Life in the fast lane....rewind

Well, what a crazy week it has been! Thanks to all the fans who have requested that I update my blog more often :)............for your enjoyment, here are the events from the fam's adventures in the past week. The only problem is, they're going to be in reverse order since I'm so technologically challenged that I can't figure out how to move my pictures around on here. Forgive my ignorance.

To start, please pray for me.......I'm preparing to lead Preschool VBS Teacher Training tomorrow night and I am so excited about it! Vacation Bible School is my absolute favorite time of the year!! It's crazy busy, but through VBS many children who don't normally come to church hear about Jesus and just have a great time. In my opinion, it's the best outreach ministry of a church because if you get the kids excited about Jesus, they can get their parents excited! Their joy is contagious!! Anyhow, so just pray that I'll be prepared and not too nervous and also pray for more parents to step up to help. We are still in need of teachers and VBS is about 3 weeks away!

Okay, so here's the recap of the week in reverse. Yesterday we spent the day at Carowinds with our sweet friends Dwayne and Monica and their kiddos. It was a fun and tiring day! Here was EG's favorite part of the day............she ADORES D-D-D-Dora (as she calls her).

We had a fun picnic lunch outside the park and just got to chill for a little while and it was so nice to get out of the heat and crowds for a bit. Here are the kiddos posing on the blanket. My kids LOVE Drew and Mara (and Dwayne and Monica), so the real treat for them wasn't really Carowinds, but getting to spend the day with them!

Here they are with the Rugrats!

Sunday, we had church and then Mama and Daddy came to our house for dinner and to watch the race. We had burrrrrrrrrrrritos (rolling the r's) with all the fixins (if you shop at Trader Joe's, their marinated Carne Asada and Pollo Asado are great for grilling for burritos) and then later on, we made homemade strawberry ice cream (de-lish!!). I'll post the recipe on my next post....it was the best ever! With fresh strawberries straight from Wall's Strawberry Farm in Dobson!

On Saturday, we got to babysit the most precious baby ever. It definitely gave John and I baby fever again, but that'll have to wait a bit longer! :) We had a great time, though. We had forgotten how nice it is to have a 'little' baby around! Isn't he adorable??

After his dad picked him up, we headed down to John's parents for a cookout - which turned out to be a cook-in because their grill wasn't working properly (we realized this after the chicken had been on it for 45 minutes and was still pink). Ugh! But, it was funny because everything was going wrong and we were just dying laughing. It was our first meal in their little house that they have remodeled and it was definitely a memorable one!

Friday, the girls and I spend the day at Monkey Joe's for Brooke's end-of-the-year Preschool Party. They had a blast! Thanks to Stephanie for organizing it -- it was so much fun!

Friday night we had family movie night and went to watch The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. It was GREAT movie -- I highly recommend it! I thought the religious symbolism in this one was more evident than in the first. It was just a wonderful movie! Seen any good movies lately? -- leave a comment and let me know what's good. We're always up for a good (family-friendly) movie.

Thursday night, Noah had his final teeball game. I'm just so proud of him....he's really improved throughout the season. He's mainly hitting coach-pitch now and hardly having to use the tee and can actually stop the ball when someone hits it to him! Here's the little monkey (although this pic is from the beginning of the season and you can see he swung and missed the ball!)!

And finally, Wednesday night we went to the Ringling Brothers circus and had such a good time. It was the kids' first time going to the circus and I hadn't been since I was Noah's age. It was all that I remembered, except the souvenirs were SOOOOO expensive. A sno-cone in a circus cup was $9.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For a sno-cone!! Needless to say, we bought ONE for the whole family to share and that was it for the souvenirs. But we had a fabuloso time just being together and watching the kids have so much fun! Here' s a pic of me and the kiddos:

So, after this week of activity, you can imagine that my house is in need of some cosmetic adjustments. The girls and I are going to spend the day cleaning today -- I'm putting them on dusting duty. There's probably going to be Pledge all over everything.

If it woulda been a snake, it woulda bit me

Melissa has an inspiring story about a turtle.........Faith has a super crazy story about birds getting into her van. Well, yesterday God decided to merge the two of those stories in my life, with a super crazy story about a large turtle and my van. Hold onto your seats, folks. It's gonna be a crazy ride....and a pretty gross one.

I was driving home from taking Brooke to preschool yesterday with visions of shopping at Kohl's in my head. I was behind a Dualie (sp?) pulling a big lawn mower trailer; thus, that was the only thing I could really see in front of me. So, I was about a mile away from my house when all of the sudden, I hear a loud thud and scratching noise and the old van started bogging down. I thought, "What in the world did I run over?" I then noticed there were two men standing on the side of the road. In very broken English, one started running toward me saying, "YOU KILLED THE TURTLE! YOU KILLED THE TURTLE!!!!!!!!"

Now, I just love turtles, always have. I looked under my van, and stuck under it was a HUGE turtle! And I mean huge, it was probably 20x20. I don't know of a lake close to there, but that big old thing had to have come from somewhere. When I looked behind my van, I saw a trail of blood. :( I felt horrible....I didn't see the poor thing b/c the Dualie/trailer had cleared it and that blocked my view of it until I was already on it. Well, another man stopped and they all tried to help me get my van off of the turtle, but to no avail. It was just too big. Fortunately for me (kidding on that one), they both had to leave. As we were standing there a Policeman drove by and I tried to wave him down, but he just kept right on going. So, I decided to call Animal Control to help me, because I figured, "Hey, it's an animal."

Wrong! The Animal Control officer on the phone told me they'd never had that happen before (and surprisingly, neither had I) and put me on hold to talk to his Supervisor. After a minute, he came back on to say they couldn't help me but he would transfer me to 911 dispatch for the Police Dept. So, the police department was really nice to talk to, but after talking to their supervisor, they decided they couldn't help me either. So, since it was thankfully within city limits, he decided to transfer me to the City Fire Department (go figure!). Praise the Lord and Hallelujah! The Fire Department said they would send a truck out to help me. So, in about five minutes, the fire truck pulls up and blocks the right lane with their truck, jacks my van up, and puts a pole under there to move the turtle out. That feisty little thing snapped at that pole and held on for dear life - the fireman was able to drag it across the street just by it being clamped down on the pole. It was missing about 1/3 of its top shell, so I'm praying it will survive.

I am now forever indebted to the Charlotte Fire Department.

One of the firemen jokingly said I needed to ask my husband to buy me some big "26 inch rims" to put on the van so it wouldn't happen again. Couldn't you see that?

Luckily, I had no major damage to the van.....the turtle had gotten stuck under the frame and just bent it a little. As you look at the picture above, you can see shell fragments and blood spatter on the bottom of my van, along with bent metal. 'Cause I know you wanted to see that.