Catching Up, Part 1

Wow. I have fallen sooooo far behind! And after being so good to blog every single day. But it just hasn't been possible. I've picked my computer up a few times along the way, but usually only to haul it from one place to another.

It all started two weeks ago... Boy, are you guys in for a post that will be way, way, way too long! Ha! Maybe I'll break it up into sections. Yeah, I should do it that way. Here we go.

Two weeks ago, I started packing. We were uncertain of how the future would go, but James had decided to just get us all to Alabama and trust God to work out all of those uncertainties. We needed to leave the house show worthy with furniture and decorations all in place, so we just packed up all of the things you couldn't see: closet contents, dressers, cabinets, James' office, shed junk (including boxes and boxes of GARAGE SALE stuff--and James says he's not a hoarder!!!), and who knows what else. James arranged to rent a 16' moving truck for us to fill up and bring with us; we'll go back for the furniture and other stuff when the time comes.

So I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday packing up the kids' closets, the stuff under all of the beds, the kids' clothes, junk like that. It was sooooo confusing. I had to try to pack stuff to be stored indefinitely (we could be living in our temporary housing situation for a month, or for up to a year--we have no idea), then I had to pack things that we'll want to have with us for that month-to-a-year, then stuff that we'd need in the next week until we left, then stuff that we'd need FOR the trip and the first couple of days when we got there... ~whew~ Wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay too much brain work for me!

Wednesday I worked long and hard a-a-a-a-a-all day long, up until the Hays arrived at 11:00pm. That's right, the Hays! At our house!!! WA-HOO!!! Apparently they'd been needing some Horne time almost as badly as we'd been needing some Hays time, so they worked it out to come on town to spend a couple of days with us. ~sigh~ What great friends. It was terrific. They got their kids put to bed and we just sat and talked for quite a while that night. We did get in one game of I-Buy before we called it a night at 2:30.

Thursday morning James got up early and headed out to find more moving boxes. I spent the morning packing up the craft cabinet and school supplies and things like that--while visiting with our COMPANY. :-) I made up some chicken and noodles for lunch and it actually turned out good--no chicken glop this time! I've decided it's a GREAT meal. It comes together in 20 or 30 minutes, but it's so good and just feels like a nice, hearty, home cooked meal. Makes me happy. I did some more packing throughout the afternoon, Brother Dustin worked on fixing one of the puck lights that flurbbed out on us recently, and Joe began hobbling around the house pretty dramatically at some point. He said he'd tripped and fallen while he was running, but we really didn't think much about it. We all headed in for church that evening, enjoyed a good service, then went to Dion's for dinner afterwards. We came home, put the kids to bed, then got down to business with I Buy and Balderdash. I think we went to bed at about 1:30 that night, but we had some really great laughs before that time. I remember the word "barbellate" providing a good deal of amusement. It's amazing how varying pronunciations can create such differing possibilities for a word. :-)

I don't remember what we were laughing at at this point, but I'm fairly certain it had nothing to do with the head wrap. Brother Dustin was thus adorned throughout most of the evening, as I recall.

Friday morning started with waffles and rationed syrup (long story), followed by our noticing that Joe was still limping badly. I had asked him the night before if his ankle was swollen and he said he didn't think so. When he was still limping the next morning I had him take his socks off (no easy task on that one foot) so I could compare his feet. No question--that right ankle was way swollen! So we called Doctor Dustin (he used to be a first responder with the volunteer fire department or something like that) into the room to take a look. He diagnosed a sprained ankle and wrapped it up, then offered to carry Joe into the other room so he could sit down and elevate it for a while. Joe wasn't too thrilled about being carried like a princess, but the rest of us enjoyed it immensely. :-)



I spent most of Friday packing up the kitchen. It is amazing how much stuff is in a kitchen. I gave our deep fryer and toaster oven to Jamey. Tammy helped me pack last time and I think I gave her our toaster oven and punch bowl or something like that. You pack so much stuff and just get to the end--if James hadn't been around I probably would've given away a whole lot more! Ha! Anyway, by mid-afternoon we were all feeling pretty wiped out from our sleep deprivation, so we put a movie on for the kids and crashed all over the den, taking naps or fiddling on computers. Then it was back to the packing. We had some pretty fantastical ham and beans for dinner that night (along with cornbread and honey--which did NOT make me sick this time! I didn't heat it up this time and just had a little bit, with no adverse side effects or affects--whatever it is!--so wa-hoo!), then I packed a while longer. I declared I was done packing for the evening, but James didn't think it was time for me to call it quits yet so he came to "help." ~sigh~ I hate it when he does that. He drug Jamey into it as well and before too long all of the Tupperware had been packed up along with most of the pantry. That pretty well finished up the kitchen, and it really was nice to have it done.

That night we played I Buy, then Balderdash, according to tradition. It was still too early to go to bed, so we threw in another game of Balderdash. :-) I would tell you who won, but only God knows. The game pieces kept randomly roaming all over the board, my piece mysteriously moving backwards (an impossibility according to the point method) and Brother Dustin's piece sailing toward the finish line even when he had received no points. I'm simply not observant enough to catch him cheating every time but it really didn't matter. We don't play this particular game for points; we only play for the laughs. We don't need the game board at all except that it contains such great memories for us, what, with the spewed coke stains and all. ;-) Anyway, the crowd called it quits and headed to bed at about 2:00. My afternoon nap had kicked in and I wasn't the least bit tired so I stayed up and cleaned for a while and even packed another box or two. I headed to bed at about 3:00.

James, Brother Dustin, and Joe headed to town early the next morning to pick up the moving truck--and some Krispy Kreme's for breakfast. :-) We loaded up all of the boxes of stuff we'd been packing all week long, which consisted of everything from James' office, everything from the shed (including boxes and boxes of garage sale stuff--I've already told James that if we can't fit everything on the next moving truck I'm going to be a wee bit upset that he insisted we bring garage sale junk with us! Ha!), all of the kitchen stuff, all of the kids' clothes (except some hanging clothes), all of their toys and books and stuff, things from other cabinets and closets around the house--oh, just all sorts of junk. We also loaded up that giant chuck wagon table and a couple pieces of Granddad's wood. We were sure to load up all of the big or heavy things we needed help with while they Hays were still there, then we finished up on the rest later that night. We stopped for lunch, then loaded the soda fountain into the Hays' van and bid them adieu--no tears this time because we are holding out hope that we'll see them once more before this move is complete. Of course, I shed tears about an hour after they left when Katie discovered the little gift they had left us along with a card. She brought it out to me and I sat on a box in the back of the moving truck and cried as I read it. Jerks. Ha! We do thank God for the special friendship He's given us with that family. It must be something special when you consider the amount of destruction our children have wreaked on the other family's property--yet we're still friends! Ha! Since they were at our house this time, it put us way ahead. Lillie pushed through the screen door, Aleah took a hammer to the freshly stained shed as well as throwing rocks in the newly lined pond (we've had a history of torn pond liners from such rocks) and Isaac was found in the pond... ~Aaaaahhhhh~ I love it. :-) Of course, Sam was guilty of being in the pond along with Isaac, but still. Oh, and they did tell us that last time we were at their house Sam and Isaac were playing with their van door and somehow managed to break the automatic door mechanism. That is a BIGGIE, sure, but just a month or two later somebody backed into that very door and it had to be replaced--and works like a charm now. ~whew~ I'm glad they didn't tell us about it before insurance paid for a new door! ;-)

Anyway... As much as I truly love the Hays children (it's all about incriminating their Dad and them having more destruct-o points than we do, thus putting us "ahead" in this warped competition of ours), I couldn't NOT capture some precious memories from them:



Is that not the most pitiful thing you've ever seen??? Poor girl--it endears her to me all the more. :-) And next:



HA! If only Lillie could speak I'd have a clip of her apologizing for the screen door. ;-) For the record, there was really no harm done this time. The pond liner was fine after the rocks and one kid from each family had tromped through it, James took Aleah outside with a can of stain and the two of them had fun touching up the dings in the shed, and James was easily able to get the screen stretched back into the frame--something he's had to do because of his own children (and more often his wife) several times. Still, it's so much more fun when it's the Hays' kids doing that stuff instead of our own. Ha! Despite my blog (ha!), they really are good kids. They are a lot of fun and we truly love being with them. And I love it that Charlie took to Aleah so well. :-)



And to end, here are a couple of clips I took during Balderdash one night. The first is of Brother Dustin acting like a toothless old man--something that grossed his wife out to a degree I'd never seen before although, sadly, I didn't capture THAT on film. The second clip, well, I have no clue what was going on but it's what our time together is all about. :-)