Back in the "real" world

At least for a few days. For the most part, I had a fabulous week of relaxation and doing pretty much nothing. When I got to the lake last Friday, the air conditioner wasn't working, so when John got there, he figured out what the problem was and fixed it. (I LOVE being married to a Mr. Fix-it!) It never did really cool as well as it had been, though. The rest of his weekend was an easy, relaxing one.

On Monday morning, the pups and I walked over to Danny and Linda's to visit for a while. Danny, Linda, and I were sitting on the porch enjoying the quiet, and Ali and Bama were out sniffing stuff.
Ali came back up to the porch a little later, and I noticed that something had stung or bitten her right above her right eye. Within about a minute, her eyelid had swollen up and her eye was completely swollen shut. I panicked! Linda got some water to pour over her eye to wash out anything that might have been in it, and I called my mom to get the number of her vet. I ended up giving her a quarter of a Benadryl tablet, and in about an hour and a half, the swelling was almost all gone. Poor Ali was zonked, though! She slept for the rest of the day. About 8:00 that night, she woke up enough to pester Bama. Baby Benadryl is on my list of things to take back to the lake.

After that excitement, everything was calm for the rest of the week. (Until Saturday, but I'll get to that later.) I spent several hours in the sun. I finished reading one book, read A Year of Fog and Step on a Crack (not one of J. Patterson's "sappy" books, but I love a good tear-jerker, too.) By Tuesday, I had NOTHING to read. I didn't think about the fact that I wouldn't be distracted with laundry, reading the newspaper, etc. when I took just two books.

John got back up about 6 on Friday. I don't know if the pups or I were more excited to see him! It would be a pretty close call. Bama hardly left John's side Friday evening. After we ate dinner, we went to Cullman to get a new air conditioner. After about 10 minutes, John knew he'd be miserable with the old a/c not cooling any better than it was.

Unfortunately, because of the rain we'd had Thursday night and Friday afternoon, the ground was pretty wet, and the truck got stuck. I moved my car so that John would have more operating room in getting the truck unstuck. Got that taken care of and went to Lowe's. When we got back, he decided to park behind Danny's to avoid getting stuck again.

Fast forward to 4:30 Saturday morning. We were jarred from a sound sleep by a tree falling. Talk about jumping out of bed in a hurry! A huge oak tree had fallen and taken out three other trees. They landed exactly where our vehicles had been parked less than 12 hours earlier. Had we not moved them, I'd be dealing with the insurance company this morning because both would've probably been totaled. After we walked outside, we realized that if the tree had fallen about 20 feet to the right, it would have landed right on us while we slept. Talk about a wake-up! If that had happened, our families could've been visiting us in the hospital, or worse case, attending our funerals. No doubt about it--God's hand was protecting us!

So, how did John get to spend his Father's Day weekend? Cleaning up trees. Thank goodness for family, though! Tim and Danny brought their chainsaws. While Tim cut trees, John, Linda, Danny, and I pulled the debris to the ditch. We owe the other Vests a dinner at The Angler, and even that won't come close to showing how much we appreciate them pitching in!!

We did go by to see Katy, Phillip, Sam, and Jessi on our way home yesterday. Katy and Phillip's house is the perfect place for them. Phillip is only about 10 minutes from work (and that will be a huge benefit with gas as high as it is!!) Poppa John got lots of time with Sam. They talked about fishing and bear hunting and all those fun things a little boy does with his granddad. Then I got to snuggle with him while he napped and then give him his bottle when he woke up. The only time he got fussy at all was right before he went to sleep and right when he woke up and wanted his bottle. He laughed and smiled the whole time otherwise. He is one more gorgeous baby, but anybody can look at his parents and know that the child had no other choice than to be gorgeous!

Well, this has been a LONG post, but it has been over a week since I posted. I'm on my way to Opelika to The Home Depot to get stuff so I can get started on the dining room painting tomorrow. John is taking off tomorrow, and Rodney is coming over to do some work on the boat (oh yeah--we got a BOAT!!) Maybe after Rodney has gone, John can help me paint. :)

Have a great day.