Pieces of Us...

4th of July - Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Oh what bliss the long holiday weekend was. It was great being home over the holiday. Nothing really exciting happened or anything, but just being home with my parents is always nice. Mom usually helps out tremendously with the kids. I.e., she gets up with Chase and let's Jonathan, Skyler and I sleep in. Yippee!! So it's a nice little break when we go home.

The trip home took longer than usual. I guess because we were towing the boat behind the van. We stopped in to eat dinner at Wendy's on the way home somewhere outside of Wytheville and good God the line! I think everybody and their brother was eating at Wendy's that night. It took Jonathan approximately 20 minutes just to get the food. He came back grumbling about how mis-managed the place was. My reply was, "If you were making $7.00 an hour to manage this place, how well do you think you would manage it?" "You get what you pay for." He grumbled a bit more and sat down to his burger.

We didn't get home until 10:30 p.m. We usually leave early, but one thing after another kept happening at Jonathan's work, so he didn't get to leave until about 4:30. By the time he came home and packed (yes men ALWAYS wait until the last possible moment to pack) and we got the kids in the car, it was well after 6:00.

Little Man was so pooped he couldn't even keep his eyes open by the time we got home. He went off to bed like a champ though. Skyler slept with me, so she was in bliss the entire weekend. I NEVER let her sleep with me at home, but when we go to my parent's, she will keep my step dad up all night, so I usually just let her sleep with me and we don't have any problems. My parents have 4 bedrooms, so Jonathan sleeps in another room. He likes having a bed all to himself every once in awhile. Me, I have to wake up with the toddler's head on my pillow or her piggies in my back. Fun!

Speaking of Little Man, he is going to be so much more destructive than Skyler. He has already broken/destroyed more objects in his short life than Skyler has in her entire 4 years! I guess that's just the nature of boys, but oh what do we have to look forward to.

I guess I forgot to mention he busted out the glass on one of my bookshelves a few weeks ago. And this weekend while we were home, we had the baby bed a wee bit too close to the dresser. My mom had several photos, a beautiful antique wash stand and a lamp on the dresser. Well they had never attached the mirror to the dresser. While we were thinking that he was fast asleep, he reached out and heaved the heavy ass mirror off the dresser. As the mirror fell down, it took everything on the dresser down with it. Shattering the antique wash stand, pictures, etc. What a mess. Luckily Skyler and I were at Wal-Mart when it happened and Jonathan was left to deal with the mess. hehe Poor daddy.

Let's see, what all did we do this weekend. On Saturday we had reservations at this little rinky dink restaurant that is in the middle of nowhere. It's called The Mill Wheel. It's a little hole in the wall across from the Afton, Tennessee Post Office. They are open about 3 days a week and serve certified Angus steak. They have about 10 tables and it's run by a husband and wife. The husband, George sometimes serenades his customers with his banjo playing. Which Skyler politely asked him to play her all time favorite, Rocky Top Tennessee. We took Jonathan's grandmother and my parents and had a wonderful dinner. If you are ever in Greenville, Tennessee, you must make a trip up to Afton to eat at The Mill Wheel. It's divine!

Sunday we headed up to my sister's house for a small barbecue. I hadn't seen my sister in a few months. She has lost like 40 pounds. Way to go girl! I wish I could do the same. I didn't get a chance to ask her how she was doing it. But she did mention that she and her hubby have been walking/running 2 to 3 miles a day. Damn, I just wish I had time to do that. I barely have time to wash my damn hair and take a shower every night. She doesn't work and her hubby is a computer programmer who works from home, so I'm sure they have a bit more time than Jonathan and I have.

Anyway, the barbecue was the only time the whole weekend we saw my dad and step mom. We never even made it down to visit them or Jonathan's grandmother the whole weekend.

Earlier in the day we had "attempted" to go out on the boat. Jonathan and my step dad worked on it all morning, starting it up, making sure everything was running well, etc. So we head out to Warrior's Path Park to put the boat in the water for the FIRST time since we bought it last year. I was 9 months pregnant when we bought the boat and Jonathan wasn't about to go out on the boat when we first got it. And we have been so busy this summer we haven't even had a chance to take it out anywhere.

So we back the boat down into the water and Jonathan starts it, no problem. Then I jump in the van and take it and the trailer and park it. Jonathan is running the engine and putting around the lake with Skyler. He pulls up to the dock to pick me up and the boat dies... And then we cant get the frigging thing started again. Luckily we are home in good ole Tennessee where folks are ever so helpful. Two or three guys came out and attempted to get the boat started. When we finally figured out it wasn't going to start, they helped Jonathan pull it back up on the trailer. Geeze. Jonathan was really upset because they had worked so hard on getting it ready.

So we took the boat home and Jonathan fooled with it that afternoon and then most of the next morning. He finally decided he wasn't going to be able to figure it out so he called some boat places. This was the 4th, so most weren't open and the few that were said that they had a 4 week wait to look at a boat! Geeze, I think we need to start a boat repair business! Finally he got in touch with this one place in Bristol. The guy was really nice and asked Jonathan some questions. He finally figured out we were missing the idle button! I guess when Jonathan and Ron were cleaning the boat earlier in the week they must have knocked it off or something. Jonathan found the button and popped it back on and we were in business! So thanks to the man in Bristol who walked Jonathan through the problem!

On the afternoon of the 4th we took the boat out for the first time! We put her down in the water and she started right up, no problems! I had never actually driven a boat before (other than when I was a child and just playing around), so Jonathan taught me how to drive the boat and he attempted to knee board. We used to own a jet ski when we lived in Georgia and we would take it and about 5 of Jonathan's soldier friends down to the river and jet ski and knee board behind it. What Jonathan failed to realized is he is 7 years older and about 50 pounds heavier! He did get up a few times, but he wasn't as suave as he used to be on the knee board. And that night he was so sore he could barely move!

Skyler loved the boat! Jonathan let her drive a bit and she thought she was hot stuff. We had an absolutely wonderful afternoon and I'm really looking forward to taking it out again. I'm just a little scared about taking Chase out on the boat. We have an infant life jacket for him, but it's just scary taking an 11 month old out on the boat. I know if Skyler fell in she could hold her head out of water with her life jacket on, but I don't know about Chase. Next year it will be much better because he will be older and walking. Actually, that might be a bad thing now that I think about it!

All in all we had a great weekend. It was nice being home and seeing family. And this work week has just flown by since I only had to work 3 days this week. I wish I only worked 3 days every week. How cool would that be?

We are hoping to take the boat out again this weekend to a lake near us, but with Hurricane Dennis on it's way here, I'm not sure if we will have good weather. We had a horrible storm last night. No damage to our house, but a lot of downed trees and flooding in the area. I feel sorry for people living in Florida who have to evacuate their homes. And all the damage that Ivan did to them last year. I know they aren't looking forward to another stormy season.

Well I guess that just about sums up my week. I've been catching up on some of the journals I read. I wish I was as talented a writer as some of the people I read. I can't "write". I just jabber about my life. And it's not a very exciting one at that! But it is MY life!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

I shoulda been a cowgirl!

4th of July Monica; 4:31 PM

1 Comments:

♥Caroline♥ said...: Wow! Boys can be destructive. My son Darin smashed a door window and cut his wrist in the process.

We took our boat out for the first time this year and turns out that we need a new battery! Luckily we can pull start it and was still able to cruise the lake.

Glad you able to take the boat out for a bit and still have fun. Sounds like it was a busy vacation.; 1:33 AM