One Crazy Week

Gosh, I don't even know where to start. This has been one crazy week and there has been so much to blog about. However, my husband who is remodeling his office accidentally snipped our Internet cable so we did not have Internet access all week. I usually check my email a couple of times a day so I admit I felt a little lost. But I survived. This week has included an old friend's wedding in downtown D, a fabulous play date, the passing of a loved one, fun times spent with old friends and family, one of the worse things that could happen to a homeowner, the most memorable 4th of July ever, and our first family vacation with our son. Since so much has happened I will briefly expand on each event. Sunday evening we went to a wedding at the Hickory Street Annex in downtown Dallas. It was probably one of the most unique weddings I have been to but my friend Suzanne is very unique. She and the bridesmaids drove up in and left in old timey cars. The colors were bright orange, turquoise, hot pink, and chocolate brown. And instead of a unity candle they each had a glass of colored water that they poured and mixed together in a separate glass. It was very tropical and fun. My friend Mindy and I walked around at the back with our toddlers so we missed some of the wedding. The reception was really nice and there was a little dance floor with disco lights that Tobey and Emma had fun running around on and chasing the lights.



On Monday we had a play date with Amanda & Jackson, Sunni & Ava, and Janelle & Ella at this great little water park. It was so much fun and the rain stayed away just long enough for us to enjoy the water. These girls and their toddlers are wonderful and we had so much fun hanging out with them. On Tuesday we went to the Ranger's game with some of our oldest friends. Jason and Rodney have been friends since they were little boys and grew up in church together. I have known Jason as long as I have known Rodney and I love to hang out with him and his wife Monica. They were able to find babysitters but we ended up having to take Tobey with us so I did not see much of the game. On the way home I stupidly took the exit by the horse races who had just had a huge fireworks display and we got caught in the traffic. We moved about 5 miles in 45 minutes. But we had so much fun in the car cutting up and acting silly. Tobey joined in on the silliness and never even fell asleep. We got home after 11pm and I immediately put Tobey to bed. Jason left to pick their kids up at his grandparents house. Since Jason and his family live in East Texas they spent the night at our house. We all got into bed around 12:30pm. I was laying there and realized I felt kind of hot so I got up to turn the air conditioner down. But.....it would not come on. Rodney did not believe me but I made him get out of bed to check it out. He could not get the air to come on either. Thankfully it had rained most of the day so we stayed pretty cool that night. We could not believe this happened on the one night we had our friends over and the day before 4th of July. Not only were we having family over to celebrate but we had to find someone who would come out to look out our air conditioner on a holiday. Rodney started calling first thing the next morning and finally found a company that was open. Jason and Monica were such good sports as our house started heating up. We finally got through breakfast and got all the kids ready for a swim in our pool which, thank goodness, actually looked good for the first time this summer. Did I mention that Jason and Monica have three kids. Julianne who is about to go into second grade and Reed & Ryan, three year old twin boys.

Tobey was absolutely mesmerised with the boys. We had not seen them since their birthday party in December and Tobey was barely walking at that point. But now he could chase after them and he did. But he also just stood and watched them with this big smile on his face. It was very cute. As we were about to get into the pool the air condition man showed up and took a look at our system and then gave us really really really bad news. He said we needed a whole new unit and it would be the next day before they could install it. Bummer! Those things are expensive and we were having a cookout that very afternoon. We turned on the window unit in our sun room and Jason and Monica helped us clean up out there and make it party ready. Rodney's family showed up shortly after and we all got in the pool and played and cooled off. It was alot of fun. Tobey was very scared of the big pool so we had a little kiddie pool set up for him which he loved.








Then we cooked out and had a lovely feast. Some of us played cards. The guys helped Rodney put a few sheets of drywall up in his office. The kids played and ran and screamed. Later we piled into our cars to go see Fireworks. Yea! I was so excited and could not wait to see Tobey's reaction. We found a perfect stretch of sidewalk, the same place we have gone in years past, and waited for the show. After about 45 minutes we saw the reflection of fireworks on the side of the building in front of us. The actual fireworks were behind a group of buildings and we could not see them. They moved the show to a different location and we missed out. No fun. I did snap some really cute pictures while we were waiting though.





On the way home we laughed and jokingly said that the anticipation was the best part anyway. But I really wanted to see those fireworks. It was on my top ten favorite things about summer. So we came home to our hot house. I got Tobey to bed and propped some box fans up in his room while Rodney's family helped clean up. It was 83 degrees in our house so we pulled a mattress into the sun room with the window unit, got Tobey out of his crib and crashed. What a day. It was fun sleeping in there with wall to wall windows, almost like camping out. However, Tobey woke up much earlier than usual because of those wall to wall windows. The next day we got our new air condition. The installers were at our house from 11am to 11:30 pm. I worked on laundry and packed for our upcoming cabin adventure. We were able to get out that evening to visit Rodney's mom who was in the hospital following foot surgery. To those of you who know her, she is doing great, at home with her leg propped up although she is still in quite a bit of pain. Friday morning we attended the funeral for Rodney's grandmother who had passed away earlier in the week. She had been in the hospital and sick for some time so we rejoiced that she was no longer suffering and at peace. Wayne, our good friend and minister spoke at the service and it was very moving. Then we headed home and loaded up the car for our drive to Broken Bow. We were so ready to get out of town. We picked Tobey up from Kids Day Out and we were on our way. On the drive up we reflected on the past week. The fun times and the not so fun times. We realized that our air condition and the passing of Rodney's grandmother could have happened at anytime but God orchestrated our lives so that Rodney would be home to deal with both of those situations. If Rodney had not been on vacation, he most likely would have been out of town and might have missed his grandmother's funeral. And I would have had to deal with the air condition all on my own but thankfully I didn't have to. Thank you God, You are so good!