A Daily Saga for You to Enjoy...

I have a swap to share with you guys, but I haven't taken pictures of it yet, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. :( Sorry! I promise I'll get it to you soon.  Anyway, my family had quite the over dramatic evening, and I'm completely willing to take full blame of the sequence of events you are about to read.

A few base facts to get you started:

I work in a nearby county (about 25 minutes away) that I drive back and forth to each day.

I call my Mom on my way home from work EVERY SINGLE DAY.

If she does not answer, she calls me within minutes of my home arrival to make sure I made it home ok.

Kentucky has terrible humidity.

My Daddy is a hero UPS driver and suffers the heat each day.

Due to the circumstances of my Daddy's job, my Mom works extra hard to help take care of the yard so he can cool off in the evenings.

My sweet Mom has a long history of fainting-for multiple different reasons.

So today was about 101 degrees here in Kentucky, with terrible humidity.  I'm not exaggerating when I say you can break a sweat within seconds of stepping outside.  I left my office around 5:05, and called my Mom as soon as I walked out the door.  No answer.  It only rang twice before going straight to voicemail, so I assumed she was on the phone with my sister, and headed home.

5:20-I'm halfway home and call my parent's land line.  No answer.

5:35-I arrive home.

6:00-I find it odd that Mom has yet to call me, and try again.  Nothing.

6:01-I call my sister, to find out when the last time she spoke with Mom, just to make sure everything was ok.  She had not talked with her since around 2:00 pm.

6:05-I begin to worry about the heat, and call and check on my Dad to see if he was home yet and not in the middle of a heat stroke.

6:06- Dad is totally fine (still about an hour from getting home), but informs me that he tried to call Mom and got no answer.  He questions if I've talked with her.  I begin to worry.

6:10-My sister calls.  I inform her that Dad has also not spoken with her, and I wonder if she's mowing.  My sister cites that she mentioned feeling really hot and tired around 2.  I begin to over dramatically worry that Mom has tried to mow the yard, and passed out due to heat.

6:11-My sister decides to drive to my parents house to check on her.  We begin the over dramatic freak out.  I consistently blow her phone and the land line up during the entire 10 minute drive.

6:20-Mom calls as soon as we pull onto her street.  She's been mowing, did not hear her phone, and confused why she has 7 missed calls on her call (only to later discover the 11 missed calls on her land line.)

6:21-We pull in the driveway sheepishly, with Mom laughing at us.

6:25- Dad has already informed us that he has some hand-grown vegetables for my sister and I from that Mennonite community he delivers to.  We decide to wait for him to arrive home and get our vegetables, as well as see Dad for a few minutes.

6:30- I call Jason to inform him that everything is ok, but we would be a bit before coming home.

6:35- My sister is STILL trying to get in touch with her husband (who has been complaining of a potential kidney stone all day).

6:40-My sister begins to worry about her husband, and requests that Jason go check on him (since we live so close to each other).

6:45-Jason returns our call and let us know that Riley has locked themselves out of the house when they went to greet the pizza man.  I laugh and let him know we'll be home soon.

6:50-I call Jason back and tell him to just take Adam and Riley to our house until we can get there.  Jason informs me that I'm way off, and that Riley has locked Adam out of the house with Riley still IN the house.  I'm informed that we need to get home IMMEDIATELY because Riley refuses to unlock the door, but is screaming incessantly for Adam to come inside.

6:51-We begin to fly BACK home, being the only ones with a key or access to get inside the house to rescue Riley (and Adam, who is now in a state of panic because of Riley's scream in fear.)

7:00-We get back home, fly into the house and Ashley begins to comfort Riley.  Riley is still very upset, and keeps telling us "I locked the door.  I broke the door!" Riley did pull off the "baby-proof" doorknob holder, but the door was not broken.  Bless her heart, she was so afraid, and could not wait to be cuddled by her Mommy and Daddy.

Sigh.  All is now well with the world.  Our Mom is totally fine, Riley is fine, and Ashley and Adam are also fine.  This also could have been 100% prevented had I just waited patiently for my Mom to return my call.

Today, is my "Idiot" day of the week. :)

Oil Spill

Jason and I were so sad, but so humbled, to see the oil come in on the shores of the beach we were staying at.  We were upstairs for lunch on the balcony on Friday (the day before we headed home) and could see the helicopters circling, and a very unusual line in the water that could only be where the oil was.  It got closer and closer even within an hour:

By Friday evening, the oil was washing up to shore.  If you look closely, you can see the clumps in the waves:

We went for a walk along the shore line, and came across our first patch of oil.  Jason refused to believe it was the oil.  He even went as far to say that a dog made a huge mess.  For some reason, even believing it was dog poo, he felt it important to pick it up and prove it to me.  Gross, I know.  Anyway, once he realized how sticky it was, he finally believed me that it was oil.

Oil is attaching itself to some algae/seaweed, and the crabs are getting stuck:

Disgusting:

Jason and I went to see the oil right before we left for home on Saturday morning, just to get a true dose of reality.  We looked down the beach to see an overwhelming number of others doing the exact same thing:

It was like a true feeling of violation. Please pray for all the families that make their living by depending on the waters.

Zoo Babies!

On our vacation, Jason and I decided to spend a day at a small, local zoo.  They had an encounter that you could play with baby lion cubs! It was a bit expensive, so we just watched instead.  How cute are they?!

Jason really enjoyed feeding the animals that were allowed to be fed.  Namely, lots and lots of goats.

Loved the peacock!

Since the lion cub encounter was a bit pricey, Jason and I decided to do a kangaroo encounter, that was quite a bit less expensive.  It was so much fun!

We loved holding the baby kangaroos.  They put them in a special "pouch" for us to keep the kangaroo from kicking, and pooping all over us.

I even got to feed him an apple! He has a strong bite! Here we are with the kangaroo pulling the apple out of my hand to devour it!

I have one more "Anniversary Trip" post for you guys, but it's a bit more serious.  I'll save that one for later. 

Until then!

An Anniversary Celebration

Thank you guys so much for all of your sweet anniversary comments! We are back from the most relaxing week ever! We spent a week in Gulf Shores, Alabama. We met there on a Spring Break trip. We had mutual friends that all got together one night, and Jason and I became fast friends. Here we are 4 years ago in Gulf Shores:

We decided that it was the perfect place to return to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Here we are on the night we arrived at a place called Lulu's.

Jason and I spent our actual anniversary sleeping in, lounging by the pool, playing cards, and then going out for a fabulous dinner. Then of course, we went down to the beach with our tripod in tow and took some pictures:

Jason and I also revisited the miniature golf course that we went to the night we first met. It was definitely a run down putt-putt place, but $5 for as many games as you want is a steal!

The theme is "Zooland" which is why you see a bear's rear end in this photo of Jason taking a shot.

Reuniting with old friends is so fun ;)

Thumbs up because I won!!

We went along for a beautiful sunset walk on the fishing pier to check out what a lot of the locals were catching that day! I'll spare you the bloody details, but there were lots of fish caught while we were there! A very sweet man took our photo on the pier:

I'm leaving you with a beautiful picture of the clean, gorgeous beach...just days before the oil washed up to shore. :(