June recap

We have been having so much fun this summer. I don't think we've had a slow day yet. The boys were in a play this weekend at the community theater. Now that practice is over for that, I hope we can slow down a bit. It's just going too fast!

We have had several thundershowers this summer. They seem to be quickly followed by sunshine. We got this awesome picture after church one Wednesday night. The kids were so excited to see it...they wanted to go looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Thomas is crawling all over the house now. He can pull up on the fireplace, but he cries until he figures out he can just sit back down. He has found the tupperware drawer, like his brothers before him. He has proven to be worse than his brothers were in putting stuff in his mouth. I have already had to fish out more things from his mouth than all his brothers combined! There's lots of opportunities for small stuff on the floor around here too. Sigh.

We have successfully raised butterflies from caterpillars. It was one of those order the caterpillars, they come in the mail, you wait until they turn into chrysalids, then you wait until they hatch as butterflies. Pretty foolproof. I liked it. I talked Caleb into setting them free before we killed them. Whew. We also had toads for a few days. They were found in the yard. After a few days of having to catch 10-15 grasshoppers each day, the boys got tired of the toads, and they were released back into the wild. Whew, again.

We've been in the water quite a bit so far this summer. We have been swimming at Mom's neighborhood pool, and David opened his pool this summer. It hasn't been open for several years with Jean's illness and David working full-time. Since David is now retired, he took time to fix it up. The boys are so excited, as Papa's pool has a slide and a diving board that Grandma's pool doesn't have. We have also been on waterslide several times as that is something quick that we can do at home.

Like I said above, there have been some pretty severe storms come through this summer. Matt says that destruction is following me, if so, I hope it passes over soon! It all started with the flood in Nashville that Mom and I managed to escape. Then, we went to Sonic one night for sundaes and saw a storm coming. We got in the car just before the storm hit. It was so dark, and we could hardly see the road, the storm was so intense. The basement even started flooding at one corner of the house. The next day, I drove by Sonic to see this...

We left about 15 minutes before the roof fell.

So lastly, today a really bad storm came through. We even went to the basement. We couldn't see out the windows, except for lightning strikes every few minutes. Those were followed by loud thunder. Caleb has a fear of a tornado blowing down our house, so this really upset him. Bless his heart, he was crying, "God, have mercy on us. God, save us." He kept saying it over and over. The only thing that would quiet him was if I held him. That wasn't easy when I had Thomas asleep on one shoulder. The scene was so chaotic that it was funny and pitiful at the same time. We sat in the dark (power was out) in the middle of the storm, and Caleb was doing what we have taught him, calling on God during your times of trouble. Matt didn't think it was too bad either, until the storm was over and he saw our swingset and trampoline overturned in the back yard. But, the worst was in the front yard. We had a huge old tree in our front yard. It was hit by lightning a couple of years ago, and we have been waiting to decide what to do with it. It was still alive, but obviously the root system was suffering. The tree fell towards the house, but thankfully, it missed the house and the car. Just as Caleb prayed, God saved us and had mercy on us. Let the cleanup begin...

The pictures don't seem to show the true proportion of the tree. It is huge. After the storm, Matt opened the garage door that I had shut right before the storm hit. He came back in and said, "I can't find Charlie." I had assumed that both Charlie and Buddy were in the garage. Wrong. Buddy was, Charlie wasn't. We went outside and started calling for Charlie. The problem with that is that Charlie is 12 and hard of hearing. He is also terrified of thunderstorms, hence, he should have been in the garage! We walked all around the house multiple times. We looked in the field thinking maybe he had been thrown. We tried looking through the tree limbs thinking maybe he was trapped under the tree. Just when we were about to give up, Joshua says, "There's Charlie!" He was running up our long driveway...just like in a Lassie movie. My heart jumped. He ran right past me soaking wet into the garage to his spot in the corner. Poor thing, I don't know where he was, but we are so glad to have him home safely.

Have a great 4th of July. We will be thinking of Jean, as it was her birthday. She loved to have everyone celebrate on her birthday, so we will be sure to remember her during the day and while watching the fireworks.