We have been really busy for the last few weeks so I didn’t worry about packing for our vacation. I planned to help with VBS on Monday and Tuesday, then have all day Wednesday to prepare for the trip. Monday at VBS a couple of my girl friends were SHOCKED that I wasn’t already packed, since I am so organized. But I thought, “Hey, we just came off of the China trip, packing for the beach will be no big deal.” Monday night I did all the laundry in the house and set the girls’ stuff out. Then I thought Tuesday after VBS and naps I could run the errands. Then I would have ALL DAY Wednesday to get the packing done. Piece of cake!
Tuesday we went to VBS and when the girls were home and in bed I started thinking about my packing list. No worries, I have plenty of time. At 3:15 the phone rang. “Hello.” Mike’s Mom: “Louanne, I fell and cut the heck out of my hand!” Me: “What? Do you need to go to the hospital?” Mike’s Mom: “You better talk to them up here.” (Assisted living center director gets on the phone) “Louanne, if you can you better come up here and get her and take her to the hospital. She is going to need sutures. We don’t want to take chances.” Me: “Okay, I am on my way and will be there as soon as I can.”
I pick Linda up and get her over to the emergency room literally around the corner from where she lives and we get signed in. The wonderful staff at the hospital get Linda all taken care of and we are out of there. They tell me what I need to buy for her and when she needs her stitches out. At this point it’s way past her meal time and Linda is diabetic so my next goal is to get some food in her system. I get her back to her little room at the assisted living place and all settled. I tell her I will be back tomorrow with all the bandages and everything else she needs in the morning. I call Mike and tell him I will grab food and head home. At that point it’s almost bedtime for the girls and I think, “No problem. I have all day tomorrow.” I make my packing list, start a little packing pile and get some sleep. The girls and I get up on Wednesday and we are like machines in the morning. We hit 8 places in 2 hours to get everything done. I get the girls some lunch, we play and they head down for naps. Mike gets home from work and we start to pack the car.
Mike tosses the bags with beach chairs into the trunk and a little mouse runs out! It’s just sitting there in the trunk.
Mike takes a quick photo and says that we need to get it out and he is afraid it’s going to go down a hole so he needs to get him quick. Can you guess what happened? The mouse bolted down the hole. So Mike takes everything out of the trunk and removes the liner and pulls out Nadia’s car seat and looks all over the place. No mouse! Mike finally gave up the search and we put the car back together. I was having visions of it eating the electronics of the car!
We head into the house not believing that delay when we were trying to get the car loaded up. Mike goes to rinse something in the sink and turns on the disposal and feels water hit his legs and feet and sees it coming out of the cabinet door. He stops the disposal, opens the cabinet and it’s filled water and shredded Mac n Cheese! WHAT?!? So we have to pull everything out from under the sink – it’s all covered in water and mac and cheese. C-O-V-E-R-E-D! Then Mike tries to figure out what happened. He sees the problem, fixes it and then decides he has to head to Home Depot for a mouse trap and something for the sink. I finish cleaning everything off and get it back under the sink. At this point it’s like a comedy routine around our house. What else can you do but laugh?
We have dinner and I take the girls up for a bath. Get Amelie out and in her jammies and tell her not to try and get back in the tub while I wash Nadia’s hair. I start to soap up Nadia and feel Amelie right behind me and I tell her to stay back because she is always trying to toss stuff in the bathtub when it’s Nadia’s turn. Well she falls over and she starts screaming. “ear moooommmmyyyy!” I grab her and sure enough her ear it scraped and very quickly turning a bright shade of purple. Mike brings up a gel pack and rocks her while I finish with Nadia and all I can think is, “I am ready for this vacation!!”
So now at 10:45 pm the girls are sleeping, the car is packed (complete with mouse traps under the seats…seriously), the clothes for tomorrow are laid out and I am ready for the BEACH!