6 Miles

I was hesitant to blog much during the end of last week. James was gone the whole time, and I knew that’d come up, so I figured it was better to just wait. Though our giant mean dog that I never mention, but guards our house, kept us safe.  

Wednesday night James had praise team practice.  He got a call from our renters of our old house that they had a really high water bill last month. It’d been high the month before and he tried to fix the problem (a running toilet) but it was still high. So he had a plumber go in and look at it…the plumber told him all the innards of both toilets needed to be changed. James knew he could do that so he went up Thursday night to fix those (the plumber was really nice, he didn’t charge us for the inspection–even after James told him he wasn’t going to use him for the repairs and he offered to pay him for the service call.)  James got home about mid-night Thursday night. Then Friday night and all day Saturday he had a staff meeting for those working with the High School Youth group (it was a staff stay-treat, instead of a retreat).  Sunday morning he had to be at church early to do sound check for praise team. So there was lots of him being gone.  And we made it through it! Whew!  While he did all that, what did the boys and I do?

• Wednesday was our final bible study for the summer. We had a lunch/play date with some friends afterwards.
• Thursday was clean the house/do laundry day. Alex kept asking who was coming over. The goal was to work on the rooms that normally don’t get seen when people come over.    We got some done, but there still is a ways to go.
• Friday was shopping day. We did grocery shopping all morning…knowing James would be gone for supper I bought some frozen dinners (the kids were THRILLED to pick out their supper).   That morning James notice the local Laz-y-boy was having a Christmas in July sale. I’d been eyeing a sleeper sofa from there, and this seemed to be the time to buy. (When baby comes, the guest room will become the nursery and so the fouton will be removed. We needed to get a sleeper sofa for those guests who come to visit).  With all craziness of the rest of the weekend, Friday evening was our only shopping time. I think the sales person was a bit thrown to have someone come in knowing just what they want fro researching online.  For those who care, this is the sofa we got–only it will be in chocolate brown:

  We’ll be getting it in 6 weeks.  The boys thought it was quite funny to see Christmas trees and pictures of Santa–though Alex wanted to know where the candy canes were and if Santa was real (NOT a conversation I wanted to have in the middle of a furniture store).

• After that crazy time, I was very happy to give the boys their frozen dinners and not have to cook. James went off to his meetings.
• Saturday the boys and I went to the farmers market, the post office, and then McDonalds to let them play in the play area. I brought a book and tried to let them play as long as they wanted, with no timeline. I couldn’t last longer then a hour and a half! I had to leave the place.  But they had a fun time.
• Saturday evening, the families were invited to join the staff for a cook out. We met up with everyone and had a great time. Our Praise Team leader was in a national competition with the Gospel Music Association.  He reached the finals with a solo song, plus his band (all from church) made the finals, and the finals were being broadcast live on-line. So at 8 we turned on the computer and got to watch the band go first! It was so much fun to watch them all as a group….so much that we didn’t want to leave until we saw Jake’s solo performance. Sadly, that was MUCH later (though at the time we didn’t know how much).  The kids were playing so well, we ended up staying until about 9:45 to see the solo. Then we rushed home, put the kids in bed and turned on our own computers to see who won. Jake’s solo got first runner up, the band was 1st for the band (who-hoo) and then Jake one a special price that I don’t know much about because I couldn’t hear well. We do know he gets to go to Disneyworld and preform there.  We were so proud of them!
• Today was a beautiful, cool day.  We enjoyed going to church and were hoping the kids would take good naps in the afternoon. Will never napped and Alex took a short one.  So we went for a family walk and enjoyed some ice cream at our half-way point.

And now, I’m looking ahead to our final week of freedom for school starts for Will. While he’ll only be going alternating days, having to have him ready/there by 8, which lunch packed, is going to be a new experience!

One final, funny thing I just remembered. At some point on Saturday Alex said, “Mommy, Daddy is still watching the the kids being potty trained, isn’t he?” I realized when I told him he was going to Training for the Youth Group, he slightly misunderstood. Boy, did I get a laugh out of that one.