Broken Brains

I don't even know if I can write this post tonight, but I think I'll be unable to sleep unless I lay this down somewhere.  Forgive me if it is less coherent than it otherwise might be, but this is my "working it out" place, so that's what I need to do.

A week shy of six years ago, we were anxiously waiting in an orphanage in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, for our new son to meet us.  His grin lit up the room as he timidly walked in, a small plastic bag in hand with all his earthly belongings.  Kenny was all we had dreamed of with his gentle spirit, inquisitive nature, and tiny little body that could ingest more watermelon than any human being ever ought to be able to handle.

For six years we have searched for answers as we fought for Kenny to regain so much of what is lost by any child who has been institutionalized.  Countless school meetings, hospital visits, therapies, and thousands of hours of research and advocating led us to the discoveries we made this afternoon.

Someone finally heard our pleas, someone was finally as frustrated and puzzled as we have been all these years.  Kenny's super amazing speech therapist flat out insisted that this child who was listed as special needs only for a minor speech impediment get tested for numerous issues so that she could effectively work with him next year.  What we have uncovered over the past two weeks or so has been incredibly validating, and deeply sad.  Coming to grips with just how handicapped your child is can be very hard on the heart.  What makes it harder is when your hard work has paid off and now works against you, as the progress made in some areas manages to mask the deficits in others.  With wise experts, however, the truth can eventually be revealed, as it was this morning.

Thanks to the insistence of his speech therapist, Kenny's IEP review that happens every three years was moved up, and that required an entire battery of testing that she also requested that was outside the norm.  During the past three weeks Kenny has been evaluated by an audiologist, a psychologist, and a speech and language therapist, as I have gathered other documentation from his doctor, his online reading therapy, his school records and writing samples I have at home, and much more.

If it weren't so sad, it would be almost comical how many people are now saying, "Oh yes, I see serious problems here."

Today's testing with Miss Sandy, our speech therapist, was to be for an hour and a half. Four hours later we finally left the office, both of us mentally exhausted from all we had learned.  Kenny's speech therapist is a specialist with a unique skill set, as she has over 40 years of experience as a speech and language pathologist who also specializes in auditory processing disorder...and has it herself.  She has worked with stroke victims, and those recovering from brain injuries of all sorts, as well as children with speech and language disorders all across the scale, and she is considered to be "the" specialist for hard core cases on the entire Western Slope of Colorado. God knew who Kenny needed, and it was absolutely Miss Sandy.

Today, after testing, she looked at me and said in her sweet southern drawl, "I know we have no history, but what we are seeing is absolutely NOT just orphanage developmental delays.  I have seen this sort of thing far too often in my career, and I'd stake my reputation on it...your son almost certainly had some sort of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).  His test results are identical to what I see consistently in hundreds of patients with TBI."

She added, "This is so sad to me, as there are other indications that Kenny most likely would have been gifted, if it weren't for his broken brain.  I am not just saying that to make you feel better, there is no way a child with these sorts of scores could function as well as he functions unless he started with a really good brain.  He has learned coping strategies that are well beyond the norm for his situation, and he talks his way through when he gets so stuck.  But something went really wrong somewhere along the line.  I am pretty certain it isn't Fetal Alcohol Syndrome because he is functioning way too well for that."

Testing today was pointed, narrowly focused, and stunned me despite all that I already knew and could have told them about where his gaps are.  We found some that I had no clue existed, nor did Miss Sandy expect. You know you have a profound challenge when your testing specialist writes comments like, "This is so painful to watch.", "Can not perform a single portion of this test.", and "I have never seen this before."

Kenny took more than double the lowest average time to do something as simple as name 36 shapes and colors, and he made several mistakes.  On a test with malapropisms, his performance was stunningly poor. While these are not the ones he had, here are examples very similar to what Kenny worked with:

• Rainy weather can be hard on the sciences. (sinuses)
• Alice said she couldn't eat crabs or any other crushed Asians. (crustaceans)
• You could have knocked me over with a fender. (feather)
• A rolling stone gathers no moths. (moss)
• Good punctuation means not to be late. (punctuality)

Out of 30, Kenny completely missed 16.  He absolutely thought they were correct, and did not catch the mistakes at all even when repeated slowly and clearly 4 or 5 times.  He didn't hear it right, he mistook words like "buzzard" for "blizzard", and many more.  

Another test had Kenny trying to repeat back numbers or sentences.  He couldn't repeat back more than 3 numbers without starting to make mistakes, and sentences that were about 6-7 words were his max without him making changes to them.  There was one test that is very difficult to explain here, but was words separated and out of order on a page, and he was to form two different sentences with them while using all of them.  This task was the sort that a normal brain could look at and rip off within less than 10 seconds.  Kenny couldn't manage to do a single one correctly even though given more than aple time and plenty of hints, not even the most simple sentences were ones he could "see".  He further showed how difficult things are for him (and us!) when Miss Sandy then said the sentence correctly, and asked him to write it, and he wrote it wrong, adding in a word.  When it was pointed out, he was asked to rewrite the sentence correctly, and he rewrote it exactly the same...3 more times...even after having it pointed out where he was continuing to make the mistake.

She looked over at me, and said, "How do you do this every day without wanting to give up?  How have you managed this, and still had the results you have had in so many areas?"

Later, as we had finished testing and she was totalling up scores, she showed me that Kenny is low average in several categories, and even high in a couple like vocabulary comprehension, which makes his overall scores just a tad over the true special needs mark for certain language deficits.  BUT, she said he scored SO low on three areas that it was stunningly bad, it had just been masked by his above average scores in other areas.  In two areas, he scored a "2" out of a possible score of 10.  She said, "His non-verbal intelligence is completely faking people out, this child has a really severe problem, especially when combined with all the other areas he has tested in this past two weeks that I already know are showing disabilities."

So we talked about his future, about realistic expectations, and about what steps might be taken.  I have such great respect for her because she tells the truth, she doesn't try to sugar coat it.  She said we are entirely right to be concerned about the possibility that he might find it difficult to one day live on his own, because the areas he has such problems with are the areas that might make it hard for him to hold even a job at McDonald's if he is not working with someone who understands him, has patience with him, and allows him the sort of months long (if not years long) practice he may need to do a job well and not miss steps.  She explained that there are areas we can work on and will lead to some level of improvement, and there are some areas we will likely be wasting our time trying to improve his function and we might be wise to look at compensatory strategies for those areas.  She said he actually might be able to do well in college, because he CAN learn if material is presented to him in the right way, but it would take someone coaching him through every step and basically re-teaching material in ways that he can "velcro" it to his brain.

And then she said, "But...the truth is...his state testing scores should never, ever look like they do.  Somehow, you have already figured out many ways of teaching him he can succeed. If I saw him on paper with just his special ed test scores, I would say he would never even hit a passing score on his state tests, that it would be expecting too much.  Yet here Kenny is, testing high proficient in some areas, advanced in math, and yet can't remember the months of the year no matter how we try to teach them to him.  So, we have six years to see how much we can improve those areas that can be improved, and who knows who we will have standing in front of us at his graduation one day."

We have the actual IEP meeting next Friday, where all the results from all the testing are presented, and  supposedly a game plan for remediation or compensation will be presented.  We have hard data to present now, and that should keep the insulting "How could you possibly know that" sort of comments to a minimum, and might lead us to real help.

Miss Sandy put perfectly into words what makes this so hard for us, as his family, when she said, "Kenny is an enigma.  He is incredibly bright, he knows so much, and yet the simplest tasks cause his brain to literally shut down.  In some ways, it would be much easier on you if he were all around low functioning, because you could move to acceptance.  But you can't, he has too much going for him and we still have several years to work with it.  We might make a lot of progress, but it is never going to be steady and will always be up and down.  But he is showing you every day how smart he is, and how much he can learn because he is willing to work so hard.  We just have to not give up on him."

Of course we won't, not ever.  But on nights like these, I am particularly wiped out by it all, and feeling like I just want to give up.  It is harder than I can explain to anyone to parent and teach and coach and correct all day long.  I explain, I re-explain, I remind, I check, I bang my head, and I do it all over again.  As Dominick is always reminded when we are together 24/7 for a bit, it never shuts off.  I can't let down on the prompting, correcting, encouraging, and learning, because if I do, we lose ground almost overnight.  Simply wracking my brain during any given lesson about how to present something visually so Kenny can "see" it and remember it is hard work.

I know its worth it, I love that kid so much!  But I am tired of thinking, I am tired of how hard, sad and discouraging it is.  I am tired of no feedback, no workroom to go blow off steam with other adults over it on particularly bad days, and I am heartsick seeing him try hard day after day, only to find he still can not do certain simple tasks.

I don't want to have a son compared with having  a Traumatic Brain Injury.  I don't want another son whose intelligence is questioned because he can't write a stinking two sentence response in a greeting card so that it makes any sense.  I don't want a son or daughters who are locked in their own traumatic pasts that continue to haunt them when they least expect it.

But I want THESE kids, oh how I want and need them!  Tonight I must remind myself that they are not their challenges, they are their strengths.  They are the hard working, faithful and loving, math whizzes and history buffs who WILL make it in the world, no matter what, because they are deeply loved and fully accepted.

It will be my mantra.  I can do this.  We can do this.  All is well.  Hard never killed anyone.

Maybe tomorrow...tonight, I think I just need to feel very, very sad and very, very tired.

Head Above Water. Barely.

I know some of these special ed type posts are boring, but there are parents who read the blog whose kids are struggling with challenges they can't find answers to, so I try to share as much information as I can in case someone says, "Ah HAH!  That sounds familiar!"  So many times through the years I have learned more from reading a blog than from any expert, so I try to give details that might help some other parent piece together the clues about their own child.  So read on if you are interested, or return in a couple of days when I'll have posted about something else.

Returning from a 3 week adventure with 7 people means a lot of work, almost as much work as preparing to take the trip!  Laundry for 7, no food in the fridge, paperwork to catch up on, you name it.

That was the easy part.

The more challenging items on my "To Do" list made that seem easy.  The past two weeks have been spent in meeting after meeting with school, for both our Charter School process, and special education meetings for Kenny and Matthew.  I heaved a huge sigh of relief as I put my signature on the last document for Matthew's 504 plan, which gives him legal protections from now on for Dysgraphia, both in college and in the workplace someday.  I was given a result which explains a lot about his inability to write well. When he was evaluated they gave Matthew a test for Visual-Motor Integration which is exactly what it sounds like, how well his visual and motor skills integrate and allow him to function in areas requiring that combination.  What was his score?

12th percentile. "...indicates a vast weakness, especially in relation to what appears to be a well above average non-verbal cognitive ability."

Guess that explains it.  His test results were really odd, which I was told was not unusual in a young person like Matt, who is classified as "twice exceptional".  Scores were all over the map.  He is classified, for the testing as 8.5 grade level.  His lowest scores ranged from 2.5 - 12.0 grade level on his writing samples, with an average of 5.6 grade level.  Spelling in isolation, weirdly, was a 12.9 grade level and of just sounds he maxed out the test.  That is the very difficult part about Dysgraphia for some kids, and if any of you reading this have kids who can spell well with individual words but can't seem to spell a lick when embedded in writing...that is a big clue.  In broad written language skills and written expression, he scored out of high school level with a 13.3 grade level...but his writing is at times incomprehensible because words are jumbled up, syntax is a mess, and he absolutely cannot edit his work, no matter how hard he tries.

No wonder he has been so frustrated.  Conceptually, he gets it and has beautiful ideas and very mature, expressive language...that he cannot use in written form well at all.  It has explained so much to us, and probably the more important piece about all of this is that now we have appropriate expectations for Matthew's school work.  No longer do we jump to conclusions that he is being sloppy or lazy, or rushing too fast through something.  We know he has a clear disability, and we are now more able to work with it.  I now look for textbooks and workbooks that will not require as much writing or essay question type answers,  but have more multiple choice work, or we do verbal responses to essay questions to verify comprehension of content.

Matthew feels a huge sense of relief, and he doesn't see himself as "stupid" anymore.

Then, there is Kenny, who has had numerous tests over the past two weeks, much to our delight!  Finally, we have been heard and finally, someone in the system is on our side and validating everything we have been saying for 3+ years.  I remember working with Kenny on his reading and homework while in Kazakhstan adopting the girls, and having this growing knot in the pit of my stomach as it became ever more obvious that despite what we were being told at school, Kenny had some very serious learning challenges that were completely unrelated to English Language Learning.  So often, everything is understandably blamed on language acquisition with older adopted kids, which is logical I guess, but their backgrounds are ignored.  Laying in bed over there after one particularly worrisome evening of school work, Dominick and I whispered quietly about how very worried we were over Kenny, and wondering what in the world was wrong with his brain.  We knew it was not just learning English, but we were flying blind trying to figure out what was going on.

Fast forward 3 1/2 years, hundreds of hours of research, hundreds more hours working with him one on one, and the testing going on right now is supporting all that we suspected and then some.  Kenny has ADD, which is the least of our worries, but he also has verifiable auditory processing disorder with his left ear in particular dramatically affected.  According to tests last week, Kenny's brain only process about 5 5percent of what is coming in his left ear.  He can hear it, but those sounds are garbled and  not able to cross over to the right side of the brain and the language center to be worked with.  He literally only grasps about 55% of what is being said to him in that left ear, and the right ear also is at a considerable deficit, but nearly as badly as his left ear.  He also had a test that for the first time reflects a hearing loss in both ears at about the tonal range of my voice.  I don't have a particularly high pitched or low pitched woman's voice, I am right in the middle, and in that middle range, Kenny does show hearing loss.

The audiologist...the one who was so awful to me last year on the phone, was the one performing the tests.  She was quite uncomfortable initially, but warmed up as the testing went on.  She found other dysfunctional areas as well, as Kenny tried to repeat words she said, and missed sounds often...sometimes repeating things wrong 50% of the time on the list she read out loud, when it was multi-syllable words.

She turned to me and said, somewhat apologetically, "I reviewed all of Kenny's state testing scores and other documentation, and for the level of disability he has that I am seeing here, you have done what would almost be impossible.  I am sorry that our department didn't take you more seriously.  Your son has a significant amount of processing dysfunction, and I don't know how you as an untrained professional were able to get him to read or even speak as well as he speaks with this sort of severe auditory disorder."  I was told they would have some ideas to discuss for working with Kenny when we have the IEP meeting next Friday, but hearing aids and other assistive technology is being researched.  When we had other testing with his amazing speech therapist, whom we have 2 more hours of testing with tomorrow, Kenny was only able to repeat back to her the most basic sentences correctly.  When sentences with 8+ words or more complex structure were presented, he totally bombed.  In other words, he can repeat back "Dick and Jane" style sentences, but anything much more complex, and he simply cannot take it in and spit it back out.

Next Friday we will gather with 7 members of his "team", and see what they come up with. As his speech therapist said, "I refused to work with this child any longer until they provided me with the information I needed to be effective.  I get this young man walking in my office who has an IEP for a minor speech defect, and I can tell immediately he is absolutely not just a speech kiddo, and I can't understand for the life of me how he fell through the cracks when it is so obvious he has major problems. This is what I hate the system, it just doesn't work for kids like Kenny.  I am going to insist that his IEP state all of the issues he has, and too bad, they'll just have to figure out a way to start working with it."  She was livid to learn they had denied him earlier because of IQ and non-native born status.  It is only due to her help that we have made headway this year, and might get Kenny properly "labelled".

I know many parents don't want a label attached to their children, but when you have a child like Kenny, or even Matt, getting those proper labels is imperative to be able to access the services and protections they need, both now and in the future.  Kenny is still a kid for whom it is totally up in the air whether he will be able to live 100% independently as an adult.  He is very high functioning, and will be on the edge, but we can see if we don't make continued improvement that he is most definitely at risk for needing ongoing assistance as an adult, and his speech therapist agrees fully with that.  She said that what happens in the next few years are so critical for Kenny, as it may mean the difference between independence or assistance.  There are post-high school programs in our area that carry until someone is 25 years old to help with job training, life skills assistance, on the job mentors, etc. but we can only get that help for Kenny someday if he qualifies based on us pushing for proper "labelling" today. We want Kenny to have every opportunity, just like we do all the kids, to be able to succeed. For Kenny, success means proper, effective interventions to maximize the potential he has, and access to programs and services now and in the future that may lift him into self-sufficiency. People who are around Kenny don't always see the degree to which he is hindered, but if you live with him for a few days it is very clear.  He has every chance for success though, as he is industrious, compliant, helpful, courteous, and despite his issues, he is a very bright kid.

For the first time, Kenny will be attending his own IEP meeting next week, and he told me, :"Mom, can we just tell them right from the beginning to not be over sensitive because I am in the room?  I mean, remember when Mr.---sent me out of the room because he didn't want me to hear bad things?  Well, do we have to play that game?  Can't we just tell everyone on Friday first thing that I already know my brain is sort of scrambled and that way they don't have to pretend in front of me and can just be honest?"  That's our Kenny, boldly going where no other "scrambled brain" kid has gone before :-)  This will be good to teach him self-advocacy skills, and it should prove interesting with the other adults in the room.

But Friday next week will be it for a short break, no more school meetings for about a month, no advocating, no therapies, no testing. After about 12 meetings in 15 working days, I am plum worn out and will be looking forward to the break.

Westward Expansion - The End of the Trail

Well, let's see here, I left y'all hanging, didn't ?  So sorry about that!  We arrived home late Thursday evening, and it seems like real life barrelled down on us immediately.  After being gone so long, I guess it is to be expected, but it would have been nice to decompress a little!  You can imagine the laundry that was piled up for three days on the living room floor, I won't show a photo of that one :-)

But let's step back a few days to the last couple of adventures of our Westward Expansion trip!

We left Yellowstone, and all were sad to say good-bye.  It was such a beautiful place, and we agreed we need to return to see the other half of the park that was closed and not yet open for summer visitors.  There was far too much to explore than 2 days could allow, and we spent a little time on our drive to Idaho calculating how many hours it was from home if we were to drive back someday.

Montpelier, Idaho, was our next destination.  Why, you might ask?  Well, we asked the same thing as we pulled into town!  Hahaha!  Oh my goodness, it had the feel of a near ghost town, with many abandoned buildings and empty store fronts.  Weedy lots in front of long closed motels lined the main drag, and I wondered what in the world I had gotten us into.  I almost expected to see Stephen King cross the street!  We teased and joked as the wind howled around ol' Jorge, and we realized we needed at least one One Horse Town to visit on our trip!  We were staying in a Super 8, which was actually quite nice, but it initially felt like we were the sole occupants of this largish hotel.  We later learned that the town was indeed about half the size it used to be before the long, slow decline of the past five years or so, but the train companies were working tracks nearby and eventually the motel filled up for the evening with rugged, tired, strong men who had put in a hard day's work and had another to wake up to in just a few hours.

Why were we in Montpelier?  I never answered the question sufficiently...we were there to visit the Oregon Trail Museum.  I would never have built this into our trip were it nor for having it suggested several times on a homeschooling forum I participate in.  Reading about how great it was, I figured we just had to see it.  As we drove past it, and realized it was right next to our hotel, we wondered if it was going to be worth the drive.  It didn't look all that impressive from the outside, but we were there and the hotel was booked, so we figured we had nothing to lose.  After an evening of card playing, where Dominick taught the kids how to play "Hearts", we rose the next morning and lazily made our way across the street to the museum.

When we entered the building, we were greeted by a couple of nice ladies in the gift shop, where we were told that the museum was closed and wouldn't be opening for several more days.  She invited us to view their art gallery of western art with hidden pictures in each canvas, and she visited a little more with us.  

When we explained what we were doing there, and what we had been studying, she hesitated for a moment then said,"If you are willing to pay the regular fee, I can call the Wagon Master and see if he has time to come down, open it up, and give you a demonstration."  I hadn't realized this was an experiential sort of living history museum.  When we told her we would gladly do so, but didn't want to put anyone out, she said it wouldn't hurt to try, and off she went to place a call.  Meanwhile, another couple had come in hoping to see the museum as well, and all of us were so happy when she said that if we were willing to wait a few minutes, they would go ahead and let us go through.  As it turned out, we were especially glad that the effort was made, as this was the best museum we visited on our adventure!

In comes our Wagon Master, whose name I have now forgotten, and he is fully in character and ready to take us on our long journey over the Oregon Trail:

This was such a great museum! They walk you through the entire process of pretending to get ready for the journey by buying a wagon and supplies, as they explain about what is needed to make it alive, some of the hardships experienced, and many little things we weren't aware of or hadn't thought about.  Original artifacts were out on display, along with some replicas, that we were encouraged to touch and hold:

Every boy over 12 on the wagon train was required to carry a rifle.  The trip averaged about $800 or more, which on wages of $3 a week took a very long time to raise.  Angela discovered the rifles were quite heavy back in the day!

The museum is built right over the top of the actual Oregon Trail, and artifacts were found as they dug the foundation.  The dirt right exactly below our feet was where wagons like this left deep ruts:

People often think the pioneers rode on the wagons, but they didn't.  Most often they ended up walking the majority of their time on the trail as their loads were already too heavy for the oxen.  Can you imagine walking over the Rocky Mountains?  Cooking with buffalo poop?  Sleeping under a wagon for 4-5 months? One out of every six pioneers died on the trail.  That means in all likelihood, someone in our family would not have made it to the promised land of Oregon.

To survive the trip, our family would need upwards of 800 lbs of flour, 120 lbs of coffee (Blech!!), about 800 lbs of bacon, and a couple hundred pounds of sugar.  Startling, isn't it??  They'd stock up in stores in Independence, MO or just a little further up north, find an experienced wagon master who most often instructed folks to purchase a brand new wagon in the hopes it would remain intact for the entire trip.  We all decided that instead of going to Oregon, we would have tried to capitalize on the situation by opening a shop instead to sell supplies to the pioneers...less risk, and more reward.  Olesya said she did NOT want to spend her days picking up buffalo poop to cook with!

Our wagon master stayed in character throughout, and did  wonderful job of offering loads of information as we walked through the museum.  Next it was into a wagon, rigged up on a platform to feel as if it was really moving, and while we rode there were stories piped in over speakers shared from actual diaries of local families whose relatives were on the Trail.

Having arrived at our nightfall campsite, we were met by one of the pioneer women who shared stories about cooking out of a wagon, and the true story of hitting a bear over the head with a frying pan and killing it!

Olesya loved listening to the pioneer woman!

We learned more about the wagons themselves and the oxen that pulled them:

Above is a Wagon Odometer, seriously.  They used to have children count the revolutions of the wagon wheels so they could more accurately figure out where they were and the mileage covered, but too many were killed by being run over, so a company came up with this gadget.

I had never given it any thought that oxen would need a different style of shoe.  This is for one hoof, and it comes in two parts.

Finally, we were finished with our tour, and had to leave the trail behind

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the Oregon Trail Museum, and ultimately felt it was well worth traveling out of our way to see.  They did a very good job of bringing the experience to life with the sort of information they shared, and we though it is not a big museum, nor fancy, it was awesome and all of us talked about how much we learned even though we studied so much before hand.

After spending an afternoon geocaching and finding three caches, we holed up for the evening and readied ourselves to head out for our last full day.  We were going to Dinosaur National Monument to see the Dinosaur dig,where fossils were left embedded in the dry earth to allow visitors to see what paleontologists see when they are unearthing dinosaur fossils.  This too was way cooler than we would have expected, and a place we would not have gone out of our way to see if it weren't along our drive home.

A beautiful 2 year old facility houses the dig area to protect it.

Some of the fossils you can see on the large wall of them.  It is upright as it was pushed upward when the earth heaved. This area was originally a river bed.

Matthew and Kenny both thought it was super cool to touch real dinosaur bones left in place.  None of the boys were ever dino kids like many boys are, preferring super heroes (Josh), Kings (Kenny), and Construction Vehicles (Matt) when they were younger...well, Matt anyway.  Josh and Kenny still love those things, but Matthew has moved on :-)

And that, my friends, was the end of our trip.  Nothing more but a long drive home.  Jorge was wonderful on the trip, providing a much safer ride, no bottoming out, more space for the kids, and not a problem in the world engine-wise.  We kept saying over and over again how blessed we were to find such a bargain on Ebay that fit our needs so perfectly.  You would never have guessed it wasn't a brand new van from the kind of ride it offered, certainly not a 25+ year old van!!  God really provided for us with that, and at a price that we could afford.  Though we definitely miss the RV and wish we had it for camping this summer, Jorge made more sense, and was quickly turning into a "need" not a "want", at least for safety's sake.

Jorge, in definite need of a car wash!! Almost 4000 miles later, he earned it!

So it is back to routine, which is a good thing, too.  Angela could have stayed on the road forever :-)  She is such a road trip kid!!  She needs to find a job that involves travel some day.  Everyone else was pretty much ready to get back home, sleep in our own beds, and see our friends who were terribly missed.  This trip proved far more educational than I ever would have imagined.  Things we learned, aside from social studies topics were:

1)  We really do travel well together, and we didn't feel at all like we needed to get away from one another!  That was a nice surprise, and in fact I already miss the somewhat uninterrupted time we shared that was such a gift.

2)  We will attempt from now to on to always book with small mom and pop motels.  The ones we stayed in beat the chains by a mile.  Cleaner rooms, friendlier staff, maybe fewer amenities, but often larger rooms.

3)  We need to ditch the spare tire on the back, and give ourselves more space on the rack.  We will put the spare on the roof next time.

4)   Use the "Yelp" app to find good places to eat.  The few times we ate at real restaurants, we found the less advertised, great "hole in the wall" type places by using Yelp.

5)  Girls and boys in their own rooms works really, really well...no one complaining to the boys to pick up all the time and the girls had our clean, comfy room with no smelly socks and wet towels strewn everywhere.

6)  We were on a very tight budget, and were reminded again that ordering water at every meal instead of a soda saves a fortune.  Well...sometimes mom cheated, but everyone was supportive of that idea :-)

7)  Don't bother with a hotel washer and dryer.  When traveling with 7 and needing to do laundry, just go find a laundromat and do it all at once.  An hour and a half and we had a weeks worth done for all of us.  Oh yea, and bring your own detergent, don't buy it there (we didn't learn that one the hard way, we anticipated it ahead of time)

8)   Using any smart phone made the trip ten times easier.  We had never used it as much for travel as we did for this trip, and it was the single best tool we had for finding out information on the fly, changing reservations and using Trip Advisor, getting maps, looking up attraction hours, etc.

9)  Give the LaJoy's a deck of cards, a game of Rummikub, and a game of Quirkle, and we are set for daaaayyys.

10)  Always, always seek out hotels or motels with elevators.  We haul too much for all of us to go up and down stairs, especially with my bum hip.

What were our favorite things to see?  Surprisingly, many voted for the Budweiser tour!  The sheer volume and statistics as we watched the bottling plant made it an unbelievable place to see.  We all really loved Yellowstone, and the Oregon Trail Museum.  Of course, Mount Rushmore was just awesome to see.  The arch was cool to see, but not a place we'd return to.  Honorable mention for better attraction was the Vaile Manson, which surprised me, but which everyone appreciated.  It seemed like the bigger hits were the places that gave you a real sense of what life was like in a different era, not where you just looked at exhibits under glass. All in all though, our travel agent (Me! Haha!) did a pretty good job by everyone's account, and the only "flop" was really the National Trails Museum in Independence...a total "not worth the drive".  Though thinking about it now, we did enjoy the Truman Presidential Library there, which we wouldn't have seen if we hadn't gone to Independence for the Trails Museum, so maybe it was still worth it!

The trip generated so much conversation, deep thinking, and desire to learn more about newly discovered people and events.  I know we are a total geek family, but I think I like it that way!  We all read a ton of books while we were driving, Matthew practiced his card tricks and grows ever better at dealing and shuffling, Angela followed in Josh's foot steps and bought a much larger teddy bear to sleep with, which melted my heart just a little to watch my big fifteen year old daughter fast asleep in the bed next to me snuggling her bear close to her cheek.  Olesya showed me today some of her really great photos, and we can't wait to work on her slide show.  Kenny is now spouting all kinds of facts recalled from the trip days later, and reminds me of how smart he is and how much he can retain if just presented the material visually and experientially.  Dominick and I?  We're TIRED!! Hahaha!  Tired, happy, and blessed beyond all measure.  I still can't believe we were able to do it, something I had long dreamed of one day doing with my then imaginary family...a long road trip to see the sights of the west.  The only thing we missed was the one thing I really wanted to see, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in DeSmet, SD.  Maybe another road trip someday!

The next couple of weeks are booked solid with testing for Kenny, some of which happened to day and I'll blog about the next couple of days, more school meetings, Matthew finishing up a marathon to get his last two subjects done by Friday for the year, church work, and shoving down the growing panic over moving on to high school homeschooling next year...which is really more like the next couple of weeks for us.

So it's the end of the trail for the trip, but the new trails stretch out before us, waiting for us to saddle up!

Westward Expansion - Days 12 - 14

Our last night here in Yellowstone (not Yosemite, as I can't seem to get out of my head...but one day!), and I figured it was time to get caught up on posting.  So, if you are at all interested, this will be a little longer post filled with photos.

We arrived after a longer drive than expected, as we had to enter through the North Entrance of the park.  The East Entrance had not yet opened, so we had to add over 2 hours to our drive.  That was just fine, though we were tired of being in the van, because we got to see some beautiful scenery.  We were not really sure what to expect overall, because quite honestly, we live in one of the most beautiful areas in the country and it is hard to beat the Colorado mountains.  I don't say that to sound crass, but it is a lot different visiting someplace like Yellowstone when you live in Colorado, than when you live in...oh...say, downtown Los Angeles! Haha!  What mysteries Yellowstone have to share with us, what wonders would we see? We knew we would find some magical places, and we couldn't wait to discover them!

We have not been disappointed, who would be?

We had barely hit the outskirts when we pulled off the road because we saw this, and laughed:

Welcome to Montana...and watch for that wildlife!! HAHA!  Love the elk right next to the sign.

As we were taking photos, Joshua pointed something out to us.  It was a young deer caught up in a rodeo pen right behind us.  Somehow it had gotten caught inside and couldn't find its way out, as all the gates were closed.  It was running back and forth, obviously scared and uncertain.  We approached from the side of the gated area, and I unlatched two of the gates it needed to go through to get out, then stepped far away. The boys then all came up behind it to force it to run toward the opening.  It worked, and our first few minutes in Yellowstone felt like had at least done something nice as a "thank you" for hosting us :-)

Here they come to save the day!!!

It was just around the next curve when we found the large arch welcoming us:

Josh is below, contemplating how hard this was to build.

Then, less than a mile in, we found ourselves surrounded by wildlife!!

So, we have elk in Colorado, but we don't have them lying down right beside a public building in Montrose!!

We also would most definitely not see an entire herd of buffalo hanging out downtown.

We were dumbfounded at first, then, conversation turned to something like this:

"Look all around, there is SO MUCH POOP!! And it is BIG POOP!  How'd ya like to clean THAT up from your front yard?"  A very legitimate question.

Then, right across the street from the buffalo was this sight:

So about five minutes into the park, and already we were pretty blown away!

We came across a waterfall and everyone wanted to get out and see it...

Matthew taking pictures from on top, while Olesya took the safer route and took her photos from the side.

We saw lots of buffalo on the road, something we hadn't expected in the numbers we encountered:

We saw one buffalo charge a car as it unwisely passed by too quickly, and I squealed a little when one got a little too close as we passed.

This was much better, seeing them safely in their true habitat and not along the road.  We really enjoyed getting a sense of their immense size since we had read so much about them this year.  They are BIG, BIG animals, and far faster than one would ever expect!!

Yesterday we had the most lovely day ever, a much needed experience filled with awe and wonder.  Our first stop was Old Faithful, who didn't let us down.  We had just missed an eruption when we arrived, so we hung out and explored the area while waiting for the next eruption an hour later:

They have a new visitor's center only 2 years old, and it was neat to see the exhibits.

Snuck a picture of somewhat camera shy Olesya.

We wandered around outside for awhile as we waited for The Big Explosion:

Kenny has surprised us and himself during the trip as he discovered he loves reading maps, and is quite good at it!  So he has taken on the role of Tour Guide and getting us where we need to be.

The boys run to see something spewing something! HAHA!

For those who have never been here before, did you know how bad it smells?  Think of rotten eggs, and you'll be pretty darned close.

Our Dear Dominick...who is the hardest working guy I know...has had a very relaxing trip that was well deserved after a winter of very long days.  Though he has handled most of the driving for the trip, which I have greatly appreciated, he has played, he has laid around, he has hung out in the pool, and spent more down time than he has in a very long time.

Waiting before the crowd inside arrived.  We ended up with about 70 people or so around us.

Thar She Blows!!!

Quick!! Turn for a picture!!  Ok...now, turn back and take your own :-)

Then it was off to another area of the park.

Isn't this cool?

This looked like mirrors layered, it was beautiful but the photo doesn't capture it well.

Our windblown girls!  The weather has been extremes, from super cold and very windy, to sunshine and mild warmth, all changing by the hour.

Matthew and Kenny goofing around with Joshie.  Those boys love their little brother so much!

Two Joe Cools...

Trying to take a photo while waiting for steam to blow away.

The whole gang sans mom!

We were so lucky to have such wonderful weather after the morning drizzle and snow...and snow today.  Interestingly, though we all enjoyed Old Faithful, it was the other sights we decided we liked much more.  Check out some of the other areas we saw:

Above the kids are looking at something bubbling as much as any soup pot I've ever had on the stove, but it never looked like this...ick!:

Off in the distance we saw another small geyser, so we went to get a closer look.

It was small, but somehow prettier.

Driving we spotted what looked to be a waterfall off to the side, so we pulled over to go check it out:

The girls at first just watched their Billy Goat brothers, then decided to go down a little lower.

Though not large, this was a very pretty area with a nice waterfall.

Angela hiked down.

The boys are actually fairly high above the river here.

They couldn't resist, so up they went!

We are having a wonderful, well paced exploration of the American West.  In many ways, the past 4 years have been a dream come true for me with our family.  I know it sounds silly, but I grew up never having been fortunate enough to have gone anywhere with my family.  My parents were hard working folks, hanging on as best they could and providing for all our needs, and several of our concrete wants, like a new clarinet when I started high school, or all the sports my brother ever wanted to play in, but we never had the opportunity to travel.  One thing I had always hoped for with my own family someday is that we would be able to, at the very least, take a trip every 3 or 4 years.  I never could have imagined being able to do some of the things we have done with the kids, especially considering my honeymoon was my first ever real vacation!  

Our decision to homeschool, and to home educate through a public alternative program, has not only opened up the world to us academically, but in so many other ways.  It has dramatically lessened a lot of foundational knowledge we needed to try and cram into our kids adopted at older ages. I see on a daily basis the differences in base knowledge between Josh and Matt, and Kenny, Angela and Olesya.  There is just no easy way to build that basic information base when so many years and exposure to materials is lost.  But these trips we have taken are jump starting their education.  Taking the girls, for example, three years ago at ages 11 and 12 they had never heard of or seen a photo of a buffalo, an elk, an antelope, a deer.  They didn't have a clue about geysers, earthquakes, volcanoes, or other basic concepts about the earth.  Of course, they knew not a single thing about American history, our Founding Fathers, our government or freedoms or what makes us different from some countries.  Today, they have seen Washington, DC and they can name many early historical figures as well as explain their importance in American History.  They know they live on planet earth, they understand tectonic plates and continental drift.  They can tell you how America grew to the size it grew to, what major events happened to allow that growth, and they can explain the lifestyle of the pioneers.  Why? How?  Because they have seen covered wagons and cabins, they have seen buffalo and elk, and understand how they fed the Corps of Discovery largely on buffalo meat. They have seen real bear traps, pelts, Thomas Jefferson's home and library, and have stood on the steps of our nation's capital where they know so many who took a risk to create America once stood.

They've seen it, it's real, they can remember it, and they can tie it to the next level of learning. Without these trips, we would be so, so much further behind.

And yet, as much as they know and have learned, there is still SO much more.  Today Angela asked "So there is a Best Western Hotel, does that mean that back east there is a Best Eastern Hotel?"  Hahaha!  So cute.  We've seen first hand and  talked how the forest reseeded itself after a wildfire, about the valley floor here and what a caldera is, and discussed how Old Faithful will eventually die out.  

More important is the time spent together.  Standing overlooking a waterfall and speaking in hushed tones about how perfect nature seems to be, or having Olesya look sideways at me with a grin as she wins her third time in a row at a game of "Scum".  Listening to Kenny explain to us how many miles are left to our destination and steer us in the right direction as he shares what is coming up on our right hand side gives him something to be good at with his family.  Matthew jumping at every chance to climb, practice card tricks, and show off his shuffling prowess as a way for his introverted self to engage with his family.

But perhaps the very, very best moment of the entire trip happened yesterday for me.  We were traveling slowly gazing out the window to see if we could somehow spot a bear while singing "Life is a Highway", and talking about being stared at and pointed at while waiting for Old Faithful by this Asian woman sitting two feet from us who then nudged her partner and pointed directly at us and started speaking in a language we didn't understand.  Angela started laughing as we recalled it, and said that was about the worst we've ever experienced.  The conversation drifted to how everyone around us thinks we are total goofballs all the time.  Joshua piped up from the back seat and said, "I don't really care what other people think.  Our family has the best times together even if we just go to Walmart, and we don't fight.  Maybe they are looking at us because people aren't happy anymore.  I'm just glad I am not them.  I may have had a hard first year when I was born, but my other 9 years have been AMAZING."

A child literally left for dead, a child who at first rejected touch...rejected love...and since having a family he describes his life as "amazing".

That's what adoption does for a child.  What a humbling thing to be part of, along with all who have helped our family in so many countless ways.

So I guess I'd have to echo Joshie and say that our trip has been "Amazing".