Dad's Birthday/Memorial Day Weekend

Kicking off our summer vacation every year always consists of going to my parents house in Trenton to celebrate my dad's birthday on May 24th. This year our gift was a new grill for my dad since my kids wiped out his last one with their 4-wheeler! We were having a cookout but he thought we were going to use my Uncle Steve's grill, little did he know about our "grill surprise"!

As usual I was in a rush trying to get everyone ready for the trip so I took my dad's gift unassembled, I just didn't have the time Wal-Mart requestd to have the grill put together (big mistake)! Long story short, the kids helped my dad put his new shiny grill together! When I went outside to take more meat to be placed on the grill, I noticed it was doing a funny litttle dance, most grills don't sway back and forth do they? Needless to say, in slow motion I watched my dad's grill fall to the ground, fall apart and see his face turn from happy to disgusted. The food managed to stay on the grill and we cooked Indian style, what grill needs legs anyway?

We all enjoyed our burgers, chicken and my mom's baked beans, potato salad and homemade strawberry cake. The next day the kids enjoyed swimming at my Uncle Sonny and Aunt Denise's house. The kids enjoyed seeing their cousin Jack will I chatted with my cousin Jill.

If you know my dad, you know he has wanted a new truck for quite some time. When I turned 16 he gave me his to drive, a 1976 Ford, remember this was in 1987 so imagine how happy I was (or not)! It was two-tone, green and dark green, not exactly ever girls dream car, but it did take me where I needed to go. How I wish I had a picture to post, it was really bad! On to my story, so a storm came out of nowhere on Monday morning around 9:30, just after Sophia had been bitten on the face by my parents dog Patch. Never try to kiss a sleeping dog! She is ok, just a fat lip and a few scratches on her cheek. As I am icing her face, the sky went black and I started seeing branches fly by the dining room window and limbs cracking and then I heard a tree hit by straight line winds, it then fell over and guess where it landed? Right on top of my dad's brand new truck! His truck actually kept our van from getting too much damage, it took the brunt of what that tree had to offer. Once again my dad was taking care of us and he wasn't even trying to! After the storm passed we all had to spend about an hour and 1/2 outside becaus the power lines were down thanks to the neighbors tree. We all sat out in lawn chairs like we were at a parade, my parents live in a small town so word got around pretty quickly that Tommy Litton's new truck had just gotten attacked by a tree so everyone had to come by and take a look! Ally, Tre and Sophia thought it was so cool how quickly the electric department arrived with their bulldozer and trucks to fix our problem. Who gets service like this in Cordova?

We are all back home now anticipating a great summer. We made it home with our new puppy Sadie and two new additions, two box turtles, they are about the size of a half dollar. There names are Rock Star and Speedy. I guess we are turning our house into a petting zoo.

I've decided that there is a lot for my kids to learn this summer. We have all worked in our workbooks this morning. I hope to keep this up as well as do a lot of reading to Sophia and listening to Tre, my new reader, and keeping tabs on what Ally selects at the library. We will have fun, but I'm al about following a schedule. We'll see!