I survived!

I’ll tell you about Keith’s trip in a different post.

I couldn’t tell you how many pats on the back, hugs, and sympathetic comments I received at church yesterday. My pastor even congratulated my survival. We only had a few incidents that hindered our good times:

• One busted lip (my toddler)
• One head butt on the wall (also my toddler)
• One golf cart through my dog lot (more on that later)
• One teenager falling through the window of Jeep
• One adult chaperone falling up the stairs (not me)
• One forgotten meal at lunch
• Two pre-teens mad at each other (one crying – then both over it in like 5 minutes)

Other than that, we had a great time. We went to Rock City’s Enchanted Corn Maze. We had lunch and went back to my house to do a little hair dyeing. One of our girls had put some nice fire engine red highlights in her blond hair. So, I went and bought her a more natural, suitable color. That led to three others also wanting to enter the James Hair Salon. They ended up doing each others’ and I was able to avoid any blame if it had not turned out ok.

So anyway, I was upstairs minding my own business, when one of the younger girls came in and said, “They hit your dog gate with the golf cart.” In my mind, I envisioned the bottom of the gate pushed slightly inward or a little scratch. Oh, but no. It was not quite so simple. Granted, our dog lot leaves a lot to be desired, but given Smokie’s Senior Citizen status, there has not been much point in building a new one. Anyway, see the below picture:

All I can say is, Thank God for my father-in-law. One of the girls and I were able to hammer the top back together (that’s right, me with a hammer – they took a picture of that, too.). However, I still had no gate to keep Smokie contained. Gene came to my rescue with a large pallet, a metal stob, and a wire clothes hanger. Just call him MacGyver. So far, it has held up, not so easy on the eyes, but sufficient nonetheless.

Oh yeah, we were late for church. Even though everyone had taken a shower Saturday night, they still needed a little coaxing to get out the door. Then we had to sit in line at McDonald’s for quite a while. You didn’t think I would actually get up and cook, did you???

Here's one picture of some of the girls on the hayride. I don't have one on my camera of everyone together.



Over all, roughing it in Varnell wasn’t so bad!