It's Monday?

Where did the weekend go?!! Friday was a whirlwind of preparations with packing Alex and Mariah for a camp they are now gone to until Wednesday, repacking my nephew's things as he is now staying with my parents for a couple weeks, preparing food for a potluck at church, and then heading out to visit friends at a local campground for the evening.

Saturday evening we were back to the campground and had a real nice surprise "retirement" party for a good friend who has home schooled her two girls all the way from kindergarten to senior year and the youngest graduated this year. That is quiet the accomplishment and she did such a good job teaching them. They are both well rounded and very accomplished accidemically and socially.

Yesterday was spent cleaning up from all the rushing around from the weekend and putting things back in place. We also had a nice brunch with friends from both here and ones visiting from MN. Ken cleaned out the garage and is now refinishing his kevlar canoe in it in preperation of his canoe trip to Canada in two weeks. I took advantage of Mariah being gone to clean her room and remove all the junk that had been piling up in there. I filled three Wal-Mart bags with trash! A friend is having a garage sale Friday and I've accumulated enough just from Mariah's room to fill 1/2 of my dining room table. Today since it is raining and I can't mow grass, I'll tackle Alex's room (which isn't nearly so bad) and my hall closet. I sure hope all this stuff sells!

He's Here!

My nephew arrived safely last night at the Madison airport. Boy, I wish all airports were that easy to get to and get around in! His flight was right on time and for just turning 13 I was really proud of how great he did by himself getting around not only this airport, but the Denver airport where he had to change planes. He got to the food court by himself and on to his next gate with no trouble.

He's pretty excited to be here, though currently he's still sleeping! I think he's still in his time zone :) Today will be really hot so I envision lots of pool time and then probably computer (if Ken's not working on it) and indoor games when the heat gets to be too much. If it's not too oppressive I may take the kids to a car show tonight. Normally I would send them with Josh and Ethan who enjoy this sort of thing more than I do, but their plan is to be in bed by 7pm, sleep til 11pm, and then get up to see the midnight opening of some movie that comes out tonight! Ah, to be young, energetic, and crazy again!

Mid-week Musings

My how time flies............22 years ago yesterday I gave birth to Josh on a similarly hot and steamy day as yesterday was. The day after he was born the air conditioning on my floor of the hospital went out and boy was it uncomfortable! Sore from 36 hours of labor and then the indignity of being trapped in a hot, stuffy hospital, my wonderful husband and his best friend brought me a cool, creamy Frosty from Wendy's which tasted sooooo good!

My little baby is all grown up and has turned into such a fine young man now. We are so proud of how he is living his life and who he chooses to have as friends. His friends are a great group of young people and I am so pleased to say that his brother, Ethan, is counted among them. I'm so thankful that they have had these last couple years together and grown into such close friends. With Ethan headed off to college next month and Josh returning to college after a couple years off, they will not have as much time together anymore, if ever again.

We are looking forward to my nephew arriving from ID today! He just turned 13 (6 weeks before Alex is 13) and is traveling alone to come out for a month. He'll be with us til Saturday and then will head to my parents house for two weeks to help out around the farm. His reward for working hard will be the week long canoe trip with Ken, Alex, my brother-in-law, Rex, and two other dad's and sons during the first full week of August. I personally don't think sleeping on the ground, eating only what you can catch, peeing in the woods, and carrying a 50 lb pack with a canoe over your head on portages sounds like a reward, but I guess guys do!

Happy Wednesday!

No power, AGAIN!

These summer storms are getting tiresome! Yesterday was rain all day and then in the early evening a big lightening storm swept through. It was just beginning as we were pulling out the driveway to go to our 4-H meeting right down the street. As I looked down the road we could see flames shooting out of a power wire and burst of intense white and orange color and then lots of smoke! I went in and grabbed my camera and we headed down a couple blocks to investigate. A power line had snapped and was burning on the ground a person's front yard right by where we have our 4-H meeting. I got a couple pictures and then did video of it until the fire department arrived and their truck blocked my view.

We went back home (meeting canceled) and were just hanging out when the power started to flicker. I was expecting the power co to have to shut off our power to fix the line, but others in our household felt that we were on a different grid and would not have a problem. I decided to fill a couple pots with water, just in case, since we have no water if there is no electricity, and I just went through 15 hours of no power on Mon/Tues! Well, a little after 7 the power went out! Sometimes it is nice to have it off. People gather in one room or on the front porch and begin to chat. We have a young friend of Mariah's here from GA and she said their power never goes out and was a little concerned so we did fun things to take her mind off the situation. The rain had stopped so we got out some of the leftover fireworks and the boys shot them off and then found a box of sparklers and the younger kids did those. Alex lit all my candles and the house had a nice aroma of the mingling of all the different scents and the kids played cards by candlelight :)

We went to bed without the power having come back, but about 10:30 it did, yea! It was relatively cool in the house, but it was nice to have the ceiling fans on again. It began storming again during the night so I was up a couple times to shut windows and check on kids.

Bits and pieces.....

Whew! What a busy week this last one has been! Anticipation for the 4th of July is always high around here and as the kids get older it seems to get even stronger! Josh and Ethan planned a campout this year with a bunch of their school friends for last Thursday night, so several days before were spent in preparations. The lawn got mowed, they shopped for tiki torches and citronella candles, bought a new screen room, and picked up the meal supplies. I had nothing to do with their plans this year and they did a great job planning their event. Their guests began arriving around 6pm on Thursday and got their tents set up. Most of the evening was just spent around the campfire.

Several days previous they had gone shopping for fireworks. Needless to say........boys.......pocket money........= many, many fireworks! They had gone in with a bunch of kids that came to the campout and purchased the "special".....buy $600 worth, get $600 free!!!!! Let me tell you, we had some fireworks show Friday night!!!!!!! It was by far the best show in Shirland that we've ever seen. Of course the debris that rained down on our yard and into the pool was amazing, but they did a good job cleaning it up :)

The 4th started out really busy as Alex, Mariah, and I rode in the parade on the 4-H float and we had to finish decorating it that morning! Got it done and had a great time throwing candy to the spectators. We had an antique tractor pulling our wagon and after we finished the parade we drove down a hill to turn around and the tractor conked out as we got to the top of the hill! We were just a short ways out of town so we unloaded the goat and ducks from our wagon and walked back to town and home.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and chatting with Ken's mom and my parents and watching the young people goof around and swim.

Ethan took off late Friday night to head to our church campout, but the rest of us stayed home to enjoy spending the night in the cool comfort of our home and in our soft beds! Josh took the other kids out to the campout on Saturday and they camped out while we hosted good friends from Congerville, IL at our place. We had a great visit with them and then headed to the campout on Sunday for the church picnic. It was really warm, but there was a great breeze, great food, and great conversation so we didn't mind the heat.

Monday night a storm blew through and our power went out shortly after 8pm. It never returned until about 11:30 am today. It was a miserable night with no air or fans running and it was hot in the house. I had to be up at 3:30 am to get ready to head to Midway airport this morning with Mariah and Bonnie to pick up a young girl who was coming to visit Bonnie and stay for 5 days. Needless to say I was not a happy camper to wake up and realize we still had no power and I had to get ready to go with no electricity and no water! It goes without saying that I'm just a little tuckered out tonight. Ken has gone to the movies with Alex, Josh and Ethan are vegging in the living room and when I'm done with this I'm off to the shower and into bed (and its only 7:15 pm!).

By the way, the top picture is the corvette an old friend has that he brought out for our parade. He's in a corvette club and every year they have more and more in the parade. The second picture is our 4-H float with about 1/2 half our club represented, and the last picture is my dad watching the parade. Mom was safely watching from the comfort our my front porch-away from the mosquitoes!