June 19 with the kids

Wednesday:  There is a high today of a predicted 92 degrees with an accompanying humidity in the 70's--the combination makes for a sticky, hot, miserable life if your house lacks air conditioning. MINE does. However, in my defense of not having my house updated to accommodate air--I don't want to pay $5000 for something I will only need 2-3 weeks per year (at most). I am almost never too warm. I actually prefer the heat to the cold, because I am usually COLD. This heat, however, is the exception.

As I prayed about this upcoming day of having 4 active, very warm blooded children, spend 3-4 hours here, I was led to believe it would be far better for everyone if we just stayed at their wonderfully air-conditioned place and just settle in for the day. I told the kids this ahead of time, so they wouldn't be disappointed about not playing with my toys, etc.

So I brought a crock-pot of Mac 'n Cheese, sliced fruit, an entire loaf of cinnamon-swirl bread, and some other snacks and arrived at their house at noon. Erin was home from summer school at 12:15 and we ate lunch right away. Everyone ate really well--I was very pleased.

We folded and flew a lot of paper airplanes all over the house. We played a game of "Ticket to Ride". We read good story books. We laughed a LOT. Erin, Cal and I played outside in their splash pad for about 45 minutes, late in the afternoon and had a lot of fun doing that.

We received a text from Dylan at about 5:01 (!!) letting us know that there were "young people" from their church arriving at 5:00 (this was a mis-type on Dylan's part), and could we clean the house up and make it presentable before they arrived. YIKES. We were already at -1 minute! SO ... rather than just say to myself--IMPOSSIBLE--I announced to all of the children that we needed a major cleanup, and we all got to work. It wasn't a bad time at all. Everyone was helpful (as much as they could be at this age), and we were able to get things in reasonable order within about 25 minutes. BUT ... no visitors arrived!

Dylan and Kelly came through the door at about 5:40 (or so) and were very pleased with the appearance of their house, and then Dylan realized he had typed the wrong time--the visitors were not due to arrive until 6:00. Whew. I left before any of the young people arrived. I was pretty tuckered out, but so happy that the day went as well as it did. I am thankful that God SEES me every minute of every day and that I can ask for His help, and He WILL give it--strength in place of my weakness, wisdom in place of my confusion, order instead of chaos. 

Playing "Ticket to Ride"

Since Cal only just turned 4, he wasn't quite able to play this game yet; but we gave him some trains anyway and he just calmly sat and watched as we played. Young Cal has grown up so much this year! Good job, Cal.