After Tim got back from his conference and (mostly) recovered from his stomach virus (or whatever it was), he had a work-related day trip and an evening foster care training, plus we got to spend a couple of hours taking Daniel to the doctor for a follow-up visit for his strep. (The strep ended up being pretty much a non-event by the way; after 12 hours on the antibiotics, Daniel felt fine.)
Then there was our 12-hour power outage. Tim about gave me a heart attack one night by bolting up in bed saying, "What was that noise??" I vaguely recalled there being an ongoing crackling noise at the tail end of my disappearing dream, which was the same noise that had woken Tim up in real life. Now the noise was gone. It had sounded like it came from outside the house, but Tim took a flashlight and went to check. As he reached the end of the hall I saw a bright flash of light, heard a loud bang, and the power was off. So at three in the morning I hauled myself out of bed, groggily hunted down an old electricity bill and called their 1-800-number to report an outage. We thought the couple houses across the street that usually go out with us were affected as well, but it was hard to tell in the middle of the night. Other houses clearly had lights still. Neither child had woken up, although I did hear Daniel talking in his sleep about a clock.
The next morning when I went to wake Daniel up, I looked out his window across the street and solved the mystery of the crackling noise. Our neighbors across the street have an enormous (and I do mean enormous) oak tree that overhangs their living room. Sometimes on windy days I worry about it blowing down on top of their house. At least the tree itself was still standing, but, although it had not been storming the night before, two giant limbs had fallen on the power line and snapped it. Daniel of course rushed through his morning preparations and was out the door fifteen minutes early so that he could survey the damage. I went out with him, being as I didn't know whether or not there might be a live wire on the ground (it turned out later that there was, though thankfully not in the street), and I didn't trust Daniel's vision or curiosity enough to be sure he wouldn't step on it. Our neighbor who owns the house was out too, so we chit-chatted a bit and traded stories, and then I saw Daniel off to the school bus. He was disappointed that he didn't get to stick around and watch the crew come fix the wire. (Our neighbor commented, "He's going to be an electrical engineer; you can see that one coming!" It's interesting how many people say that, or some variation of it, to us. Yes, Daniel has great aptitude and interest in technical things, and I think he will very likely go into a technical career, but why engineer and not electrician? Maybe people assume that with two college-educated parents we will necessarily produce college-educated children, but actually we'll be happy with any career that suits a child's abilities, contributes to the world, and makes a decent living.) Esther did get to watch the electrician and the tree-trimming crew at work, and later she played electrician with Daddy. He was impressed with how well she remembered everything they had done. That one may well choose to become an engineer, although right now she's trying to decide between biology and physics. :-)
We finally got our power back about 3:00, and a few hours later Tim's dear friend from Arizona arrived for a visit. He and Tim have been friends since seventh grade, and he was actually the one who officiated at our wedding. He had a meeting in a city five hours away from us, so he came a couple of days early, rented a car, and made the five-hour trip down just to spend time with us. Now, that's a good friend! We had a wonderful time together. Tim and Mark played lots of pool and table tennis, and Esther hung on his every movement. One morning I overheard her asking him if he would like her to feed him his cereal! (He politely declined.) Daniel was away at school for most of the visit, but he got in on some of the pool action.
Mark left on Friday morning. On Saturday morning, not quite as early as we wanted to, we loaded up the SUV and headed out to my grandmother's house to spend the long weekend with her and celebrate her 88th birthday. We had a great time there as well, even though the air conditioner wasn't working and the temperatures were above ninety degrees. Some of us spent a lot of time in the cool basement! :-) But we wouldn't have traded the visit for anything. Grandma is very special to us, and we love being close enough to go for a weekend. Esther, true to her usual form when traveling, woke up at four in the morning our first night there and insisted it was time to get up. And somewhere during those pre-dawn hours she discovered her first wiggly tooth. Daniel slept fine, but the visit was an interesting preview of what our summer travels may look like. He was calm and pleasant as long as he was in physical contact with me or engaged in conversation with me. And of course he was fine when doing projects, of which he found many: adjusting the drapes, cutting an unused cord off of a recliner, fixing the screen on a door, fixing the back doorbell. But if he wasn't with me or doing a project, he had no idea what to do with himself. We are going to be away from home for three weeks this summer. It could be...interesting!
This week has been a little less busy so far...just dental appointments for two of us, an audition for Daniel to perform in his school's end-of-year talent show, the arrival of Daniel's new mattress (his long-anticipated birthday present), our one-year post-placement visit with our social worker, and an inspection by pest control people to get rid of a possible carpenter ant nest. We're hoping that the actual nest is outside somewhere and the twelve ants Tim killed in our bathroom after we got back from Grandma's house were just scouts, but we've been putting the inspection off long enough!
Then this weekend is the 30 Hour Famine at church. I will be involved the whole time, and Tim and kids may come for some of the Saturday activities. We decided that Daniel isn't ready to do it yet, though I'm hoping he can next year.
Next weekend we have friends from DC taking a detour from a long road trip to come spend the night with us, and the following week we have two medical appointments (one in another city) and Daniel's Family Day, plus packing to go out of town for three weeks. I'm super excited for the trip: we're going to see my family in Oregon, drive down the coast together to northern California to be at a cousin's wedding and see extended family, then fly on to Arizona with my sister and return her to her supported living community before spending almost a week with Tim's family and friends in Phoenix. I suspect the trip will feel long at times, especially with our kids, but I am so looking forward to seeing loved ones I haven't seen in a few years and introducing everyone to Daniel! In particular, Tim's mom is no longer able to fly easily, so this will be her first time meeting her newest grandson. Very special. And for a long time we weren't sure if we were going to be able to do it financially. I was praying hard for us to have the money by the time we needed to decide, and I'm so grateful that we do!
So that's our lives right now. (And I thought things were going to get relaxing once Tim was done with the semester! Ha!)
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