13, and August 14.
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(Monday, August 11, 2008)
The morning was a warm and sticky one, a little humid, and overcast. It was the morning Dad, Johanna, Jaden, Grandmother Kautt, and I were to leave for Arkansas. I had hoped that the morning would be a sunny one, but I soon remembered to thank God for the possibility of rain. We hadn't received much for nearly six weeks, and would be grateful for any we might receive.


After quickly making my bed, I hastened to get dressed and cleaned up for the morning. Once this task was completed, I sat down for a few minutes of quiet time reading God's Word, before I began what was to be a very busy day.


We had planned for Grandmother Kautt to come with us, and as planned Grandfather and Grandmother Kautt (We like to call them Grandpa and Grandma) arrived soon after each of us had finished our breakfast. Of course Grandma had some luggage to be packed into our Chrysler. Surprisingly, our trunk was only a little over half full, which is unusual for us! But why am I surprised with only 5 people going for a 3 day trip? (I am used to trips that consist of 8 people, for usually 3-5 days if not longer.)


After we had visited for several minutes, we said goodbye to Grandpa, Mom, Joel, Abby, and Phoebe. I must admit, it was hard to go without them. Normally, we would all be travelling together, but with Mom's current health problems, it would not be possible. So I had to remind myself that, LORD willing, we would all be able to make such a trip together, in the near future.


As all of our Homeschooling friends and those of you who have come from large families know, we had to make several "pit-stops," for food, fuel, or otherwise. I won't go into the details on where we stopped, how long we were there, or what time we were there, etc.! :)


Once we arrived in Weiner, Arkansas (For all of you geography buffs, Wiener is located in northeast Arkansas, about 30 minutes South of Jonesboro.), we went to our great-grandmother's house. Boy were we ever ready to get out of the car! We had been in the car for nearly nine hours, and we were all getting a little stiff, to say the least. Jaden was especially ready to get out of the car and run around. You did a great job, Jaden, of not whining or complaining on the trip! Thanks, Grandma, for helping make the trip enjoyable with all of your funny stories, and games to pass the time! See, we don't need a TV screen in our car! Just come up with simple little games to pass the time! One of our favorite "travel games" is the "alphabet game." In this game, each person tries to find all the letters in the alphabet on road signs, advertising signs, and store signs, and whoever finds all of the letters first wins. Another one we like to play is one which involves counting a certain item. Together we will try to count how many yellow cars we can find in a minute, or, if we are in the country, how many cows or horses. Or if we are in Arkansas, how many soybean fields or rice fields. At one point, we almost started counting mosquitoes, too! With all the water that rice fields and soy bean fields require, there are lots of mosquitoes to go along with them! We joked with our Arkansas relatives that they grow three things in Arkansas; Soybeans, rice, and mosquitoes! But, apart from the mosquitoes, we had a good trip.

Another thing to count: One of Many, many grain silos used to store Soybeans, and Rice, and maybe...?

Back to Monday evening, though. When we arrived at Grandma "Night-night"'s house, we found out that she had lost her keys to her car and house. Uh oh, we thought. We had planned to go to Uncle Paul's house in Jonesboro at 7:00 pm, so we had to leave Weiner at 6:30 or so. Well, as sometimes happens with treasure hunts, we were delayed a little with the "great Key Search." Sadly, we didn't find them Monday night, or even the rest of the week. But, thank God, Grandma "Night-night" has some kind friends who loaned us a pad-lock set for her front door. Still, she wasn't able to drive her car. So we all loaded up in our Chrysler and headed up to Jonesboro. Thankfully the Chrysler has an air conditioner that works well, otherwise we would have all been very, very warm, to say the least! About this time we began counting ...... what did we count? Road signs? No. Red pickup trucks? No. You guessed it! We started counting (and slapping I might add!)....mosquitoes! Those Texas-sized mosquitoes that must have migrated northeast! We had an interesting drive the first few minutes from great-grandmother's to Jonesboro! Once we were out on the highway and travelling about 55 miles per hour, Dad rolled down the windows and ...schuuuuuwww...out went all the mosquitoes, right? Hardly (Alright. So maybe a few flew out). The wind only made the mosquitoes stick to the headliner in the car! Not to mention all the dear ladies in the car whose hair was now a mess. Sorry ladies, we'll try n0t to do that again.

Sunset at Grandma McKnight's House

Upon arriving at Uncle Paul's house, we received a warm welcome from our relatives whom we had not seen in over three years. We enjoyed a good dinner, and, most of all, enjoyed visiting with each other (For us younger folks, it took a little warming up, right Jaden?). We even watched a little of the Beijing Olympics, although we weren't really listening to what the commentator was saying because, after all, we were the commentators! Right, Barry?

Uncle Paul and Aunt Loretta in their kitchen

Visiting before dinner

Like all good things, our visit with Uncle Paul and his family had to come to an end. So we said our goodbyes, loaded up in the car, and headed back to Weiner to drop off Grandma, Grandma "Night-night" and a friend of hers who had tagged along with us. But, before we went to Wiener, we stopped at our motel to make sure that we still had a room reserved ('Tis good to double check, right?). And we did. After this was finished, we headed down to Weiner, dropped off our dear ladies mentioned above, and drove back to Jonesboro to our motel room with it's comfortable beds. To make a longer story shorter, we rested quite well that night.

More to come, Lord willing!

-Caleb Nathan Kautt